The Bloodborne Identity with JanThe Bloodborne Identity with Jan: Part 22.5

Yay!! BLOODBORNE

Jan broke his momentum Kos of his new PC

Since I've only played Sekiro, my insights are limited. And since you (Jan) don't tend to summon that much it may be moot. But between the need to get good (ugh, that phrase)... but not perfect at parrying, and the lack of summoning, Sekiro may not be your cup of tea. That said, there is no boss in Sekiro that has as frantic an attack pattern as this orphan fella appears to have. Also, the majority of your buff items are little candies. So there's a plus.

If another stimulus check gets approved, I would certainly love to get a decent PC rig. But roaches and ant infestation currently make me think twice.

Lin-Manuel Miranda got heat on Twitter for supporting Puerto Rico Oversight and Stability Act (PROMESA) in 2016 whilst he was live-tweeting about Hamilton last weekend. Puerto Ricans haven't forgiven him for hosting Hamilton in PR two months after Hurricane Maria hit on the promise of bringing tourism money. Nevermind the fact that the 17 day run of the show catered to affluent people. Plus he touted himself as bringing hope to PR. He had to change his Twitter account to private.

I personally have mixed feelings about LMM as someone who lives in the same neighborhood as him. One the one hand, I appreciate what he's done for the community with supporting and hosting local arts programs at United Palace For the Arts. Additionally, his dad co-founded the weekly community newspaper in 2005. But on the other hand, he's the richest guy in my neighborhood who couldn't persuade the NYC Landmarks and Preservation Committee to landmark Coliseum Theatre. It's going to be demolished and replaced by a shopping mall complex. You gotta love gentrification!

Anyway, solid stream Jan. To think you came so close to defeating the Orphan. I think Sekiro would be a solid transition post-Bloodborne. But you also have three Dark Souls games as an option with 3 being a sequel to 1. Or if you decide to dive into the Yakuza series, 0 would be the perfect place to start at. Although I'm being biased because I love the series.

Jan play Sekiro! Its really good!

For what it's worth, Sekiro was my most disappointing game from last year. As someone who loves all the Dark Souls games and Bloodborne, I absolutely hated almost everything that Sekiro was doing.

Basically, take Bloodborne. Then remove the rally mechanic, cool weapons, interesting enemy designs, and stats. Then replace the cool, nightmarish levels with "generic snowy Japanese castle" and any sense of build variety with "learn this one mechanic and use it the entire game," and you've got Sekiro.

Full credit to the people who enjoyed it, but I found it absolutely dreadful.

Kos or some say kosm his pc ... Dang it. You got this!

I would say it’s actually easier to parry in sekiro since you can spam the parry button without much of a delay. So Jan you’ll be fine if you play it don’t worry 😉

@cracklyklover: I've never gotten the hang of parrying in Souls/Borne but Sekiro was fine, they're not 1:1 imo

Also fuck Orphan, I finished BB without beating him and the final boss was so easy by comparison it was kind of an anticlimax after beating my head against Orphan for 5 hours.

1000% agree with everything you wrote. The disappointment i felt when playing Sekiro have soured me on Elden Ring. Just hope GRRM can help From find their path again.

@pnutz83: GRRM can barely help himself I doubt he can do much for From apart from giving them a few pointers like "make the dragons more spikey" or "make these guys bone each other"

@therealturk: That's not even remotely accurate. Sounds like you played about 2-3 hours and gave up.

"learn this one mechanic and use it the entire game,". Could say the same about Bloodborne in regards to parrying. Also rally mechanic is probably one of the singular worst design choices you could have in a game.

Kos is such a nightmare on new game plus+.

@adamwd said:

I actually played close to 20 hours of Sekiro - more than enough for me to determine that I found it thoroughly unenjoyable with serious underlying design issues. And outside of the Gasgoine fight, I went through Bloodborne entirely without parrying. It's an entirely valid way to play that game. The same is absolutely not true of Sekiro. I'm sure there's a video out there of someone doing it, but it would require a lot of tedium and cheese to pull off.

Also, the rally mechanic is brilliant, particularly in the context of Bloodborne. It's a great subtle way of teaching players about the need to be aggressive, which is especially important for players coming from the Souls series where combat is more deliberate. It also provides an alternative method of healing outside of bloodvials, which is important since, unlike Estus, they are a finite resource that doesn't necessarily reset on death.

Wait till that Orphan shows his face on Coney Island.

I hear you on Hamilton, Jan. Cried 3 times on my first watch. Found it extremely moving and empowering.

@jbourne37: Agree, Hamilton is brilliant.

@theschap: If you mean the musical. Its amazing hearing the love and seeing the vitriol from people who just dont get it. I know family who started it up heard the first song transition to the second and said no...this is bad i can't take the rapping and weird monologuing. I had to tell them the songs change and you may not like all of them but it jumps through genres so rnb is in it etc. They sat through it more and stared at their ipad (They dont like nor know about the history aspect and dont feel like taking it as a learning experience.) and said its only popular cause the hip hop aspect (like saying games are only popular cause their fun to play) and said it's boring and dull. We only got through 1 hour and 30 minutes before they turned it off. Im around a bunch of people who embrace the 3 episodes rule and other dismissive stuff so im not surprised they make hot take judgments that new popular media sucks. There on the side that Last of Us 2 story was stupid (they never played it or saw it) after I was given 3 minutes to explain the first and second game's stories. Even after explaining the emotions and depth the character has (spoiler kinda) at the end for their decision, they think its dumb cause they were reminded of some nice memories and made the decision they did. Glad I have people online to discuss stuff within better admiration for hard work regardless of whether people liked said work. My friends and family are becoming polarized and dismissive of anything critics enjoy and it can get to me sometimes since Its like staring at fine or decent art in a museum and hearing how its awful and everyone stating their stick figure is cooler. Not that their opinion is wrong or bad. Just wish there was more to their discussions on why everything is so overrated to them.

@pnutz83: Question, do you really only get to play sekiro if you can parry...like have fun with it. I got far without it but hit a roadblock and it felt like the animations were working against me. getting hit when i know I dodged, blocks on all my attacks, etc. I loved sekiro's look and atmosphere. The world is great. I too just got a bit past the boar fight and hit a wall thinking...its just gets harder and harder doesn't it. It's not like the feeling I got in bb or dark souls. The wonder and awe of what's to come next.

I also got hit with the big push that oh yeah, these games keep moving more away from what I enjoyed and critics and fans didn't. I enjoy fast builds, glass cannon, strong attack power fast-moving dodge rolls, tons of Invisibility frames, watching the opponent for long openings, etc. It is repetitive to others but like a stealth game where I'm constantly taking out guards and outpost in MGSV, the gameplay loop is so good I just never tire of it.

The games started moving to faster movement, and heavy armor with parries and blocking. I just never got into blocking so parrying was out. Very hard to get into a tool where you have to keep getting hit until you "get" it and each opponent is timed differently. Sekiro felt like a rhythm game with holding down block being more important than attacking.

If you're like me, just get the pc version and use codes to unlock all the levels and maxed stuff. It's like inserting an easier mode. The game is still surprisingly hard but less grindy. Youll loses all interest in playing it thou, so its a catch 22.