Wormerine

I finally picked the base game - won't be playing it right away, but looking forward to what Josh was so enthusiastic about. Gave a brief go to Guardians of the Galaxy as it dropped on GamePass. So far so good. Pretty much AAA affair with more spectacle then substance they they seem to imitate GotG movies pretty well - and if there is knock-off Marvel series property I would spend some time in, it's Guardians. Looking forward to playing more of it.

That's where I am planning to go next.... and they said everyones playthrough of Elden RIng will be different, pffff.

Ah yes. Infinite FP magic spam. I am playing melee character mainly with some magic on side - so far I found range magic rather useless, I struggle to hit small targets. If I want to cheese I found manual aimed arrows to be a better approach. As far as magic users I managed to rush them and kill them without much issue - I was able to kill them in two hits though, I can imagine it being lethal and annoying if you don't do that much DPS.

Yes the mechanical soldiers can be annoying once they enter the spasm phase. Double iron maiden fight tested my patience as well… ended up using summons to get over it. Didn’t encounter hands yet, nor later missles.

Honestly I don't think that is that surprising. In my case that is the first decent complete new armor set I run accross. I am pretty happy to dualwied to katanas though - one physical and one magical. So far it worringly melts through enemies HPs.

It's not quite fashion souls, but it's.... something

Yeah, I really struggle to find good armor sets or weapons I could use. I finally managed to branch out of my starting katana, and I kinda changed armors just for a sake of it - but it's nowhere near DS3 levels where I was torn about what to equip. For a massive world like that, useful drops are far and few between. Most boses reward you with ashes, which is blaaah. I try to not use the anyway, and if I feel like using it I have a pretty good one already all leveled up and ready to go.

Ufff, so that was trickier to pull off then anything that FromSoftware has ever produced (Bayonetta):

Did you really create an account on Obsidian's forum to ask about random game made by a minor polish studio? xD Google is your friend.

BRING BLOODBORNE TO PC! And Bayo2. Seriously Nintendo, Sony up.

3 is good. 2 is not.

Interesting. Personally I don't really think of Soulslike as RPG as such - or rather is the ideal implementation of what I consider valuable in RPG combat. RPGness serves defining your characters, but I don't find progression itself to be compelling or to be a point in itself. At a core I treat it as an action game with flexible playstyle. To me every SoulsLike has been about exploring cool dungeons and fighting cool bosses - to me best content in all of the three games are DLCs as characters are fully developed by that point and FromSoft can go ham with bosses in terms of complexity and difficulty. I suppose that's why I didn't mind Sekiro at all, though I suppose it has far less replayibility... which doesn't mean much as I usually end up playing similar melee character build in DS games in the end. I would say it's mostly true, but there are bull**** moments, and bosses and encounters. I do remember Anor Londo rooftops getting infuriating... I wonder how I would respond to them after many Soulsbornes later - would it be a cakewalk, or just bad design as you mention. DS1 has a lot of jank especially in the latter half which feels unfinished unfortunately. I did think that Dark Souls3 was rather well put together from the beginning to the end.

I can't say if it's your cup of tea, but considering how influencial Dark Souls was I would say yes.

Agree, but there is cohesion to their worlds. I really didn't get much of the "story" of DS1 but uncovering each layer of city build upon city, delving deeper and deeper into hellscape and arriving into deceptively pristine city of Anor Londo were unforgettable. Creepy, sad little NPC stories. I never felt DS needed anything more then that. Not so sure about Elden Ring just yet. It feels static and dead in the way previous games never did, even though they are mechanically identical. Edit. I find FromSoftware games thematically rich - more like an arthouse film, rather then traditional plot and action driven entertainment.

I must say that so far ER doesn't click with me DS1&3 and Sekiro clicked with me. Overwhelming similarity to DS makes it a bit awkward, and tone and gameplay isn't as tonally tight as they were in DS. Vagueness was part of the charm in DS, in here with brighter to tone, bigger guidance and lesser difficulty - I feel like I could have used something more concrete ala. Sekiro. I am just dipping outside opening green areas and exploring some cooler environments. Finally enemies are catching up with my power level. Last couple hours were a snooze fest.

I mean combat and exploration, definitely. World building - yes. Story and characters in true FromSoftware fashion is barely there. Apples to Oranges

Yeah, soon after release they released a small patch that made things better. I do get occasional stutters, though honestly the only place I had an issue that would affect gameplay was Sentinel right at the start of the game. I would get stutters if I fought him at the base of the hill, but not if I fought him around the church. I started as Samurai and rolled without the shield for a while. Turns out it's really helpful, more so then in DS3 I believe. Guard Counter is really powerful (heavy attack right after blocking).

Yup. Top down immersive sim from ex-Arcane devs. Coming to GamePass on day one.

The legacy dungeon that I did I thought was excellent, with two great bosses and some unique encounters with tougher enemies. I so start having an issue with open world - the main appeal of finding new stuff is doing fun content, but I am getting too overleveled for the area - making the encounters forgettable. Rewards aren't particularly great as I just get more and more sidegrades that I am unlikely to use. I hear later areas get tougher so I am looking forward to that.

I heard best performance at the moment is PS4 version running on PS5 😬. I am fortunate to have not too many issues on PC but stuttering on open world can be annoying.

Elden Ring janky? DS1 had some jank, but FromSoftware releases have been rather refined for some time. Outside poor port, I found nothing janky in it so far. Nor did I in DS3 or Sekiro.

You mean skipping dialogue I think... I am pretty sure 24 hours is about the time I spent in the party camp alone. I spent more then that on expansion alone, and that was a fraction of length of the base game. I think base game took me about 80h, though I can't verify as I played it through a physical copy... those were the times. I need to play more, but I think my take might be that there is a better game then Dark Souls3 within Elder Ring, but you need to go through open-world to get there.

Yes, but it's done better. Characters is what carries ME2, even though it suffers from middle part syndrome - neither starting nor ending the story, so plotwise it's just fluff. But it nicely expands characters from ME1. I do! I believe it failed in every promise it made in it's opening hours. At it's very basic it is a KOTOR style game, but it goes on for about 60h more then it should. Unlike previous Bioware games its move to "dark fantasy" strips it of any charm while failing miserably in creating nuanced world or putting players in interesting situations. It is a game I see potential in, but DA:O is just one big missed opportunity. It failed in being a reactive RPG, and failed in being a cinematic experience. Hmmm, kinda reminds me of another game in the making parading as a successor to classic Baldur's Gate games, cough, cough. Edit: First legacy dungeon in Elden Ring completed. It was some excellent content with two fantastic bosses and some memorable tougher encounters. It's almost shame to return to the overworld - as pretty as it is, it is half as interesting as a curated dungeon.

That's a fine selection of games. 👌

Mostly because I didn't play and as for years EA hid all their games from me on Origin it didn't remind it about myself. Now with gamepass I am considering jumping into Andromeda and DA: Inquisition, but I need to run out of things I actually want to play or replay before I get there.