What Are You Currently Playing? 6.65: Neighbor of the Beast

[Foggle]

Beat Vanquish. I actually didn't have any problems with the final boss fight once I figured out a good strategy (the one right before that was harder IMO). Overall, I had tons of fun playing it again, and I plan to play the challenge maps and give Hard mode another try fairly soon.

The hit detection on them is really questionable, though. I've gotten killed by them several times when I was only remotely close to the beams but not touching them, and sometimes they go through geometry. If you are going to have OHK attacks in a game, they better be damn refined, otherwise it's going to lead to some BS moments.

Hm, that's true. I didn't have any issues with that on this playthrough, but I definitely recall being killed by OHKs that didn't even touch me the first time I played the game.

Well, I heard that it's certain fights on that game which are ridiculously hard, rather than the whole difficulty itself. One youtuber, Bick Benedict, did a walkthrough of the game on God Hard, but stopped at the final boss fight which he said he just couldn't do. Still, going by what I saw in his guide, no normal attacks were OHKs, but he did go into overheat status from accumulated damage quickly.

Still sounds crazy. I don't think I could do it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'll get back to that game eventually, as I said, but in general I found it to be more challenging than Bayonetta or Revengeance, possibly because it just is, or maybe because I've always been naturally better at hack n' slash games than TPS games.

Also, you should totally try playing MGRR on Revengeance difficulty, Foggle. I'm dead serious. It's the most exciting difficulty in the game once you just practice enough to get decent with perfect parries. Unlike any other difficulty, the damage on those MULTIPLIES only on Revengeance difficulty, and a single PP can take out about 70% of any boss's health, allowing you to go as far as skipping phases of the fight. Most other enemies will be killed in one hit by that attack from any weapon, no matter how strong or weak it is. It's also not nearly as hard as it may initially seem. It's all a matter of just getting used to the timings of enemy attacks. It gets really hard in certain sections, but for the most part it's a ton of fun, IMO.

Comparatively, Bayonetta's hardest difficulty takes away Witch Time, which I never liked because that was the most fun aspect of the game. It didn't even make the game harder, just less fun. That game is best on Hard mode, for that reason.

[Foggle]

It's a bit hard to compare difficulties between Vanquish and Bayonetta/MGRR since they're from different genres, but I do agree that Vanquish is the toughest of the three - which might also be why I like it the most. As bad as I am at video games, I usually seem to go for the harder ones.

I have been meaning to try out the harder difficulties in MGRR. Think I'll give those a go soon too.

Yeah, Witch Time is awesome. Taking that away ruins a lot of the fun of Bayonetta IMO.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I finished Gears of War 1 on Hardcore difficulty. That was literally one of the most frustrating things that I've done in a game for a long, long time. There was a turret section toward the end that literally completely relied on you getting lucky in order to survive. The funny thing is that I don't even think that it was meant to be a hard section. It was meant to be a co-op section, as evidenced by the fact that there are 2 turrets, one on each side of the train, and you only have a limited range to aim with each one, so if you're playing by yourself, there are some enemies that you can't hit, forcing you to leave your turret and deal with them separately before they take you out from a blind angle. This time, your AI partner doesn't even attempt to help since they weren't programmed to use turrets. That's just bad game design, Epic, and I'm pretty sure I have an idea where Capcom got many of their bad forced co-op idea from for the Resident Evil games.

Anyways, the final boss fight with General RAAM which was difficult even on Casual difficulty, and which I expected to be an absolute nightmare....was still really hard, but not quite as bad as expected. This is simply because, to my surprise, the fight was actually fair. There was a clear strategy that worked, and it took me several tries, but when I nailed down the strategy, I was able to take him out quite smoothly and efficiently. If only more difficult fights in this game could've been designed like that. Anyways, the game is not nearly as bad as I'm making it out to be, but now that the nostalgia goggles are off (and it's so strange to think of how this last gen game is already old enough to be thought of as "nostalgic"), I can see how flawed the first game really was. I'm praying that the sequels aren't as bad when it comes to the cheap difficulty. As for this game, it's still a good game, but I don't ever plan on playing it again. I've quite literally had my fill of it for life.

Anyways, I'm debating in whether to just go straight to Gears 2 next, or go back and finish Judgement first, which I just got back from my brother.

[gunswordfist]

I started Mother 3 last Saturday. So far this game is pretty good. Itoi still has his touch. Also, the music is the game is godly. A few days ago I literally just stood outside of the Factory just to listen to that tune. So cool.

Anyway, I am at the Chimera Lab. I just entered it and I'm right past the part where they put on the masks that were in the locker.

[gunswordfist]

Ok, so within the hour, I broke my golden rule of never checking online to see how to advance in a game and googled how to find the bell in Blighttown for Dark Souls. Luckily, nothing was spoiled since the guy was purposely vague. Now I'll start playing DS again soon. I stopped for about a week after I killed the dragon on the bridge after dying trying over a dozen times and probably literally playing for hours and using hundreds of arrows to kill it while I repeatedly ran or rolled down the stairs to avoid his flame breath..only to find out that he was just guarding a tiny shortcut and nothing that would help me get further in the story. That was my breaking point.

I wonder how absurd it was that I went all the way through the pitch black Catacombs for no real reason..and got lost on the way back after I hit a certain dead end. Overall that was like a fucking week. Hopefully I can laugh at myself later.

[Foggle]

I've played Dark Souls a few times. Feel free to ask me if you need some spoiler-free help!

[gunswordfist]

Will do! Thanks.

[gunswordfist]

I bought Mortal Kombat for 5.99 with the 6 bucks MS gave me because they said I may have had a mishap with Xbox Videos. I think it was because of the trouble I had downloading an episode of Avatar. But here's the deal; it was free and I never bought anything on there so basically I probably got free money for downloading a free episode of one of my favorite shows. Awesome.

Anyway, I see what the hype about Mortal Kombat's story mode is about. I've never played a Story Mode where you get to play as multiple characters in a fighting game. Also, Cage cracks me up. I got up to the part before you played as Scorpion then went to sleep since it was early in the morning when I started.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I've been playing Castlevania: Circle of the Moon on the VC. It's usually been hard for me to get into the Metroidvania titles in the series outside of SOTN, but this one I've always liked. It reminds me the most of old school Castlevania meets the Metroidvania style.

Actually playing a character with a whip certainly helps, too.

[gunswordfist]

Richter is in SOTN, jackass.

Anyway, I love how they gave a Vampire Killer wielder stats and equipment. That's an awesome merge. I was playing Circle Of The Moon up until about two weeks ago when I just could not figure out where to go. It was one of the games I got stumped on (others include Dark Souls and Golden Sun 2) and I just caved and started Mother 3 even though I wanted to save that for later.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Richter is in SOTN, jackass.

I said "outside of SOTN" where Richter is more of a bonus.

Anyway, I love how they gave a Vampire Killer wielder stats and equipment. That's an awesome merge. I was playing Circle Of The Moon up until about two weeks ago when I just could not figure out where to go. It was one of the games I got stumped on (others include Dark Souls and Golden Sun 2) and I just caved and started Mother 3 even though I wanted to save that for later.

That's sort of why I like this one. You're just thrown into the center of Dracula's Castle without any equipment or clue of where to go so you just wander around seeing what you can do. It feels less about killing Dracula and more about finding your companions and then finding a way out.

Since you're not a Belmont or a super-powered being like other Metroidvanias, you feel very weak and out of place. It's something I really dig about this one.

[gunswordfist]

Actually playing a character with a whip certainly helps, too.

Anyway, Richter may not have any real cutscenes in his story mode but he's the best whip user I've ever played as and my 2nd favorite character in the series to use. Alucard is first, of course. Graves comes in a close 3rd. I love the way he moves. It's refreshing after suffering through how stiff Richter is in Rondo Of Blood.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Actually playing a character with a whip certainly helps, too.

Compared to OTHER Metroidvanias. It's not exactly common in Metroidvanias to play as a character with a whip outside of SOTN and COTM despite it being the supposed weapon of choice in the series.

Simon in Super Castlevania IV is probably my favorite to play as. 8 way attacks rule.

[gunswordfist]

Oh, I thought you meant that you preferred to play as a guy with a whip over Alucard.