sweetz

I have a very weird relationship with these games. I don't like difficult games, yet I've ended up playing quite a few of these when they go on sale (or they're free on PSN) out of some sort of weird "academic" fascination. I do like the world design and exploration aspect of them, but I take no pleasure upon muddling my way through them.

I've played Dark Souls 1, 2, and currently playing 3 on PC right now due to Steam sale. Played Bloodborne and The Surge on PS4 via PSN freebies.

If it wasn't for the fact that The Surge is the least stable console game I've ever played (had multiple crashes including one immediately after beating the final boss which denied me getting the trophy for it) I might actually say I liked it the most. I guess I just prefer sci-fi setting and the simplicity of that game as compared to the Souls games. Plus there's none of the multiplayer aspect (invasions) which is my least favorite aspect of the From games (although I do really like the player messages).

Among the From games, I guess I'd have to give the nod to Dark Souls 1. Like I said, I like the world design of these games more than anything, and though it's the least good looking game at this point, I love how the whole world was connected. How you'd feel like you waked miles and then unlock a lift that goes right back to the center. I found it pretty fascinating and had never really seen anything like it before.

Dark Souls 2 was my least favorite. I only played it as the Scholar of the First Sin re-release...which it seems many people say is actually worse. Extremely punishing for repeated deaths, consumable health items. I found it to be the most difficult of the games by far and ended up cheating to get through it. I remember almost nothing about the world design, because I really just wanted to be done with the game.

Bloodborne was ok, I even Platinumed it (mostly just because Brad did so and I figured I could too) but needing to farm blood vials nearly broke it for me and the Chalice dungeons were lame. Also as mentioned, I absolutely hate the invasion aspect of the Souls games and there's that one area that forces invasions on you.

I'm getting along ok with Dark Souls 3 at the moment - way better than DS2. I'm so glad they moved away from consumable health items and just went back to regenerating Estus flasks. I never understood why they felt like that had to mess with that system in DS2 and Bloodborne in the first place. I like that they basically introduced a mana bar instead of spells having a pre-defined number of uses...but I'm still not good enough to play a "caster" character in these games.

I was interested in Sekiro, but from everything I've heard and seen of the game, I would get super, super frustrated with it and I don't think I'm going to bother attempting it.

Finished last night, really, really enjoyed it, though I'm not sure I'd place it above Ori 1.

I gotta say though that I barely used any of the "weapons" other than the starting arrow and hammer for 95% of the game except where specific abilities were needed to progress. Maybe that's just my own lack of imagination, but I always find pulling up a wheel select and switching out abilities mid-combat to be cumbersome, hence I tend to stick with what works.

I was very happy with the difficultly, except for one chase sequence that probably took me 20 tries (the worm one). I was worried when people were comparing it to Hollow Knight. Not every game coming out needs to be a damn "git gud" game!

I'm actually in the middle of replaying HZD right now. Story is whatever, but in my book still has the best combat of any of the modern open world action adventure games.

This is crazy news. I would have bet almost any amount of money that you'd never see a PC port of a Sony first-party game.

Hey just thought I'd give a "report" on this. I recently put a 1TB SSD in my PS4 Pro.

I did not play Fallen Order prior to getting an SSD and I have not yet completed the game, but I'm at least like 10 hours in and feel confident enough to report that the SSD definitely makes a big positive effect on the game as compared to videos I've seen.

I haven't experienced a single lasting stutter or noticeable failure to load assets.

When going through the tight passages that are obviously hiding loads there are some momentary drops in framerate, but never a solid pause. I've also never had stutter during any part of the game where it would matter (i.e. during platforming segments, or in combat).

However, I will say that "performance mode" still sucks. The framerate runs above 30fps, but it's all over the place. Framerate varying widely between 30-60fps is worse than simply running the consistent 30fps of the quality mode. In quality mode I've had only maybe 2 or 3 noticeable drops in framerate outside of "loading tunnels", and the decently implemented motion blur makes it palatable.

Post-death load times are definitely improved vs videos I've seen, but still not fantastic. I initially started playing the game on "Jedi Master" difficulty, but the load times were still too punishing for as frequently as I was dying on that difficulty. I switched to "Jedi Knight" and am much happier with that. I don't really need the challenge in this game anyway, there's a lot to appreciate without it.

Patches seem to have fixed all of the notable sequence breaking bugs. I haven't seen any bugs. So, if anyone was wondering if an SSD makes a big difference with the game on PS4, I can comfortably say it does and would recommend the game to anyone so equipped.

I literally just got home from the theater and I really liked it. I am in the despise The Last Jedi camp, FWIW.

I might say Rogue One is still my favorite out of the Disney movies though. Jedis have a superhero problem where they constantly need to show them being more and more powerful. This is not a Star Wars problem, this is a problem with all media with super powered beings. I really appreciated the smaller scope and more grounded nature of Rogue One.

Well, saw credits and beat the post credits boss that was on loan from Bloodborne. Worth it just for the humorously out of place credits song.

Nioh is interesting, but I sadly still wouldn’t say I liked it all that much. I like the speed and responsiveness of the combat compared to From games, but for me the game suffers from systems overload. It’s really crazy how much equipment management is in the game in addition to the skills complexity.

There‘s a ton of stuff to play around with, but I think most players tend to find something that works and stick with it. Sometimes too much complexity actually leads to less experimentation. I think the game would have benefitted from a little simplification.

Also the difficulty curve is indeed out of whack. Even accounting for my abusing of the sloth spell, Hino-Enma, the second boss, was the most difficult boss in the game. She shows up again in a boss rush at the end and I still had problems with her. Never had more than around 5 attempts on a boss after her, and several I beat on first try.

I curious how I would fare with Sekiro. That one definitely seems too hard for me, but I guess I’ll find out whenever it eventually hits PS+ :)

So just a little update for the curious. I found the game's cheat code, aka the sloth spell :)

Boss fights have been pretty easy since finding out about that. For anyone who is not aware, it's a spell that slows enemies down, including their attack animation. It doesn't last very long for bosses, but it's long enough to make several fights nearly trivial.

I just beat the boss after the giant skeleton (Ishida Mitsunari). Looks like I've got about 4 bosses left in the main game (looked it up, don't care about spoilers).

I'm actually having a harder time just making it through levels to get to bosses now. Some normal enemies are starting to be able to one shot me.

I still can't say I'm really enjoying the game all that much (Souls-like games just aren't my thing), but it's not quite as frustrating and I have a compulsion to finish it. I will say that the inventory management has actually become more annoying than the difficulty. Sorting through item, selling them, upgrading them, etc. after every mission is getting tedious.

Also, I'm still finding many people wearing Warrior of the West armor upgraded to their level. First notable armor set you find used for pretty much the entire game! It makes sense on the players' part, it has arguably a better balance between defense than any other armor in the game. The medium armor sets in the later game all take me above 70% load despite upgrading my stamina a decent amount.

Beat the Toad guy last night after 5 or 6 tries. Almost bailed on the game there simply because the walk back to the boss was so annoying. There was no challenge, as there was literally 1 easily killed regular guy on the path, but you had to go through several hidden doors which require holding a button and waiting for an animation to play out.

In general, I have not once had even the slightest challenge running from the nearest shrine to the boss after a death, which makes me question why the hell they even bothered making you do that run. It does absolutely nothing except waste your time as a player. That's one Souls game element they should have dropped. Just put the respawn point right outside the boss door.

Well, still sticking with it for now. I thought I was going to have a lot of trouble with the ice lady, but got her on the 3rd try. Beat white tiger on the first try.

I wish I understood how the parry works. I played a sub-mission with a bunch of strong revenants. I had a string of successful parries and thought I had it down, but then I couldn’t get it again. It seems you have to start the parry before the hit connects.

I played a little bit more last night. I got to the spider lady, wandered into her boss arena without realizing I was doing so (that pissed me off a little), but I beat her first try. That felt good.

Then I tried a sub-mission where you fight a single big axe wielding guy on a bridge and...I went back to not enjoying the game. I was like "oh shit, I've made a mistake" as soon as I loaded in and saw the bridge absolutely covered in player graves. I did beat him, but I ended up having to completely cheese him by using the spear thrust attack over and over. It took forever to wear him down, but it was a safe way to do it. I've got to learn to just stick to the main missions...

I'm using single sword and spears since I've just been pumping points into Body and Heart. Odachi seems to be a DLC weapon, so that's not an option for me.

I'm wearing the Warrior of the West Armor set. Almost every player ghost I've come across is wearing it and people seem to keep upgrading it. I keep getting higher and higher level pieces from ghosts. I'm wondering if people just upgrade this armor for the whole game.