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

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, in all honesty I've kind of lost interest in open world games ever since college. Maybe it's just a lack of time to really sink hours-upon-hours into a game of that nature like I did in High School, but these days I tend to prefer more tightly-paced action games that can be fun and engaging in short bursts. That's why DMC5 is such a godsend to me in this day and age where most linear AAA games tend to be more focused on being cinematic than being deep and more re-playable. That isn't to say that I can't appreciate other games with more open exploration elements like Bloodborne (and Sekiro, which I'm currently playing) or Nier: Automata, but there's a reason why it takes me literally months to finish games of that nature.

Oh, also since you both mentioned about being apprehensive when it comes to parry timing in Souls games, I'd just like to mention that timing in Sekiro is way more lenient than in any Souls game that I've tried. However, it's also less overpowered, so it's an even trade-off.

[Foggle]

I think Bloodborne and Nier did the whole world exploration thing just right - I was really able to sink my teeth into them and they weren't ridiculously large for no reason. Like, I did nearly everything in BB (except the chalice dungeons, as I felt they got stale fast) and was still able to finish the game and its accompanying DLC in something like 35 hours? Meanwhile, I've played Rage 2 for around 9 hours and I feel like I've made barely any progress, and I don't feel much incentive to continue. Nier's open world is small and dense enough that I would compare it more to classic JRPGs' world maps than something like Assassin's Creed or Far Cry - being populated solely by traditional side quests and treasure chests rather than radio towers and outposts certainly helps. You can also beat that game in around 25-30 hours if you focus strictly on the main story and don't go crazy trying to 100% it like I did... twice.

In general, I feel that exploration is my favorite thing in games, but it has to be done well. Resident Evil, Metroid, Castlevania, Deus Ex, new!Prey, Banjo-Kazooie - that's what I'm looking for. Driving a car for hours fulfilling a checklist? Not so much. The only games of that nature I actually enjoyed 100%ing were Saints Row 4 and Spider-Man (the former much more than the latter due to its excellent mini-games), and I think that mostly comes down to their superpowers making the world traversal fun instead of a chore.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just got past the Lady Butterfly fight in Sekiro. It wasn't too bad, all things considered, though her second phase could get annoying. So far, though, I've oddly had a tougher time with some of the mini-bosses (who are mostly optional) than the actual boss fights. Like, that Spear General guy was a nightmare to deal with, even after getting a free stealth deathblow on him. I essentially had to try and loop him into a predictable attack pattern until I could build up his posture meter to max to break his guard and deliver a second deathblow. Though, after dozens of tries, when I finally landed that final well-timed Mikiri Counter after he dealt out a spear thrust and I pinned his spear to the ground with my foot while delivering a deathblow through the back of his throat, it felt so, so satisfying.

These fights are especially tough when one of the Generals is surrounded by their men and you can't just stealth kill them ahead of time before engaging him in combat. In those situations you really have to get creative.

[Mustang]

Still playing Persona 5. Not playing it for the story as I've already beaten it quite a few times. I'm mostly working on my Persona line up and their abilities.

Spoiler

Yoshitsune - physical
Satanael - gun
Alice - Curse
Thanatos - Almighty
Black Frost - Ice
Kaguya - Holy
Odin - Lightning
Asterius - Fire
Arsene - Buff/Debuff

Not entirely sure who I want to use for wind, nuke, and psy. Also still not sure if I want to use Alice for curse and Asterius for fire. Everyone else is fine.

[close]

When I have my fill of Persona I'll move on to DMC5 (along with a bit a Batman. Been interested in going back to the rocksteady games lately)

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm up to the Genichiro boss fight in Sekiro and it's utterly kicking my ass. He has three phases, and I've made it up to gus final phase on one attempt so far, but I died quickly because I stupidly skipped the instructions given earlier for how to reverse his lightning attack and instead ended up getting killed by it. It's a very doable boss fight that's mostly fair, but it does really require you to stay ultra-focused for an extended period of time. I'll really need more practice here.

I also just went through most of the Senpou Temple side-quest and it's my favorite part of the game so far. You can stealth almost the entire way through the area, and there are tons of creative ways to do so. The more I play this game, the less it really feels like a Souls game other than in it's base aesthetics. It's more Souls-lite than Souls-like. And personally I prefer that, though I'd still say that Bloodborne is probably the overall superior game.

[Mustang]

With CEO coming up and after that the next major tournament is EVO I'm usually practicing because my brother-in-law usually comes to town and we'll just play fighting games around this time, but I think this time I'm gonna take a break from fighters in general. There's only a negative side and a worst side for why. The negative side is that the huge backlog of games that I have and the worst is that I don't like where the FGC is currently at right now. I'm not gonna go into any details at the moment but because I've ranted quite a few times before.

That being said I think the first game we're going to jump into is Devil May Cry 5. I owe it to myself to play and enjoy this game since I've managed to avoid spoilers. I've heard people say that V is unique in both a positive and negative way. I think when I first saw his style of play my initial thoughts were I don't care to play as him, but we'll see. I may enjoy him. Dante and Nero, come on now, if they're anything remotely similar to DMC4, of course I'm gonna enjoy playing as them.

After that I gotta get back into Nioh. With me being hyped for Nioh 2 I gotta finish the 1st one. I doubt it, but I am hoping something will carry over for playing or beating Nioh. If not it's cool. I think I last left off beating the giant centipede and I had 3 swords.

After that will probably be between God of War or Batman Arkham Knight. Personally, I was never into the God of War series for it's game play. Comparing it to DMC and NG it's satisfying but average. I was in it because they know how to tell a story and it sucked me in. I was never into Greek mythology nor that type of setting, but if told right, I'm game. Batman Arkham Knight is a 10/10 game trapped in a 8/10 body because of the bat-mobile. Everything else from what I can remember was spot on and I feel like it deserves a full playthrough from me.

[Foggle]

Played through John Romero's Sigil, the semi-official fifth episode of the original Doom that just released! I bought the Limited Run physical release so I was able to play the special version with the Buckethead soundtrack. Overall, it was really good, and felt just like an expansion pack that might have been released back in the day. If you're like me and prefer Doom 1 over 2, you'll definitely like this a lot, and if you're at all a fan of that game's fourth episode, you'll probably love it. The level designs are mostly great, though some parts were so dark they felt like self-parody of Doom 3, and the aesthetic felt really unique in terms of official Doom content despite only using stuff that was present in the original release. The music was also phenomenal, and I say this as someone who doesn't usually like metal that much. An all around excellent experience that any fan should check out!

I've been revisiting some games from my childhood recently too. After many years, I found an N64 emulator capable of running the Duck Dodgers game, and I had a great time playing that again, even though it isn't particularly good. I'm also taking this opportunity to finally 100% Super Mario 64, and I'm honestly not enjoying it that much. I have a lot of nostalgia for this game, and when it works it can be an absolute joy to play, but its age really shows in the way Mario controls and how the camera functions. I'm finding a lot of the challenges to be either frustrating or tedious because of this, but I don't hate it or anything; it's still a landmark title in the history of gaming and has a special place in my heart.

My main focus right now is the Phoenix Wright Trilogy, which I'm absolutely loving. I hope they port the later games to home consoles and PC someday too!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Played through a bunch of Sekiro this weekend. Judging by what I know about the game from other YouTubers that I follow, I think I'm at about the halfway point.

So, I had last left off on the Genichiro boss fight (the second one if you count the one you're supposed to lose during the prologue), and at that time it seemed ludicrously tough due to him having three phases and how much effort it took me just to get past a single phase. After figuring out some strategies for him, though, he's definitely a really well-done boss that feels challenging but fair once you get his attack patterns down. This is where you really have to learn to play the game on it's own terms. Whereas Bloodborne and Dark Souls ask you to be patient to wait for enemy openings, in Sekiro that's rarely the case. Most enemies and bosses that you kill will not be through the conventional means of depleting their health, but rather by breaking their posture and landing a deathblow (more than once for mini-bosses and bosses). To do that, you have to keep on them so as not to give them an opportunity to recover their posture, and that means keeping on the offensive while reacting to their attacks and avoiding them properly rather than keeping your distance. This is further emphasized in this fight since by fighting from a distance you end up prompting Genichiro to take out his big ass bow and fire large arrows at you that do tons of damage if they hit you or absolutely wreck your posture if you try to block them. That naturally leads to an intense battle because you are never truly going to be at a safe distance if you want to fight him properly. However, that sort of balance makes it exciting, and the boss is really good about telegraphing all of his attacks and having consistent patterns that makes almost everything he does fairly easy to predict. So in that regard, it's a really fun boss fight once you get it down and it feels super satisfying when you finally defeat him.

After that I actually did quite a lot of side-questing since a lot of opportunities open up once you get Genichiro out of Ashina Castle, as well as attain the Gun Fortress Key (which is a really annoying zone due to all of the snipers). This game is actually a lot lighter on the RPG elements than previous Souls-type games, so it was actually the first time that I really had to do any kind of major side-questing. In general, everything is streamlined enough where you don't really need to farm for anything unless you just want better equipment, and in my case I really just wanted to get the Phantom Kunai which is why I went out of my way to get some materials that I needed to make that prosthetic tool. That said, even then it wasn't really that much grinding compared to Dark Souls or Bloodborne.

Anyways, I also defeated the four monkeys, which counted as a boss fight but was really just a gimmick fight (and a fairly easy one at that) as well as the Guardian Ape boss fight. The latter in particular is a beast type enemy, and there are a few such enemies in the game, though most are humanoid. I'll say that ironically enough, since beast type enemies don't typically block, they are among the few exceptions where you normally take them out by depleting their health bar, and thus work much like in a traditional Souls game where you wait for your opportunity to strike. The Guardian Ape himself was actually quite simple, all things considered, once you got a grasp of his attack patterns and when was safe to attack him. The fight dragged out a bit but I was able to defeat him with relative ease by just being patient and waiting for the opportune moments to strike. That said, these are also my least favorite part of the game, because it's the absolute antithesis to it's combat system by design, and feels out of place here since this clearly isn't meant to play like a Souls game in regard to it's approach to combat.

Anyways, I think that I'm supposed to be headed to the Ashina Depths next, and so far I'm enjoying this game a lot more as an overall action game with light RPG elements than any of the Souls games aside from Bloodborne. If you were on the fence about it before, I can wholeheartedly give it my recommendation at this point.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I beat the two Guardian Apes boss fight on my second try (which as far as I can tell is actually optional). The takeaway here is that Lady Butterfly's Kunai is the best prosthetic weapon in the game. Not sure if I should feel like a genius for figuring out that strategy so quickly or if that's something that's common knowledge amongst the Fromsoftware fan-base.

[Mustang]

We got some trash talking going on and money is starting to get involved in terms of fighting games so I might be booting up Street Fighter 5: AE soon although my attention in terms of fighters have been more on SF3 and Tekken 7 at the moment.

[Mustang]

Probably 2-3 paychecks from now I'll probably start investing in the Hitbox (bills keeping me from getting it now). At first I was confused on how to do quarter-circle motions but I saw a little tutorial on the thing and everything just makes sense. I won't be touch Soul Calibur or Dead or Alive, but every other fighting game that came out within the past couple years has a chance of being revisited at some point (especially a lot of the older fighting games). A Fightstick can usually get the job done, but turns out a lot of people are having wrist problems from using fightsticks (and some things are just too hard for me to pull off) and I don't need those problems in my life. When I do get this hitbox the main games will probably be

3rd Strike (of course, buffering parries should be a lot easier for me)
Tekken 7 (don't know why people haven't been using this from jump. It just make sense to use it for wave dashing and Korean backdashing)
UMvC3 (maybe. Movement should be simpler but the BS I don't know if I'll be able to put up with)
DBFZ (ASWs games in general for that matter. Instant air dashing seems like it'll be easier for me)
Garou: MotW (SNK has weird inputs so I might be iffy on this one)

To talk about a current situation (nothing major). Trading in a lot of my games to get a Switch. I don't feel like shelling out $300 at the moment. A lot of games I have are just sitting here collecting dust and I have no intention of playing them (plus some old stuff). I have probably 25+ PS4 games and out of all those I only play about 9 of them. Clearing space in a sense.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Just a heads up that the Borderlands Handsome Collection is available for free to download if you're a PS Plus member. I'm still making my way through Sekiro and have a big backlog to get through, but of course I didn't miss out on the opportunity to get these for free. I never got around to playing Borderlands last gen, so it'll be nice to finally give it a shot within the next few months or so.

[Mustang]

Dragonball Fighterz
So the trash talking has moved on from Street Fighter to DBFZ and UMvC3. So not only do these folks want to stay up all night they want to get hype as well (I wish Capcom would put MvC2 on the PS4) and I don't drink but I'll bring some out for the occasion (all while Evo is going down no doubt). That being said I've been watching some footage of some people. To get back in the groove of this game I think I'll make the main team either Goku Blue, Bardock and Goku Black or Vegito, Bardock and Goku Black. I don't think my Hit will be ready by the time my folks show up. I'll practice with him for sure, but considering the left/right mixups he's capable of I won't have that down in time whereas Goku Blue, Bardock and Goku Black are relatively easy not to mention still have the frame traps and mixups that I like (can't say that about Goku Black though. Seeing a lot of people talk bad about him)

Now in terms of Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 I don't know. I haven't played this in years and even then this game makes me real salty, especially if you have a character that can get away with mashing crouching light attacks (they know this too and I think that's why they want to play it). Whatever, the team I can recall using was Spencer, Vergil and Hawkeye, but I'm thinking of going with Nova, Vergil, Hawkeye instead (Nova, Spencer, Hawkeye works as well, although I think most people would say use Dr. Strange or Dr. Doom instead of Hawkeye)

Unfortunately, I have to drop USF4 for good. No one in my camp likes the game and don't want to play it at all, but dammit I refuse to end the night off with no Street Fighter. If we gotta go SF5 then we'll do that, but I'ma aim for 3rd Strike.

[Avaitor]

I FINALLY got my tax return (long story there), and I'm doing what I've planned to do for a long time, and finally get a Switch. For now, I'm just going to get BOTW, unless Gamestop has a good deal going on, in which case I may also get Mario Odyssey and/or Smash. But I intend to get to both of those, as well as Tropical Freeze, soon. And I'm hoping to ask for Doom for my birthday.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Nice! I was actually thinking if doing the same thing with my tax return money, but decided on putting it into my savings for now instead since I am a bit tight with money right now (not THAT tight, but I do still use up most of my income on living expenses and paying off my college loans). That, and I have a sizable backlog of games to play right now as it is. That said, I'm still wrestling with the temptation to pick one up, but the first game that I'd want to play for it is actually Bayonetta 2, though BOTW is easily high up there.