That button-mashing QTE at the end of the mine section has a bug related to framerate. At 60fps, you need to mash twice as fast. The port had a LOT of bugs related to framerate when it launched on PC, but they fixed most of them. I thought this was one of the ones they fixed, but I guess not.
There are more bugs related to framerate in the game which were never fixed, but I think they're all not gameplay-related (for instance, water animates twice as fast and reload animations for rifle and semi-auto rifle are always 30fps).
I'll be crazy impressed if they can beat Xcom 2 with the dlc and no save scumming. That game can get rough.
I think that's practically impossible for a new player. I actually tried this a few days ago, I played XCOM 2 for the first time on Veteran difficulty on Ironman and I had all of the DLC turned on. The amount of systems and mechanics the game throws at you if you have all of the DLC is so absurdly overwhelming. So many missions can easily go wrong the first time you try them as you're not sure how the mission will play out or how new enemy types will behave, and oh boy, the game has a lot of different missions and enemies to introduce to you. I managed to get as far as make the Shadow Chamber before the entire playthrough essentially blew up.
If Giantbomb does a similar playthrough with XCOM 2, I hope they go with the base game. If not, they should go with Rookie difficulty.
In their defense, there's a lot of stuff in this game which is extremely arbitrary. You'd think moving closer to a unit improves hit chance, but that's not the case if moving closer means dropping down a level in height. The height aim bonus is absurdly large but the game doesn't tell you it's one of the biggest aim bonuses you can get. Similarly, a unit can have a perfect line of sight to an enemy unit but it will never count as a flank unless you cross an imaginary line which is perpendicular to the enemy's cover.
In most tactical games, it is an advantage to improve your line of fire to an enemy unit, but XCOM doesn't work like that and that isn't apparent unless you read up on how the mechanics work in detail.
More importantly, they're taking massive breaks from the game and they're swapping who plays each week (I personally really wish they'd do 3 episode a week, as this series is becoming looooong), so that makes it less likely they'll remember all the game's intricacies.
And even more importantly... Why get so offended by it? It's just a game, and people are bound to do mistakes in anything they do. I think it's even more likely to do mistakes in a game like XCOM because parts of it are obtuse and poorly explained. I think it's also worth remembering that the Giant Bomb crew reads their comment sections, so it's only polite to ensure your comments don't sound insulting.
One complaint I agree with is with Abby's disinterest in the game. If Abby's not having fun with the game (which naturally leads to her not paying a lot of attention and rushing through her turns), then it becomes less interesting to watch as well. If she continues to not like the game, they should probably consider "promoting" her to the same role as Vinny and have her watch over or commentate during videos.
I feel like people in comments won't ever be happy unless Giant Bomb crew avoids every single mistake, which is not a very realistic expectation (I'm sure people would get annoyed if they had someone looking over their shoulder whenever they play pointing out every little thing they do wrong).
And more importantly, this series would be so less entertaining if they did everything perfectly. If you get a good start and get good upgrades early on, then the entire game is surprisingly easy on Normal difficulty, even when played with Iron Man setting. I'm happy that it's uncertain whether they'll finish the game at this rate (I'd bet they will though).
The shield stuff is a bit of a bummer, but chances are they might have stumbled upon a different overpowered way of playing the game. Or maybe Vinny would not have enjoyed the inverted castle at all if he had to actually slowly fight his way through and not gain meaningful progress most of the time (since it's 4 specific bosses you need to kill).
I think the biggest bummer is that Vinny didn't get to experience the bad ending and figure out himself how to progress past it. That part of the game was completely spoiled for him. It's one of my most memorable moments from my first playthrough (especially since I didn't even know there was an inverted castle).
One thing I'd love to see, and would be a better way to end the Vinnyvania series, is for Vinny to play through SOTN in Richter mode. That way it feels a bit more like the traditional Castlevania games, and provides no overpowered way to cheese through the entire game (to my knowledge anyway).
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