noiseredux wrote:self-imposed hard mode, haha. Well I'm glad I figured this out. I'm gonna start meditating like crazy. Oh, and Mitch: I'm planning to hit up Dark Souls once I'm done w/ Witcher 3.
Good news!
isiolia wrote:I started playing Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin. It is...different from the first one. I think part of it is the remaster (I haven't played the original release), but it does not seem nearly as well designed (granted, Dark Souls is kind of a master class in design). No Man's Warf annoyed me, so now I'm off exploring Huntsman's Copse. Trying to do more of a magic based build this time, since I was mostly melee in Dark Souls and Bloodborne (not like there's a lot of choice in the latter).
Seems like they just delight in tossing tons of enemies at you, and tacked on the "eventually they don't respawn" mechanic as compensation for not building enough shortcuts into the level design.
I'm slowly picking my way through SotFS, trying to get up to the DLC. It is a little jarring after playing Dark Souls. Even though I originally played and loved DS2, I can see a bit of what irked so many about level design. There are some stellar moments toward the end of the game though and some of the vistas are well worth it. I've heard the DLC is great as well, so I'm trying to get to that.
Let strength be granted, so the world might be mended...so the world might be mended.
I think it's DLC outshines Dark Souls' and Bloodborne's for sure. Which are all great, but Dark Souls 2's DLC's are on another level.
Despite being the largest game, if you look at it as being more linear almost like Demon's, maybe that'll make you guys appreciate it more? It really only has about 4 main paths branching from Majula, so it's almost like Demon's in a roundabout way. It's definitely not nearly as intricately Metroidvania as Dark Souls, or Bloodborne. And Dark Souls 3 is the most linear by quite a bit, but that's not a bad thing in my book. I'm glad they're all different.
2 is easily the most fun when it comes to magic. Lots of options for sure.
noiseredux wrote:self-imposed hard mode, haha. Well I'm glad I figured this out. I'm gonna start meditating like crazy. Oh, and Mitch: I'm planning to hit up Dark Souls once I'm done w/ Witcher 3.
Probably good you went this route, because the other way around I hear most people saying the combat in Witcher 3 is pretty boring and vanilla in comparison.
I figured after laying waste that it had been time to press on, so over the weekend I made the push into chapters 2 and then 3 in Gothic. Immediately upon entering chapter 2, I discovered that some enemies respawned...but generally only 1 to represent a group that I had previously killed. In other words, if there had been 3 wolves in an area, there was now one to represent the fallen pack. I immediately made a sweep of these weaker respawns and ended up netting another level through clearcutting them. The transition to chapter 3 did not bring back any further respawns however, so I'm not sure if it only does it once per cleared out group.
As a result of changing chapters though, I was given further quests which allowed me to move up in the world. I joined the old camp, became their lower rank position of Shadow, and then finished up the second chapter to become the higher tier, Guard. Unfortunately in the process I apparently locked myself entirely out of being able to use magic, because I went about things in the wrong order. Note to anyone interested in playing these games, pay attention to quest order. You can easily knock yourself out of contention for certain roles. Not that it matters a huge amount in terms of combat, as I'm now rolling around with maxed out strength and moving into training in two-handed weapons. But it's a little disheartening to know that I can't easily sneak into some areas early through the use of a spell.
In the meantime...yeah, my boy is uber buff and strolling around with a two-handed orc battleaxe. I have to save up skill points from multiple levels to be able to master two-handers, but the trade offs seem worth it. Just pumping myself up to the adequate level in it was enough to let me bring down a massive troll, and he netted me 2k experience, the highest amount I've seen out of anything save a boss encounter in the mines. Right now I'm tough as nails, and I'm only getting tougher.
I do not regret my choice to play a tank, and I've gone on to drop other critters which would previously annihilate me. Wolves are a joke to me now, I can regularly handle those dinosaur-looking critters who used to slaughter me easily, and I've even tackled one of the humongous shadowbeasts. I also cleared out a dungeon I found beneath a tower and took down the lich which resided within among his army of skeletons. I look forward to seeing what else the game throws at me. Orcs are popping into the story now, so likely I'll be facing off against them on the regular now. That's fine, I can kill orcs.
Put in a few more hours today. I don't exactly understand all of the keywords because they're Kanji clusters which I think the game has made itself (I can't find them in any dictionary), but I believe I'm understanding the narrative fairly well, and even the different character's personalities . My comprehension of skits is very hit or miss. You only see skits when you camp, so because they aren't at key locations or anything, there aren't as many of them (I think), but I have been able to properly enjoy some of them. I even found out what the titular "Eternia" is! (It's the world you're in). It may sound like a minor achievement, but the later games seem to care FAR less about having the title make any sense (I had no idea what Symphonia or Graces actually referred to in their respective games.)
Battle system is still very fun. I don't understand all of the stats perfectly, like the one at the bottom which I can only translate as "hits," but the different weapon varieties for different situations are a neat idea. There's also been 0 grinding 5 hours into the game, so for a native Japanese JRPG, I'm super digging that pacing as well.
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
I just looked up a walkthrough to see my progress as far as main quests go in Witcher 3. I am still way, way, WAY at the beginning of Act I. Damn. Haha.
PartridgeSenpai wrote:I don't exactly understand all of the keywords because they're Kanji clusters which I think the game has made itself (I can't find them in any dictionary)[...].
Keywords? 大晶霊? It would literally be 'great crystal spirits,' but it's referring to the summon spirits.
PartridgeSenpai wrote:I don't understand all of the stats perfectly, like the one at the bottom which I can only translate as "hits,"[...].
PartridgeSenpai wrote:I don't exactly understand all of the keywords because they're Kanji clusters which I think the game has made itself (I can't find them in any dictionary)[...].
Keywords? 大晶霊? It would literally be 'great crystal spirits,' but it's referring to the summon spirits.
Oh, yes! Thank you! I fought Undine today, actually, so I was able to sort of suss that that word meant summon spirit. It's the deduction via context my teachers talk about! I was so proud of me Xp . Undine VERY nearly killed me though, talking of her. I didn't really go into the battle/dungeon with the recovery items I should've, so it was only down to last minute pattern deduction of her attacks that let all four of my guys actually live through that battle.
Also, I would've never guessed that meant accuracy. Thank you, again!
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
IrishNinja wrote:i'm on day 4, chapter 4 of yakuza 5! that's kinda RPG-like, rite
for real, too many rainy-day JRPG's in my baclkoggery right now. i could fall into a 10 year purgatory and not finish them all.
I've heard that Yakuza is somewhat of a brawler. Is that description accurate? I've always sort of assumed that it's more or less an Asian-focused GTA, kinda like (what I assume) Sleeping Dogs is.
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
. My comprehension of skits is very hit or miss. You only see skits when you camp, so because they aren't at key locations or anything, there aren't as many of them (I think), but I have been able to properly enjoy some of them. I even found out what the titular "Eternia" is! (It's the world you're in). It may sound like a minor achievement, but the later games seem to care FAR less about having the title make any sense (I had no idea what Symphonia or Graces actually referred to in their respective games.)
