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Yes, Im not an MMO guy but it looks pretty good and I am a Dune fan
Nice...enjoy the hospital. I won't spoil anything but when you get to the ambulance in the garage make sure you're stocked up
Yes, Im not an MMO guy but it looks pretty good and I am a Dune fan
they shed the MMO tag pretty staunchly. It looks awesome, can't wait to play it, paid $70 for the preorder with DLCs
don't play many games on the CPU but bought this for $350 so I can run Dune/modern games. Thoughts?
https://www.ricardo.ch/de/a/gaming-p...am-1282206816/
i still havent started S2 of TLOU, nor have i started the 2nd game either. will be a race
i loved the first game and season 1 of the show though
im pretty far into DS2, ive been told to go the throne room. presumably behind the big locked kings door in drangleic. figured it was as good a time as any to jump into the DLC, so im doing the sunken king one. the sunken city level design is ing phenomenal. best in the game so far. best interconnectivity since forest of the fallen giants. i just fought the first boss there which was just 3 NPC guys in a gank fight. was pretty fn annoying
In some ways yes, but the combat is heavily reliant on a timing-based dodge/parry system. It is entirely turn-based, so you can take your time choosing commands on offense, but on defense you constantly have to be on your toes. The dodge/parry have very narrow timing windows, so it's like a hardcore version of Mario RPG.
It does have an old-school world map where you move between towns and dungeons with different methods of traversal, so it is like classic FF and DQ in that regard. Story and music are amazing.
The run back to blue smelter demon can eat my asshole
tbh the combat kinda looks like dog . looks like its from 2010. game overall looks cool but disappointed by the lackluster combat
stand by this, but the fight itself was really good. honestly the iron crown DLC was overall amazing other than the smelter runback. brume tower is one of my favorite areas ive ever encountered in a FromSoft game. the 3 bosses in this DLC, Smelter Demon, Fume Knight, and Sir Alonne were all great A+ fights, and maybe the 3 best bosses ive played all game, or at least top 5 for sure.
10/10 DLC for what it was. S-tier area outside of the smelter demon runback area, and A+ tier bosses
sunken city was also a very cool area but the fights there were more meh. one boss fight just being 3 NPCs was lame and followed a area with statues spitting status at you. Elana fight was solid, and Sinh was easily the best dragon fight of the game. i'd give the area, similarly an S, but the bosses themselves on the whole were a B-, which is still better than most of DS2.
i have one more DLC to go then will run through whats left of the endgame, as ive been told to go back to the throne room. i know there was the big kings door down at the bottom floor of the castle so i imagine its through there
the ability to reset stats in DS2 is such a great change from DS1 even if it kind of cheapens the experience. should be a little more stakes when deciding what to level. at the very least resetting your stats should cost you a few levels so theres some penalty for doing it. the weapon/build variety in this game is much better than either DS1 or bloodborne. powerstance with ultra greatswords was fun to aroudn with. not practical for bosses, but ridiculous heavy attacks one shot basically any common enemy
Last edited by spurraider21; 06-03-2025 at 05:23 PM.
Witcher IV gameplay video is out. It looks absolutely ing insane.
it does look damn good, but that's to be expected. i just hope it runs well on day one. Witcher 3 is one of my GOATs and CP2077 was the 2nd best game I've played this decade so i have no doubt this game will be on par
Looks amazing but ugh at the thought of having to buy an RTX 7080 with AI boom + Do tariffs pricing to get it to run like in this trailer being it's UE5.
didnt get through all of it yet, but the snow DLC of Dark Souls 2 is yet another incredible area. the regular area enemies are also fun and engaging to deal with other than the little hedgehog ers. the castlevania vibe to it is also great. i have to go back and re-explore everything now that i got to the end and turned off the wind/storm. the tiger boss was ok but kinda of meh. not much different from the giant rat fight, just scaled up for endgame when it comes to health/damage.
but the area itself is outstanding
the DLCs of dark souls 2 are really high quality content
that witcher footage is NOT gameplay. the bottom of the screen outright says it is a tech demo and not gameplay
Dark Souls 2 has been slain
having played bloodborne, dark souls 1, and sekiro... i can see why people are lower on DS2 than other entries (DS3 and Elden Ring have phenomenal reputations), but man it was still a great game to play through.
negatives
- id say my biggest criticism is their quan y over quality approach. i think the game is too long (and some of the progression in true FromSoft form, can be a little obscure). and there are some very unimaginative bosses. dark souls 1 had its fair share of snoozer bosses too, but dark souls 2 base game has over 30 bosses in the base game and many of them are either bad or just very forgettable
- this also plays out with general enemy placement as well. in what presumably was an effort to make the game challenging for the sake of being challening (to carry on the reputation of dark souls), their solution just seemed to be to gank you with a lot of enemies. crowd control is WAY more heavily emphasized than the other FromSoft games ive played. some areas do a good job of placing 1 or 2 well designed enemies that are engaging to fight. may have rooms where its just an ambush and a chore to deal with 3-4 enemies going aggro with another 1-2 pelting you with ranged attacks. just seemed like a lazy way to make the combat engaging
- may of the areas just feel very linear, very few shortcuts, doors that open from one side, elevators, etc. there are a handful of terrifically designed areas, but many that just feel kinda linear. is that necessarily bad? i guess not, but that was one of the most charming elements of dark souls. similarly, the larger world is less interconnected. its more of a spoke-and-wheel where from the hub you have a few ways to branch out that lead to their own dead ends. i found that less interesting, though it jives with the immediate ability to warp between every bonfire.
- honestly, the boss runbacks were worse than the bosses more often than not. runback to the smelter demon, the executioners chariot (two of my favorite bosses from the base game) were not great. the rotten, the lost sinner. but more frustrating... the DLC's were the highlight of the game, the best overall designed areas, and the best bosses in the game, also had abysmal runbacks. blue smelter demon, the double tiger fight, sir alonne (less so, imo), the 3 NPC "boss fight"... just cancerous runbacks.
- armor isnt really a thing in this game. it felt closer to bloodborne than dark souls 1 in terms of the effect of armor, but unlike bloodborne, the armor sets are still somewhat heavy and can affect your movement. so it is penalizing to wear armor, and the benefits felt virtually non-existent other than certain sets that that give stat effects (mostly limited to helmets). i ended up playing without armor/shield and just two handing big swords most of the game, so it was fine, but i dont like that armor is as ineffective as it is
- the statues that require a relatively rare (esp in early game)... its hard to know blind which ones are important (or required!) to open, and which one you should just save for later as a luxury. just do the thing every other From game does where you find some key later in the level and circle back to open the door.
- your rolls by default have less i-frames than dark souls. but you can level a freaking stat to increase dodging i-frames up to dark souls 1 levels. just atrocious design, and felt bad to dump stats into adaptability in early game so my rolls feel useful as opposed to pumping stats to meet weapon requirements.
- painfully slow and deliberate animations to use estus flask. worse than dark souls 1. i guess its by design but just didnt feel fun
pros
- i think the atmosphere of the game and the feel of most of the areas was quite good. i enjoyed areas that benefitted from the torch mechanic. in dark souls 1, many of the areas felt pretty bland. undead parish on the way to gargoyles... not really interesting. darkroot garden was boring. lower undead burg was nothing. the depths werent interesting. and some of the late game areas like lost izalith and demon ruins sucked. the standouts to me from DS1 were Sen's Fortress, Blighttown, Duke's Archive, Anor Londo, and thats basically it. i do think the opening undead burg area was quite good, but DS2 really tops that with forest of the fallen giants. again, the shortcuts/interconnectivity isnt there, but the areas themselves look and feel a lot more interesting
- weapon/build variety is SO much better than the other From games ive played. ill grant that in bloodborne, the trick weapon mechanic was amazing and every weapon truly felt unique. but in dark souls 1, so many generic weapons, and the better versions of them had virtually the same moveset but maybe better damage, more weight, etc. in ds2, even weapons within the same category felt very different. different movesets with 1 hand, 2 handed. duel weilding is very viable, and then above and beyond that you can "powerstance" which adds even more unique flavor to duel weilding with some hilariously strong attacks. also, weapon scaling isnt nearly useful as dark souls, so you basically just need to give your character the min stat requirements for the weapon and level other useful stuff like stamina until late game. most damage increases come from upgrading the weapon itself as opposed to increasing your stats. this means you dont need to pour 30-40 points into strength to be viable in mid-late game, so you are incentivized to have more hybrid builds that include some casting, which i found really cool
- its apparently a very unpopular mechanic, but i actually loved the hollow penalty in this game. each time you die, you lose something like 5% of your max health, and can get as low as 50%. you can fix this by using human effigy (humanity in DS1) to restore your humanity and resetting your health. or you can equip a ring to mi gate that effect, losing less health each time, and capping the worst penalty at still being 75%. it did force you to learn the game better, and at least in the early game, be strategic as far as when it makes sense to use a limited resource (you get way more later and can farm in some areas if you really wanted to). i thought it added some thrill
- bonfire ascetic is super fun. use it at a bonfire, and the area basically resets. items/chests (not metal chests) are restored. the boss of the area repopulates, and every enemy including bosses are back in an NG+ variety (and goes up one with each use). i would still love FromSoft to basically add an unockable play mode where you can just replay bosses on demand, but the bonfire ascetic is the closest thing to that. also lets you farm boss souls in case you wanted to trade one for a special weapon, consume one, or get the other weapon variant.
- the DLC's... man. 3 separate DLC's (not too long), and i thought each was very good. the level designs in each of them were peak. the best bosses in the game are all DLC. and the reward for doing all of them gives you a helmet that prevents hollowing, so in a future NG+ run you can just wear that helmet all game and never lose health or your humanity when you die. i dont plan to do an NG+ run, but thats such an awesome reward for those who want it.
overall i'd still recommend to anybody who is a fan of the genre. the hate ive seen in get in some corners online seems unfair. is it the weakest of the series, maybe... but being the worst player on an nba team still makes you a top 0.1% player on the planet.
Last edited by spurraider21; 06-05-2025 at 02:36 PM.
man, dark souls 3 plays so much faster than dark souls 2. not saying that in a good or bad way, but DS2 just felt like a natural continuation of DS1. but the DS3 rolls are insanely quick, seem to cover more ground, and barely use any stamina. theyve also made the attacks of some of the enemies more frenetic than the mechanics of DS1 or DS2 would reasonably have allowed
this feels a lot like bloodborne in that sense, but it would also have been nice to have the rally mechanic from bloodborne if the combat is going to be this fast.
the leap in visuals and the smoothless of movement is very noticeable this time around
to me the biggest quality of life change is the direcitonal audio. so much better than DS2
Damn I don't know how you can play two games in the same series back to back
Clair obscur is the GOTY at this point imho
honestly i dont know either... usually i need a nice palate cleanser after a Fromsoft game
i think i just got hooked while playing DS2 and wanted more of it
i died once to the tutorial boss, but beat the weird dog/beast Vordt thing in one shot, then the big rotted tree in one fight, though that one was tougher
i think so far my least favorite part of DS3 is firelink shrine. its a little annoying to navigate and find the right NPC, and it functions more like the Hunter's Dream in bloodborne as some completely remote, disconnected hub that you just have to constantly warp to and from, as opposed to the more clever Firelink Shrine from DS1 or Majula from DS2 which were central, connected hub points. also much easier to find folks in those
Vordt's great hammer is obliterating this game...
crystal sage boss felt like a joke, almost like Pinwheel from DS1. reasonably strong magic attacks, but just very squishy.
i took a detour and went into the poison swamp area with the 3 flames. that was actually one of the more fair feeling poison swamp areas ive played in a souls game. progressed all the way and beat the abyss watchers boss in one try, although that er had me down to my very last estus, much harder fight than the rest. still, vordts hammer is absurd
i realized given he was a much tougher fight than crystal sage that this was probably not the next intended area, so i went back to the crystal sage area and just hit up the big cathedral.
fun game, i hope the general game progression remains pretty straightforward. the only real element of the souls games i dont like is sometimes the very obscure things that have to be done to progress. i mind that less if its an optional area, but i dont like the "ive hit 2 dead ends, now where the f am i supposed to backtrack to" scenarios. like i just recently received some key from one of the firelink shrine NPCs and for the life of me i cant remember a specific unopened gate. hopefully its for an area i hadnt been to yet...
i still think stamina is way too forgiving in this game when it comes to rolling.
Tried playing Dune Awakening but ended up refunding it. Game has potential but the combat is so ass, felt like it was straight out of 2010.
dark souls 3 is nice, but the game feels like its incentivizing a lot of roll spam. bosses attack much more frequently and more quickly than the other souls entries. dancer of boreal valley had a combo where she swung around like 7-8 times in a row.
i also really dont care for the enemies with the big black abyss snake head thing coming out of their heads. they take up so much of the screen that its really hard to get a sense of their attack windups. usually im fighting the camera more than those enemies, so its not satisfying.
i did find it hilarious that when going through the lothric castle you can tell you are treading over the same area that was the undead burg and undead parish in dark souls 1. very nice touch by them tbh .
just got stomped by champion gundyr. talk about a hype aggressive boss. felt almost like orphan of kos in that there simply is no let-up. i only fought him once before i had to call it a night, so i dont think he's nearly as hard as orphan, just a little similar.
so far there have been quite a few good fights. dancer of boreal valley, champion gundyr (based on the one attempt so far, feels like a very satisfying fight, no BS), dragonslayer armor was good until the off-screen enemy started spamming ranged attacks... ruined an otherwise great duel. watchers of abyss was also a lot of fun. old demon king was a very good mechanical fight.
but otherwise a lot of the bosses have been meh as is the case in souls games. high lord wolnir was a dumb gimmick fight with his curse breath that kills you really quick without any real tell as far as i could see. the consumed king guy was a pretty boring fight. first phase he barely attacks, or does so slowly. and then second phase he's just wildly flailing that is not satisfying to fight. deacons of deep was an abysmal boss. the big curse tree thing sucked.
i wonder how the later game bosses hold up
played for a bit yesterday, and the next 2 bosses were... puzzle fights. kinda lame. i didnt mind ancient wyvern one as much, since there were notes plastered all over the floor saying "plunging attack" (and im not online, so the only notes i get are the dev notes that are part of the game), so it was pretty clear i just had to climb the towers off to the side.
though first time i made it up i missed the attack and fell to my death, so that was lame. then the plunging attack one shot him which was hilarious. i think that one was fine.
but then i fought Yhorm the Giant who was one of the lords of cinder. and what a piss poor fight that was. i realized my weapon wasnt doing so it was some puzzle boss. then of course there was an item at the end of the room which was a weapon called storm ruler with a note saying something about using the storm. but then wtf, having me do inventory management mid fight to find the particular sword in a game without a pause button. just awful design. he nearly killed me as i was fumbling through the menu, and then even that sword barely did and he killed me
then after i died i looked at the weapon description and saw that its weapon art was something about a storm. ok cool, let me fight him with the weapon art. weapon art R1 or R2 attack still didnt do , and i kinda just flailed around doing chip damage until eventually i just gave up and let him kill me. nowhere does the game mention that holding down L2 for the weapon art for several seconds will unleash some special thing. no other weapon functions that way. the claymore i was using early game just had L2 hold the sword in a specific stance, and then you use either R1 or R2 while keeping L2 held down to do a special attack. and now the hammer im using, you juse press L2 and it triggers its buffed state for a few seconds
but i had to look it up online, and apparently, if you hold down L2 for several seconds (i dno, 5+), THEN the sword becomes imbued with the storm. and THEN you have to specifically use the R2 weapon art to launch the projecitle attack. and then you just repeat that over and over until he's dead. took like 5-6 swings or so.
completely unintuitive design. very frustrating. the game should give you enough info to know what to do. this one required you to fumble around, equip the weapon, AND read a weapon description to know what to do while the boss is swinging his giant machete at you. and even then, the description is inadequate. just an awful boss
really funny to play 2 puzzle bosses in one night and have one be executed just so much poorly than the other
got all the lord soul thingies and clapped nameless king (took me 4 tries, but the big bonk vordts hammer continues to carry). i have access to kiln of the first flame but feels like final boss, so putting that off until after i finish the DLCs
nameless king was a really good fight. an actually engaging dragon fight since you dont beat it just by infinitely poking its feet, which is always a really anticlimactic way to kill a ing dragon. but then the second phase is quite better. nameless king's attacks are good and engaging to deal with. so many of his attacks have delays so you have to really be patient and not dodge on his windups which is the go-to move for most bosses. but i didnt think it was as good a fight as champion gundyr or dragonslayer armor as far as fight mechanics (i just didnt care for off-screen magic spamming in the dragonslayer armor fight). i also felt it was kind of too easy to stagger nameless king? like i wouldnt expect it given a boss fight but i bopped him a few times then he just kind of keeps over and lets me get in a visceral attack. i think i got in at least 2 of those viscerals in my win against him and none of them felt quite earned lol. very good fight
the aldrich fight in anor londo sucked. anor londo in general was kind of a letdown, i wish they did a little more with it given it was such a cool callback in DS1 even with having the silver knight archers. but it was just a few knights standing outside the building, and then a big room with a few of the fireball enemy guys and a bunch of those ceiling slugs. and then straight to the boss. really? letdown area followed by a kind of boring boss. really felt like an inferior reskin of the cyrstal sage fight, which itself was a bad fight in the early game
the archives area was very cool though, and the prince lothric fight was fun. an actually engaging and fun teleport mechanic where he winds up for an attack, then teleports, then finishes the attack so you have to remember which way to dodge after you see where he's coming in from. very well done.
Last edited by spurraider21; 06-25-2025 at 11:41 AM.
I remember greatly enjoying DS3 and one of the only souls like games I ever played to completion. I remember having a tough go of it against Pontiff Sulyvahn but don't remember anyone else pissing me off as much
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