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

[Mustang]

Yeah, I feel you. For me I've had roughly a week and a half off (I go back to work Tuesday) and while I wanted to spend most of that time playing games it's just been personal issues/drama since I've been off and none of the games I have would've gotten me out of my slump. I mean I'm good now, but at the time I definitely could've been better if I had something like Zelda or a Shenmue. I avoided fighting games because they would've set me off (I was not in the right state of mind to play those)

But I don't want to bore anyone about my melodrama.

Sort of a year in review.

Mass Effect Andromeda was what started my gaming funk earlier this year. I wanted this game to be so good but it was plagued with so many issues that I couldn't help but ignore the game altogether. I blame EA. Bioware need to bust a Kojima and dip. I am very worried about Anthem at this point, especially with all this lootboxing fiasco. Edit: I take it back. I am no longer looking forward to Anthem. Had no idea they were going in the same direction as Destiny.

I have a lot of respect for Horizon and Nier Automata and after trying them out they're not for me. To be honest, Horizon, while it looked good from the start I was never into the whole hunting/survival thing (despite them being machines). Nier on the other hand, for some reason I just couldn't click with it. It might've been my patience or the drama I was going through at the time. Right now neither game is for me, but I might revisit them some time down the line.

Gravity Rush 2 is another game I have a lot of respect for and much like Nier Automata I couldn't click with it.

Persona 5 is my GOTY. I don't want to sound like a broken record, so all I'll say is that it pulled me out of my gaming slump earlier this year.

I am looking forward to getting my hands on Breath of the Wild (of course) and Mario Odyssey, and perhaps Fire Emblem Warriors.

Overall I'd say this was a solid year for gamers, but me personally, not so much and most of it started with Mass Effect not being good and the FGC (lets just say they sort of killed my interest in games a bit).

2018 is looking more like a year for me though.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I picked up Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator and Yakuza 0 on sale today. With GGXR I wanted something to serve as a go-to fighting game for me until DBFZ is released and it made sense to go with an ASW game in this case.

As for Yakuza 0 I've been meaning to get into it for a while now. That said, I picked it up because it was at half price, however I won't be starting it until after I beat Bloodborne.

[Mustang]

So, I picked up Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator and Yakuza 0 on sale today. With GGXR I wanted something to serve as a go-to fighting game for me until DBFZ is released and it made sense to go with an ASW game in this case.

As for Yakuza 0 I've been meaning to get into it for a while now. That said, I picked it up because it was at half price, however I won't be starting it until after I beat Bloodborne.

Make sure you upgrade to Rev 2 if you're looking to dabble to play against people online in. There's been a couple of patches that's been released since Rev1.

I'm also looking into picking up Yakuza 0 along with Kiwami perhaps next pay check. (I'll look into getting a Switch come tax time).

In the meantime, Nioh, lots of fun, but I keep on panicking against these big demons and getting myself killed lol. Growing pains if you will. I'll get over it eventually, but it's pretty learning from my mistakes. Nothing rage inducing because its been all on me.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I would've picked up Rev 2, but I just happened to see a used copy of Rev 1 at Gamestop on sale for $3 since the store was having a clearance sale on used games to clear up shelf space, so I just couldn't resist at that good of a price.

As for Nioh, how far along are you so far? As for big enemies, most of them are pretty simple once you get their attack patterns down. The Raven Tengu from later on in the game, though, as well as the bearded Oni from the DLC can be quite vicious to new players since they're designed to punish sloppy gameplay.

[Mustang]

Not far. Just beat the 1st level boss that keep throwing his balls at me. Died at least a good 7 times trying to be cute or not realizing that he wasn't done attacking.

[Nel_Annette]

I'm replaying Breath Of The Wild, the difference being that this time is on Switch and now I have the DLC. I have to say, getting Majora's Mask right after the tutorial part reeaaally trivializes some parts of the game.

First time trying to get to Zora's Domain on Wii U: "OH GOD THIS SUCKS WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE THUNDER ARROWS OH GOD NO"
Second time on Switch with Majora's Mask equipped: "?La la laaaa, skipping through the meadows!? Why hello, Lizalfos, don't mind me, I'm just having a merry stroll through Zora country."

Trial of the Sword is kicking my ass though.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Just defeated The One Reborn in Bloodborne after resuming the game since yet another hiatus; I imagine I'll finish it sometime by the next console generation, at this rate.

I remember watching TS17 play through this fight a couple of years ago in his walkthrough of it, which is why I knew to use the Blood Beast Pellets in this one. This was my first time using them in the entire game, and after this fight, I don't think that I'll ever use them again because holy fuck are they ridiculously overpowered. In truth, I used one, and ended up killing the boss on my first try before I even realized it. The damage output was ridiculous, and while I could totally see this being great for BL4 runs where everything one-shots you and you do shit damage without them, it's just far too broken for a normal run, IMO.

[Mustang]

Oh Capcom, I wish you didn't let Combofiend walk away so he can tell you that you over nerfed a lot of characters in Street Fighter 5. Now all the fun looks like its been zapped out of it. I mean, I don't want to jump the gun but I don't want to see a match keep resetting to neutral. If a character specializes in rush down then let them rush down. If they get punished for over committing then that should be on the player. My hype for Cody being here is dwindling.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Just completed Upper Cathedral Ward in Bloodborne, which was surprisingly short and relatively easy for such a late area in the game. That said, is it just me or was Miyazaki really paying heavy homage to Resident Evil with the central area of this level? As soon as I stepped into that room with the symmetrical curved staircases and overhead giant chandalier, an image of the Spencer Mansion is the first thing that popped into my head. And if that's not enough, he even has the "beast dog" crashing through the window jump scare moment.

**Ponders**........Incidentally, it just occurred to me that Miyazaki might be capable of making a legitimately great Resident Evil game, if Capcom ever wanted to outsource the game to an actually capable third-party developer. Just food for thought.

[Mustang]

Nioh
Can't decide if I want single sword and dual swords or single sword and tonfas. I know for sure I'll definitely try out tonfas and dual swords together in any case, I finally beat the first boss without a game over. I know for sure that I'm not looking forward to the 2nd stage. Walls and chests as enemies are "ugh" and I know for sure that I'm gonna get bodied by the boss. So not looking forward to fighting her lol. Having a blast though. Probably will be in my top 5 favorite games.

Also playing this yugioh (guilty pleasure) game that I bought on psn. It's too bad they didn't put anything into the game since this could've easily been a tag force style of game. You're just playing through yugioh's story starting with Duelist Kingdon and bits of the last one with Pendulum summoning.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Glad you're enjoying Nioh.

If you are confident in your parry timing, Dual Swords can be outright OP against human bosses and enemies. Otherwise, if you unlock Guardian Spirit Talismans as one of your Onmyo Mage spells and equip the Daiba-Washi (one of the three starter spirits, but you can unlock it in a side mission if you didn't pick it), you can use that spell to get the same knock-down effect as parrying with either the dual swords or the spear. After that, use Sign of the Cross (a move that you can learn with either the katana or the dual swords) and follow it up with a downward stab (known in-game as a final blow) to deal out massive damage.

Some of the early bosses and levels can be the hardest in this game, not because they are designed harder but because they are designed to punish poor gameplay and since new players are still learning the game at this point, this is how the game ultimately teaches you to get better. After the first third of the game I actually beat most bosses on my first try, and didn't die all that often in general. It all becomes really straightforward once you get the hang of it.

Also, FYI, for Hino-Enma, make sure you have the pills that give you resistance to paralysis as well as the anti-paralytic needles. Additionally, she's weak to fire so it's a good idea to stock up on fire buffs for your weapon, and also make sure that you have either some shuriken or kunai, which you can throw at her while she's airborne by locking onto her. Hitting her with three of these consecutively will knock her out of the air and temporarily put her in critical state which will allow you to wail on her for a few seconds, but back off after 4 or 5 hits or she'll retaliate with a deadly grab move that actually restores some of her health.

She's not too bad if you have a good sense of spacing and don't get too greedy attacking her.

[Mustang]

Good stuff. Unfortunately I don't have parry unlocked just yet, and even then I probably wouldn't be too confident in my timing, but as the japanese would say in 3rd Strike, "practeece".

I might replay the first level again just to try and work on few things but it'll have to wait until the weekend (fighting games and whatnot).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

When it comes to practicing parries, fighting Revnants is actually the perfect way to do it, especially higher level ones since they tend to drop much better gear that you can use.

[Mustang]

I got tomorrow off so more Nioh and Street Fighter 5 will be occupying my time. Mainly Street Fighter 5 tomorrow since Arcade Edition should be arriving tomorrow and I'm in a bit of a character crisis.

Karin is the main (at least for now), but I don't like the sound of her changes. But on the other hand, I did see a bit of footage from the best Karin and she still looks good. I've grown to like her, but honestly, I still don't care for any of these characters like Dudley and Cody. Those 2 are like my identity, especially Dudley. Out of SF5's cast, Karin has style like Dudley and a lot of her colors/costumes are just as swaggy as Duds as well. Her damage output is as crazy as both Cody and Dudley and her resets are swaggy (Laura and Ibuki has style stylish resets as well)

Laura is looking fun every moment, but she is looking like she might be too strong and I'm just hoping there won't be a Laura army. People should play whoever they want, but I personally have a problem playing a character that everyone would flock to. It makes me feel like I'm following a crowd and that's the last thing I'd want to do. I know I need to work on that, but bump following crowds.

Ibuki's bomb mixups are nerfed to hell, but she got a giant ninja star where she has more access to even more mixups and resets.

Juri was the weakest character in the game for the 2 years she's been out, and I'm not sure if I want to jump on this bandwagon yet, but I am liking her damage output now. And her costumes are too good.

Guile is the dark horse. I am terrible with charge characters, but this dude has swag and power.

Urien is another dark horse for the same reason as Guile.

Hard to really narrow this down at the moment.

Edit: A bit of an update.

Still hard to narrow down, but as of now Ibuki and Karin are out. What I forgot about both characters are that they are on the harder side for their technicality. Just trying to do a JSF Tenko into her shoulder press is too much because it requires a lot of buttons. And as far as Ibuki goes, not only do she requires a lot of time I do not have, her giant star, while good, you can definitely see her weakness now that she's been nerfed. Some folks are trying to downplay that she's still good, and that maybe the case, but I'm not seeing it.

M.Bison has been added to the potential list of characters I'm trying along with R.Mika (she might come off because she's been nerfed to oblivion as well)

I'm only on vol.1 when it comes to trials and so far I've completed Laura, Mika and am currently on Bison and my goodness, being a charge character is really kicking my butt. I'm starting to understand charge characters a lot more, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a grind fest. Stuck on his 7th trial which is really trying me. Part of his combo requires charging <, > P into charging <, >, <, > KK. I get what I'm suppose to do there but my brain and muscle memory at the moment sucks at the moment and I had to take a break. Hell, even R.Mika's trial was getting the best of me for a little bit because of spacing. This is some good learning experiences for sure.

[Mustang]

Frustrating day at work.

Pretty certain I pre-ordered Dragon Ball FighterZ Wednesday. I get home about an hour ago looking for a package from Amazon only to find out that not only did I not have a package. I find out that Amazon didn't even ship the game yet.   

I was really hoping that game arrived because Nioh is not a game for me to play when I'm heated. As much as I love the game, I am not in the right state of mind to play because I might launch a controller through my tv.

Street Fighter 5 training mode is where I'll be for the time being.