Vemsie

18 hours ago, Sarlaccfood said:

The more concept art I see the less convinced I am this is coming this year.

 

 

But maybe that what they want me to think. 

Apparently it's in the polishing phase, or so I've read.

Even though I'm not the biggest Bethesda fan in the world, I'm pretty interested in this. The main reason for that is that it's a massive AAA sci-fi RPG. As much as I love Elden Ring, I'm so tired of (dark) fantasy. I want more settings like Returnal, Dead Space, Prey and perhaps this.

So far, no ER bosses for me. I have a long way to go though and while there have been cool ones and even weaker From bosses are still way better than most bosses in other games, I do think there are too many big creatures with massive swipes and jumps and AoE attacks. I want more fights like Lady Butterfly, Papi Gascoigne, Lady Maria, Isshin, Owl etc.

8 hours ago, Floshenbarnical said:

of course you can survive. You just have to never die

You will always die eventually. I could see some nice forum action going on, seeing who can get furthest.

12 minutes ago, Flanders said:

I think the first half of Returnal is more hostile than any From game, but as Returnal goes on you end up feeling like god which doesn’t really happen with From games.

 

Even when you git gud in those you still have to exercise a certain caution in how you play, whereas in Returnal when you git gud you can make the screen explode while you dance a glorious bolero of death.

Well, now you have a tower in it that you can't survive.

16 minutes ago, Kevvy Metal said:

 

Out of curiosity Vemsie, did you redefine any of the controls for this?
I keep on attempting it, but find I'm a bit too used to the "dark souls" style defaults.

I know many people did, but I always stuck to the default controls. 

On 10/03/2022 at 13:49, FalconGR said:

I’d be genuinely interested to see if those who’ve played both prefer this or Elden ring. I think they are in the same class. 

This. Genuinely one of my favourite games ever. Couple of reasons for that. Selene controls better, she's so damn snappy. It's also much more nex-gen in terms of effects, DualSense support and audio. Returnal's narrative is much more compelling to me. But mostly it's that amazing creepy sci-fi atmosphere it has. I much prefer sci-fi to fantasy and as much as I love Elden Ring I really want From to move on from that.

Here's a walkthrough of the Tower mode. I skipped the boss fight and story sequence myself as I didn't want to be spoiled by it.

Looks fun as fuck.

8 minutes ago, layten said:

“Jump here”

"Edge,
lord"

 

Well, they do write the best messages.

It's probably my favourite open world overall as well, though Bloodborne is still my favourite From game due to its setting, lore and combat. I love BotW as well but I think ER beats it in terms of enemy variety, meaningful rewards for exploration, actual dungeons and lore. BotW on the other hand offers more gameplay variety and different ways of interacting with the world. BotW isn't my favourite Zelda either btw, that's easily Majora's Mask.
 

On 11/03/2022 at 22:26, Minion said:

 

Oh Vemsie please, don't debase yourself like this. 

 

I don't think it's a better game, don't get me wrong. But it definitely runs better and I do love the machine combat to bits. In terms of exploration, level design, build variety etc. it's no contest.

 

This is coming along nicely. They're putting in a lot of effort it seems. Really liking these dev streams. They also confirm that they're aiming for a release early next year.
 

Side-quests are really good in this. Huge improvement over ZD.
Also, love the slick transistions in this:

Still digging the look of this. I've yet to read the Edge preview, interested in hearing what they have to say about it.

https://blog.playstation.com/2022/03/09/returnal-ascension-update-adds-co-op-and-tower-of-sisyphus-mode/

Endless mode that stays true to their arcade roots AND offers new story for free. I would have paid for that, Housemarque. 

6 minutes ago, Capwn said:

Finished this last night, how many hours?

 

  Reveal hidden contents

36

 

I pretty much avoided side missions etc. I played the first half on normal mode then switched to easy. For the final fight I had to switch it to story mode as I saved it in an awkward position where I had ZERO valiant. Also for some reason I kept running out of machine muscle all through the game even though I had zillions in my resource chest. I had this bow that could do 281 tear damage but it just consumed so many machine muscles. This is WITH the perk that doubles crafting for ammo btw. So I have a feeling I was playing the game wrong with that being my main non elemental bow.

 

Anyway, enjoyed the game but a bit disappointed with how similar it was to the first. Ok, let's do this, which are the strongest IPs for Sony's Single Player games?

 

Days Gone > Horizon > Death Stranding > GhostTsushima > GodOfWar > Uncharted >  LastOfUs

 

 

I'd take it you mean this to go from 'worst' to best? I'd take Horizon over all of those, except TLoU (2). 
Though my favorite Sony IP (single player) if Bloodborne doesn't count is Returnal. and Astro Bot Rescue Mission is fantastic as well.

Man, I hate life is getting in the way of playing this so much. I'm 'only' at the Raya Lucaria boss but it's been brilliant so far.

This is utterly compelling stuff. And great to see the Walken again. Can't wait for the next episode.

Here's hoping it wins all of them! But the recoginition by itself is nice to see!

I've only done one legacy dungeon (or whatever they're called) so far but I'd argue that

is up there with From's best designed levels. The amount of secrets, routes, enemies, items etc. crammed into one level is amazing. BotW got some deserved flak for not having real dungeons, but this is something else. I love how much verticality there is in there as well. From has played with this before (Cathedral of the Deep in DS3 for example) but it wasn't until Sekiro that the mechanics really supported it. The dedicated jump button adds a lot.

The exploration in this is something else. Everytime I wander off, I find something interesting. And it's all naturally integrated into the world without feeling copy/paste, something even BotW suffered from.

I'm not that far in, but it's absolutely captivating. 

57 minutes ago, Pob said:

 

I'd be interested to hear more about how you're approaching combat, especially when things kick off. I'll try the gyro-aiming thing. I'm assuming it'll be like the first game and I'll gradually become powered up enough to make short work of the regular machines. I don't actually mind having to be wary of even small groups of burrowers or scrappers, I'm just a bit worried that I'll come up against some kind of boss arena battle (like the cobra thing right at the start) and have a grim old time. 

 

My main concern is that I'm not playing a particularly balanced experience. I like my games to be tough but it's quite likely that by plumping for Ultra Hard / no auto-aim might I end up stacking the odds against myself too much.

 

Also, I found the sheer range of elemental statuses a bit much in HZD and was hoping it might perhaps be simplified in HFW - if anything there seem to be loads more!

 

All that said, I did unlock the 'explosive arrow' weapon technique for the hunter bow last night, which seems like a lot of fun.

I'm only in the second area, so I haven't unlocked loads of stuff yet, but so far I'm mostly using the bow, the spear and the slingshot. The slingshot does a lot of explosive damage up close and you don't really need to care about targeting specific parts. I use the bow for enemies further away, specifically targeting weakpoints and I use melee combos on smaller enemies nearby. Critical strikes on downed enemies. The ropecaster is essential for flying enemies and really big machines, but I don't use it much in the early game.
In HD I'd use the override a lot, but I haven't done any Cauldrons yet in FW. Still fun to have an overridden Charger assist you though.

I don't have any tactical masterplan or anything. I just scan the enemies and throw myself in the fray. It might help that I'm the type of player who embraces chaos. I love it when different machines attack me at the same time and I'm dodging in between them, switching between my catapult, bow and spear. There is something very appealing about the machine combat for me, with all the effects going on and parts flying off.

So much so that Elden Ring's combat felt a bit boring in comparison, even though I love exploring its world. Crazy though how much better this game performs while looking two generations ahead graphically.