BurntWitsWeekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week?
ketamine_analogueI’ve been in a bit of a gaming limbo since I beat my first playthrough of Bloodborne earlier this year. I’ve been trying out and revisiting a bunch of games and nothing seems to stick.
I’ve been returning to genres that I’ve really enjoyed in the past, like survival-horror and detective games, only for them to fall flat. But that’s cool, those genres were kind of the soundtrack to specific moments in my life and right now seems to be the souls-era. While there are a ton souls games out there, my plan has been to just focus on the FromSoftware titles first before I check out the rest. The ones I still have to play are Dark Souls 2, Sekiro, and Armored Core 6, which I guess isn’t really a souls game, but I can’t say no to a FromSoft entry at this point. Technically I still have things to do in Dark Souls 1 (put it down after Ornstein and Smough) and Dark Souls 3 (didn’t complete the dlc, but have since lost my save), but I think I’ll wait a while before I revisit those games.
I also picked up the Devil May Cry games while on sale. I love the og Resident Evil 4 so it should be fun to see how an early iteration of that game evolved into its own thing and spawned a whole series.
I was also impatient and bought some new releases that, while they seem up my alley, aren’t meshing with my current mood. Oh well, live and learn.
I absolutely adore Sekiro but going to it after a different souls game is gonna be tough. It plays very differently from every other souls game, to the point that a lot of folks would consider it to not be a souls game. The combat is just so unique and if you try to play it like a souls game you’re gonna have a bad time. With that being said, it also has my favourite combat system I’ve ever played and once you learn it, it’s so satisfying to play. I would still highly recommend it, but don’t go into it thinking it’ll play like Bloodborne or Elden Ring or something.
I’ve actually played a bit of Sekiro before, I only got to Lady Butterfly, but I wasn’t meshing too well with the combat and put the game down. I’ve picked it up and set it back down a few times since, always starting from the beginning, but maybe this go around will be the one where I can see it through to completion. Fingers crossed!
The entirety of Hirata Estate is technically optional, so you could always skip it or save it for later if you find Lady Butterfly for example to be too difficult. Outside of there, how far did you get in the main part of the game?
Ah interesting, I didn’t realize that. And I’m not quite sure how far I got, but the one thing I remember was there were bird guys on the roofs giving me a heck of a time, it was my first time running into them.
Ah, the roof of Ashina Castle. The boss at the end there is sort of described as the brick wall that basically is the “final exam” that determines if you’re ready for the “real game” so-to-speak. I’d personally recommend doing that boss and Lady Butterfly around the same time, but you could do it in either order or avoid LB entirely if you wanted to. I usually reach both bosses before fighting either, then fight them back to back, that’s just the way that makes the most sense to me, but everyone’s different.
Thanks for the tips!
How bullet spongey are enemies? One of the reasons I have avoided eldenring is because it looks that every mob has a million HP.
I haven’t found the enemies to be bullet spongey in Elden Ring either as long as you’re sufficiently levelling and upgrading your weapons so I’m not sure I know what you mean.
But in Sekiro you don’t really damage health but rather build a stance meter, which once you fill all the way allow you to deal a death blow, but if you stop attacking or deflecting for more than a moment the meter starts to go back down. You can do health damage but it doesn’t usually make sense to do so.
so I’m not sure I know what you mean.
I was mostly basing it on videos I’ve watched. I haven’t actually played it. I’d kind of consider any fight that lasts more than 10 minutes to be well into bullet sponge territory though.
Having a stance meter instead of healthbars sounds pretty interesting though, I think I’ll check it out.
I’m not sure I’ve had any boss fight last 10 minutes in Elden Ring and I’ve played through the game 20+ times. Unless you’re doing challenge runs, that could obviously take way longer depending on the challenge run. But a normal playthrough? I’d be surprised to see any boss take 10 minutes to kill. One of you would be dead long before then I think.
Have you ever played nuclear throne? That’s kinda my preferred pacing in a game, but there aren’t many. I’d love a soulslike where combat was that fast and frantic, and bosses are really difficult but also die really fast if you play it right.
No, I’ve never even heard of it before. I looked it up, it does look interesting but I think it would be too frantic for me. While I do appreciate a game that is quick, since I don’t really have any time for video games these days, something that requires me to have lightning fast reflexes seems a bit too much for me at this point. On the rare occasion I get to sit down and play a game I want it to be something I don’t have to stress over too much. I happen to be pretty good at souls games so I don’t find them stressful, and otherwise I tend to play slower paced RPGs and stuff.