It’s not flawless (no game is) but I’m having a blast with it.
The core gameplay of fighting stuff is fun and kinetic with a good amount of build depth on offer (and the ability to freely change your build at any time, from what I can tell). The world is beautiful. The soundtrack immaculate. The visual spectacle of the fights is enthralling. The story emotional and gripping.
But there’s issues with it - the crafting stuff feels very ‘tacked on’. I’m drowning in materials that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to use, so getting new one feels like they’re just making fun of me.
The world is very grim, dark, and serious. There is levity, at times, but it’s rarer than not (and mostly your funny uncle). One of the criticisms is that it’s hard to see why the player should care about saving the world when all but like a dozen people in it are unrepentant monsters.
There’s also criticism that your party feels a bit tacked on for gameplay purposes. Unlike 7R where you could hotswap between party members, you just play Clive in this (and command your wolf Torgal with the d-pad). I don’t have a problem with it, some people do.
I’d say it’s currently my GOTY 2023 but this is the first 2023-released game I’ve actually played so that probably doesn’t count for much. Still, I’m like 30 hours deep and looking forward to being 70 more hours deep over the coming weeks.
I’m sure it will get a PC release eventually, just like 7R did.
The 7 remake drove me INSANE.
All those minigames… Like the one with the pull ups where you had to be really good at rhythm bashing all of a sudden.
It’s why I didn’t get allong with FFX2 very much, too many minigames.
Not got the game yet but played the demo which included the fight from that infamous video going around showing how ‘easy’ the game is. It’s not the hardest game but it’s nowhere near as easy as people have been complaining unless you choose to make it that easy.
I’m no journo when it comes to gaming, but I’m not exactly pro-either (took me about 1-2 dozen attempts to down Melania), and I’ve found the difficulty of FF16 sways between ‘pretty easy’ to ‘occasionally taxing’. Flan Prince hunt was a pain and actually made me drain my consumables (though part of that was me learning Titan for the first time).
I will also admit that I use the dog-automation accessory. If Jill can be AI then so can Torgal.
Supposedly the NG+ difficulty is a step up and much harder, but I’m still many hours from reaching that.
hurts bad
I will say that outside of the quick time events during some major fights there haven’t been any minigames yet that I can recall.
Not even fishing
The people who complain about games being too easy, usually do.
A lot of people hate accessibility options, because they’ll “Choose to do it when it gets too hard.” Which… I dunno, sounds like a them problem to me.
On all those years of games like Soul Blade, Tekken, street fighter, when it offers you a chance to go down a difficulty level. If you like playing on higher difficulties, you say no to it and continue stubbornly dying on the higher difficulty.
But some people just don’t get that. It’s like if there were an easy mode in Dark Souls.
Would hurt -NO ONE-. But people still get enraged at the idea.
Some guy even made a mod for himself to make it more accessible for him to play, due to disability. People raged.
Such a sigh.
Automating AI companions is generally the way to go because, in most games at least, they’ll more often than not be struggling with pathing too much to immediately do what you order them to.
As for difficulty in games, I like a challenge, but challenging can be done poorly. Like, indeed, Malenia.
Disagree with this. An easy mode in dark souls would impact everyone that engages with the multiplayer.
Unless the easy mode players were restricted to only multiplay with other easy mode players.
Or the less fun option, set them to offline mode.
Yeah, For fallout and Skyrim, I rarely take AI Companions. They spend half the time blocking doorways, repeating inane chatter or messing up stealth. Drives me insane.
Which would split the multiplayer into two completely separate segments, damaging the longevity of that part of the game.
In my eyes the souls games have always had an easy mode. That is, summoning a friend and/or overlevelling. Even the most difficult bosses immediately become tremendously easier when they have two targets instead of one.
Well, the people who would gain best from an easy mode, are more likely to avoid playing online anyway.
And the PVPers would likely specifically play easy mode so they can gank the “noobier” players… Because let’s be honest, honourable dark souls players are few and far between. And yes, I say that as someone who completed all 3. I didn’t like the pvp though… did manage to kill a few people, who would promptly rage at me for being a bad player, which is why my steam is set to private. XD
Sometimes, the people who beat me, would come on my profile to rage at me for being bad. Which… is wild!
However, I do agree, easy mode is unlocked by grinding.
I’ve had a lot of twinks on WoW, and to this day, I have no idea why they choose to be called that. Especially given, that in a lot of WoW twink communities… they’re usually homophobic. XD
Nah, and I do agree. I mostly used the easy mode as an example of where to find people screaming at accessibility options. Dark Souls can be made far easier with grinding.
It’s also worth noting, a friend of mine uses an on screen keyboard, a laptop track pad and voice commands. Because he has SMA and is VERY physically disabled. And he played Elden Ring very well. (Hate to admit, he’s probably better than I am, cough.)
That sounds incredibly difficult but at the same time people have cleared these games on literal böngos (it won’t let me post the first four letters without the dots on the o) so everything is possible.
I assume it probably started as an insult but I admit I’m not really in on the etymology of the term.
That’s hilarious, and yeah, that’s a point, somonee cleared dark souls 1, at soul level 1, using a dance mat, if I recall correctly. While naked too… I believe the character was naked, not the player. Although maybe both! Who knows!
Yeah… I might look it up some day… maybe.
Or I’ll enjoy the mystery. XD
Fortunately, I don’t think a lot of them have looked up the term either.
The censorship reminds me of, I don’t know if it’s fixed. But some WoW items cannot be linked, because they’re called “D**PE” Err, curtains, also cloaks.
Anyway on non FF-related news, Gamma is turning 15 at somepoint today.
Can’t believe I’ve had this old boomer of a cat for half her life (and I will have her for the rest of her life).
And now we’re back to mods and player made patches! XD
I’m glad they are releasing to PC though, disabled friend will be happy… I will wait for huge discounts.
Huge peeve: You’re in a discord, everyone is chatting happily, it’s general chat. It’s a WoW related discord, but everyone is just hanging, chill, getting along.
Then suddenly, a moderator pops in and says “Guys, this is off topic, stop now!”
Chat dies. Nobody is happy.
I hate power hungry moderators. When you get people together, it’s natural that they’d talk about things other than the one thing that got them together. A lot of discords rule out off topic, and I leave them all. because the last thing i want to do is make friends, then get reprimanded for talking to them.
If you don’t want people talking about off topic, in general chat (I mean… general is just such a vague name, rename it WoW chat or something.) then make an off topic chat. People will want to talk about things, birthdays, cake, cooking, pokémon, plushies, that one time at band camp, or anything else that crosses their mind.
I violently hate when a moderator comes in and says “Stop”. There’s no reason to, nobody is screaming obsceneties. People are having a good time. Stop killing the good times.
These always make me question my memory because I don’t remember them being different but people insist on things like “Looney Toons” and I start to second guess myself…
The only discord I’m in that really bothers with some moderation has a general off-topic for exactly that. And most of the time people self moderate and move the conversation.
It’s really not that difficult but some people seem allergic to allowing some off-topic area.
for ages though