I keep reading that people have 100+ hours in this game. Do I need that much hours to get the most out of it? Can the game be beaten less than that?
I was about to get it for the Switch, now I am not sure. Don't want to invest that much into another game (League of Legends already takes so much time out of me)
It can be that for people who want it. There are streamers who play it basically full-time, with it's NG+ equivalents.
But I only have 40ish hours in it, and that's after I dived back in again recently. That's plenty of time to unlock all the characters, all their unlockable cards, and get reasonably deep into end-game stuff.
It can easily just be something you jump in for a run of every once in a while, and will be great for that, too.
So I know y'all don't read comments very often, for good reason(!), but there were a few things that will be useful for Brad (and anyone else reading this!) to know if they want to get deeper into this game (And I recommend it! It rules!!)
1) Power cards Apply for the entire rest of the battle. This is a huge difference between them and normal cards which it seemed brad was missing. So, "You retain a card at the end of your turn" means every turn. "You apply 2 poison at the start of your turn" Means every turn. It is something that becomes true about you for that battle. These can get really involved and there are whole builds around them, especially for the third character.
2) Unless you are retaining cards (a rare occurrence), there is almost never a reason not to play 0 cost cards. I think this may have been a habit Brad picked up from Steamworld Quest where there was a Hard three card limit, and you retained cards by default (Understandable! I cant imagine HAVING to switch between so many games so often. I get mixed up just going from Dragon's Dogma to Hitman). You lose all your cards at the end of the turn, and unless it's an exhaust card, it will come around again when your deck gets reshuffled. So there was no opportunity to "Save" that Flex card in the first run. Nor the Neutralise card in the last fight. Smoke em if you've got em.
3) Unless a Power Card or Relic (such as the Coffee Dripper) says "Gain Energy at the Start of your turn" (again, meaning every turn) it will only give you that excess energy when it says. So tactician gives you 1 energy, now, when it's discarded, meaning you get a refund on whatever you used to discard it (Or an energy profit if the card you used was free, as several Silent cards are) Similar for Sneaky strike, you get two energy (The same as was used to cast it) this turn. Flying knee gets you energy next turn. etc. etc. These are great effect, and whole builds can rest on them, but there is a reason that the Coffee Dripper has such a harsh trade-off. Extra Energy every turn is incredibly powerful.
4) The "Cost" of resting at a fire is an opportunity cost, in that you don't get to upgrade a card. Which can be very powerful. Many builds are specifically built around upgrading just one or two specific cards. This means that one's priority for most fights should be to absolutely minimise the amount of damage you take. Unless an enemy is gaining power, it doesn't matter how long you take to beat them, so turtling is generally the go. This is less true with the Ironclad with their built in heal. For them, so long as you're averaging less than 6 hp lost per fight, you will stay near full and be able to safely upgrade more cards.
5) And actually, probably most importantly, because it's maybe the least intuitive part of any deck-building game, Removing cards from your deck is one of the most valuable things in the game. And not just for Curses. Almost every card you add to your deck, moving towards a specific build or just value cards, will be just strictly better than your basic cards, especially basic strikes. What you want is to see your good cards more often, and your mediocre ones less. A deck full of great cards that synergise with each other doesn't matter much if half your deck is still mediocre basic cards. This is why you will often see top-tier players skipping card rewards when there isn't an option that fits into the build. If a card is not making your deck better, it is making it worse.
Anyway! Hope that wasn't too backseat preachy and was more on the helpful side. I'm excited to see lots of people interested by this port. It is a great game for short pops on a commute, or marathon sessions on trips or at home. And it's a great introduction to deckbuilders in general.
The shards are not distraction items like rocks in Far Cry, and people thinking of them that way is likely causing their problems.
The shards are just the pebbles from Bloodborne, you target someone and throw a Ceramic shard at them to get them to come to where you are.
This can either be to gt them to come round a corner so you can wall-hug-kill them, or into a patch of grass where you can circle around behind them and get them.
The stealth in this game has limits, but I've found it to be fairly consistent, which to me is what makes stealth good.
Also as someone who is a big fan of Sunshine (2007) [the movie] i got immediately defensive literally every time they shit-talk Super Mario {Sunshine} so I'd like that taken into account.
Also I love and Cherish Mike Mahardy and always love when he is on video so; more please.
I can't believe they didn't pick up on the Bert/Ernie thing. Laughed my drunken arse off when I realised it.
I'm a very late to the Party horror fan so this will be a great series for me to catch up I think. This was a great start, and I can't wait to see what others have picked.
Hoping for Hereditary, which I feel would be an AMAZING Film and Forties.
Because Jeff, at the end of the day, no matter how many laws that could get set up, wont stop anybody from doing what they want to do if they are motivated.
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