acemuzzy wrote:

Chapter 3 boss is, well, bossing me

Got this fucker this morning, finally.  Rang the elf bell, went as full on attack as I could, and got the kill just as me + spectre were on our last legs.

acemuzzy wrote:

Blocking is legit, given you can then attack after to get the health back that you lost in the blocked attack.  Perfect parry stuff obviously better, but erring on blocking early than late is safest I think!

Yeah think I'll try that next time. First phase is no bother, I was just taking too many hits trying to dodge in second phase, and being strength wasn't getting many hits in after the dodge.

I think my stagger annoyance will also ease if I level up the right stuff.  Need more quartz...

Onto chapter 5. Archbishop was indeed awks, took me quite a few goes.

I have no idea where I'm going, who how these locations you're into the vague bits of plot as I've understood them, but whatevs. Deffo more linear than DkS, but I guess similar to Bloodborne/Sekiro again (albeit with explicit chapter numbers this time!).

How new is the patch? Hope you're not trying to talk me down by saying I merked a simpleton.

I'm down with a cold, Flora has taken C out for the day, I've played some MGS4 in the garage because I'm aff my nut, but today feels like a Gamepass day. Let's see if this is The One

Back to eggs

BUT I ONLY KILLED HIM YESTERDAY!!

Is that the gang one? Or is that not the boss?

That was the gang one. I'm not at a mad clown mini-boss, but ran away cos it's bed time.

I've moved from my starting weapon to a dancing scimitar or something. Need some more crescent moons. And I guess then half moons. And another dexterity Frank to turn the B to an A...

Sadly it doesn't have the touch.

It's missing a lot of that FromSoft finesse. Too many systems, not enough actual reward from them. Technically very proficient graphics but not really the same level of artistry. All of the written and spoken text is just... off, in part owing to its translation I am sure, but also partly due to a lack of flair or panache - it doesn't read like stuff you'd read in world, but on a wiki.

I'm on the last boss now and the last half has more been obligation than real joy. The combat is fine, and would be a lot better if the stagger bar on enemies was visible, and they didn't have such inflated health bars. 

It has all the worst parts of DS3 and Elden Ring in it too, enemy wind ups that are delayed incredibly long before the attack spits out in a handful of frames - the worst part of From enemy design in my eyes. Form the mid point most bosses had me reaching for the AI companions long before I could be bothered to memorise their oblique chains of attacks. Even with a parry that feels and sounds good, just like Wo Long, Sekiro it ain't. The rhythm isn't there.

Glad I spent time with it, and it isn't bad, but it hasn't really raised the dial like Elden Ring or Sekiro.

Thank you for your thoughts as ever sir. As a Sekiro diskiker it'll probably sing a bit more to me, I'll post actual thoughts once done.

Don't get me wrong, I felt it was mostly pretty good, I just think it has the markings of a studio of people truly in love with Souls to the point they can't really bring themselves to kill their darlings. Instead they've kept everything with critically approaching any of it, and layered even more systems on.

Minor stat improvement stuff is my least favourite part of Souls, and here you've got that, and then a bunch of things muddying and obfuscating it further: weapon building with stat-tuning cranks, four defensive slots, legion arms, wish cube, and so on.

The worst part is P-organ levelling (no sniggering in the back) which has a dizzying amount of combinations with absolutely no numbers attached to them, the end result of which has me scratching my head trying to work out if one of the 100 things I can add to these slots are any good or not. I just have to trust that if it says it raises something it's actually good - some of them might not even be doing anything for how trivial they appear to be in the game, and because bosses and enemies are always aggressively tuned it all seems rather arbitrary anyway.

All of this results in me thinking: What's actually changing how things work: the fact my Technique Stat is at 30, or the fact that my weapon is now S Scaling? Or is it the upgrades I made in the P-organ, or is it the fact I upgraded the blade to 10+, or swapped to handy XYZ? Too many variables, absolutely no viable feedback anywhere.

Ultimately I don't know much any of it is adding to the experience. I mostly muddled by with one or two weapons, with the nagging suspicion there's a better combo out there but with the typical Souls resource crush preventing true experimentation. It's not as freeing as Elden Ring or as focussed as Sekiro and sitting in the middle really harms it.

Also this last boss has second stage that is a premier cunt of a fight and I think I am probably done with it.