Hawke64

Dark Souls: Remastered. Defeated Seath the Scaleless. The hard part was to not let his tail clip through the walls. After 15 minutes of running around him in circles I got the Moonlight Greatsword (which I can't use effectively). Defeated Knight Artorias. Took 3 attempts. He seemed to vary the length of his combos, depending on his remaining HP and my position.

I just lowered the difficulty to "Story" for these chapters. It still took several hours to find the third key in the House at the Edge of Time.

Dark Souls: Remastered. Acquired the Lordvessel. Explored the Darkroot Garden. Somehow after Sulyvahn's dogs with their odd hitboxes, the Royal Rat Authority and even the forest cats Sif, a mandatory boss, feels much less dangerous (except the obvious hit in the feels). Realized that my favorite armor is basically a pajama with protection from poison, as I can't roll if I wear anything heavier. Tried to ascend my Uchigatana +10 to the Chaos Blade and tested it at the nearest giant guards. They took 3 hits, but damage to my health was rather inconvenient.

Dark Souls: Remastered. Watched as Mildred obliterated Quelaag. Indeed, true warriors need no armor. Returned to Undead Burg and went to explore the Depths.

Dark Souls: Remastered. Reached Blighttown. FPS are stable, but it's still Blighttown.

I think I've completed the main story of Toukiden 2. Tried to trigger the final mission, but it was behind ~30 story-free combat encounters (you get dropped into an arena, defeat an Oni (or several), teleport back). It's not bad, but it feels tedious, because most of the Oni were in the main story missions already. Also my tolerance for animu BS decreased since Toukiden Kiwami and I realized that making a village in the middle of nowhere the central hub was a terrible idea. I get that in post-apocalyptic setting you can't have many nice big cities, but Fallout had at least 1 per game. For what it's worth, Toukiden 2 is better than Kiwami in many aspects (more open world, clearer main quest progression, more 2-phase large Oni, graphics). Expecting any improvements in terms of story or the quality of port (including English dub) would be too optimistic.

Same. But, I think, the cut-scenes and dialogues are better*, than in TESV, though it was odd to be unable to move during those. Combat feels as bad as it was, which is quite disappointing. Thus, if there are stealth and diplomacy, I'm going to master them. *The "crispy meat" scene was kind of hilarious, the graphic effects (especially lighting) were on point.

There are independent developers. Speaking of which, The Game Bakers announced their new game, Haven. Judging by the screenshots, there are combat and VN elements. I enjoyed their first game (Furi, boss rush with bullet hell elements; it took 2 attempts to get into, but it was worth it), so whatever genre Haven is, it'll be good.

Anthem – our Live Service begins Somehow it makes me sad to see a studio, I associate solely with SP RPGs, developing a "service". And if Anthem succeeds (unlikely, but not impossible), microtransactions, mindless grind and poor KB&M controls may become core design elements of the future Bioware games.

Toukiden 2. After The Talos Principle Toukiden feels dumb, though it might be a cultural thing. It doesn't support mouse, but, unlike MHW, there are NPC companions and I can jump onto monsters from the ground. The performance is solid - no FPS drops, the controls are customizable. I bound target lock/camera reset to Space and it's fairly comfortable to play. Reached the 4th chapter and regretting that the game is linear, otherwise I would have sit out the conflict in previous chapter and looted the bodies afterwards.

Tried Monster Hunter: World. Refunded. It had quite comfortable PC controls, but the inability to pause the game in offline mode was rather odd. And the only available NPC for hunts was my Palico. The Talos Principle. It strongly reminds me of Portal, but with more dialogues. So far so good (puzzles, responsive and precise controls, graphics, soundtrack). I don't see storytelling without cut-scenes often, but I enjoy it more.

If you can't pass the Disposition check, despite the correct (<2) values, I recommend to post it on the Technical Support forum.

Tried Crossing Souls (action-adventure). The main issue which successfully overrides anything good (mostly graphics) this game could offer is uncomfortable, unprecise and uncustomizable controls. The plot is as cheesy as one could expect and the character switch system adds more annoyance than challenge or diversity in combat or exploration. Also replayed the final battle in Sundered. The bug with the portal/wind after defeating the boss has been fixed. It might be because of CS, but I decided to play through the DLC, The Magnate of the Gong (included in the Eldritch Edition). It was less challenging, than I expected (I was overleveled for the boss), but the new platforming sections (one in each region) were great, each had its own requirements for completion. After that I explored the rest of the map and collected all perks. And defeated Nyarlathotep & The Shining Trapezohedron with the Eradicator perk active (increases difficulty and quality of loot). It changed the boss room a bit and they dropped several level 3 perks.

Completed Tower of Time. The last two floors and the ending were ridiculous (too much drama for nothing, too many plot holes). But the combat was quite enjoyable. Edit. Also the archer seems less OP when opponents have 100% damage reflection, so if she auto-attacks them, she dies.

Tried Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles. Refunded after climbing the highest mountain on the map and finding there a bottle of hair dye, then accidentally falling. I expected something with more precise controls and diverse movement (climbing, sprinting, dodging, etc). Reached the 9th floor in Tower of Time. It became actually difficult, but more fun (combat and story).

I think, it gets better as you progress. In general, you get 1 party member and ~1 level per floor. I've reached the 7th floor and I can confirm that the first four champions are the best in terms of combat (DPS and survivability). The others aren't weak, but require specific tactics to be useful.

Tower of Time. Not what I expected (a dungeon-crawler, instead of a CRPG), but I like the numbers, such as "Completion 100%" and "+57% to Skill damage". The story is fairly straightforward (post-apocalypses, the party tries to save what remained by exploring an ancient magical tower) and the combat is satisfying (occasionally too easy). I genuinely detest that the plot has been linear so far and the avatar was predetermined, but it's typical for the genre. Reached the 4th floor. Edit. Reached the 5th floor, the plot has become more interesting and the soundtrack is excellent.

3 full PTs (2 canon PTs, one for the main and companion quests only). Going for another one after the last patch (or when my vacation starts). I hope that Obsidian will launch a campaign on Fig or Kickstarter for PoEIII.

Fort Deadlight and Arkemyr's Mansion, because stealth was a viable approach; The Archives (The Forgotten Sanctum) and The Bridge Ablaze (The Beast of Winter), because of the lore and new information on the Saint's War; Neketaka; Companions;

In general, kiting is the key - when fighting several enemies simultaneously, getting surrounded means reload. I rolled in circles landing 2 light quick hits at a time on 1 of them and rolling/sprinting away before the rest caught up. Worked for the most of the game, except 2 bosses from Hearts of Stone (one required more aggression, the other had to be parried) and 1 boss from Blood and Wine.

Sundered: Eldritch Edition. Metroidvania/Rogue-like. If part of the locations wasn't RNG'd, the game would be amazing. All other aspects (combat, customizable PC controls, plot, graphics and soundtrack) are great, but randomized areas and the horde system make exploration much less enjoyable, than it could be.

Japan bans game key re-sales and save data editors. I'd blame microtransactions, but it seems that the issue is with proprietary save editors distributed via PSN. Doesn't make it any better, though.

I edited* Nok-Nok back and completed the last chapter with him. There was no epilogue for him, but he participated in the final battle and the secret ending was successfully achieved. *added him as an available companion, instead of setting the correct quest flag. Not the best solution, but the least time-consuming. --- As a side note, I think, there's strong dissonance between the plot and its presentation - the story by itself is rather grim, but the narrator (Linzi) paints rainbows and unicorns upon it. The main character builds their kingdom on the remains of their adversaries and predecessors and has to be absolutely determined to hold it, no matter how many corpses and resources required to do so. Thus the only character fitting this mindset I was able to RP was Kyros the Overlord. Though, Tyranny was somehow more self-aware. Despite (or because of) it, PF:KM still was interesting to play.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Today I've tried to complete the last two chapters in one go and it probably was a bad idea. Though, it turned out that the last chapter was optional, so I have completed the game with a reasonably good outcome. Also found a Masterwork Siangham (had to look it up). For some reason it had a crate as its icon and I don't remember this weapon type being available.