Progress report: Backslid so hard in the Crystal Cave that I decided to explore.
This last stream was an interesting one, as I didn't make a lot of progress, but I felt like I made a lot of discoveries. In the Crystal Cave, there is a section with some hard to see platforms. To help you, the game has a corpse near the cave carry something called a prism stone. It states that it can be used to see how far down a drop is, as it'll make a noise and show a color sparkle on the ground where it hits. Primarily, you would use it to find these hard to see paths, letting you know where to walk. Useful, right?
The thing is, they give you 20 of them, and you don't throw them far, so you need to kinda constantly use them. Additionally, as far as I could tell, there's no way to get more at this time. This reminds me of the first time I ended up in the New Londo Ruins, and got the Transient Curse item. There, they give you 3 of those items, but they become hard to get when you're low on them.
Back to the cave. I ran out of those dumb things after about... oh... 4 deaths or so? So I started to worry, since I didn't have the path memorized, nor did I know if there were more beyond the one I found. Turns out, there was! And I found a way to navigate it without dying a metric fuckton. How? Aural Decoy.
The spell launches forward at an angle, and affixes to surfaces, releasing a little blue ping, normally used to distract enemies. In this case, I angled it lower to the ground and it stuck to where the hidden floor was, and I was able to use it as a path detector to work forward. Once i found the right path, I ran afoul of some horrifying clam enemies, and bailed from the zone, cause I started backsliding.
I then left back to Firelink Shrine, to try to buy a new copy of Great Soul Arrow to test something, but the Horrifying Long Neck was asleep, and the Sorcery shop didn't have what I wanted. So that was a wash. Or it almost was. After talking to someone, I explored the Graveyard some more, and stumbled upon the Catacombs. This area is weird. When the skeletons are killed here, they appear to regenerate a few seconds later. I was starting to get overwhelmed early, because an enemy I killed and walked past had surrounded me on a narrow walkway, but then I had an idea. A dumb, stupid longshot idea, along the lines of other dumb longshot ideas I had, where most of them did not pay off.
I switched to my Divine Falchion. Lo and Behold, the enemies stayed dead. What a dumb fucking stroke of luck that I did that earlier in the game.
And you know what this is going to do? This is going to encourage me to try a dozen more stupid, half-baked ideas thinking "oh, this will make x or y happen" and nothing will happen. This is a curse. This will force me to give the game a ton more credit, or attempt to puzzle through issues that don't actually exist. I have cursed myself to overthinking and stupidly testing dumb combinations. Good job, me. Thanks game. I have given myself 20 more hours of overthinking.
I'm going to keep going through the Catacombs for now. I have a few ideas of places to explore after this though. I can try to go back through New Londo, and find that tower that was by the priest there. I can go back to the woods and use the crest I bought from the Blacksmith, or I can go back to the Crystal Cave and finally clear that out. Don't know how i"ll feel after the Catacombs, but we'll see where I end up.
After my run in with the Law Firm, I had tried to explore more, now that I was free to move around the world easier. I attempted to fight the Hydra (Died repeatedly), tried to explore Darkroot more (door still locked), and attempted to fight Ceaseless Discharge again (lolnope), and surprise, nothing came from them.
So where did I end up? Why the Archives of course! The magical Archives where things resist sorceries! Truthfully, I don't know how much of the difficulty I'm having is due to my build and strategies. Whenever I see some bits of game play, I'm frequently seeing a lot of two-handed melee builds, and I'm not sure if that's the "intended" way of playing or not.
Anyways, the Archives are still kicking my ass. I shouldn't be surprised. I even mentioned it in the previous Dark Souls post. I started to let myself believe that "I beat Ornstein & Smough, I should be able to take this on" but no. No, that's not quite the case.
I won't say I'm stone walled, but I am starting to feel that I put myself into some hard spots by neglecting points in Vitality. Some of the arrows that hit me take off 3/4 of my HP, the spellcaster dudes hit me for more damage with their tridents than their spells, and I can get overrun easy. But it's not a total block yet. I found the... Balcony bonfire, I guess I'd call it after being locked down in the library prison area for some time.
I guess this area is easier? I haven't found any huge walls like Anor Londo, like the 3 hours I spent with the walkway archers, or the 6 hours I spent in a protracted Legal battle. So there is some merit to the "Anor Londo is the biggest roadblock" rhetoric.
I keep thinking to myself "Alright, I'm a fairly high level, I should be able to just snipe these enemies and get through without a hitch" and no, that's not the case. I thought that there may be some switch when this game becomes "easy", but nah. That's not how Dark Souls do.
So how am I feeling about Dark Souls? Well, I'm enjoying playing the game again. The tension and anxiety that I was feeling when going through Anor Londo is gone. I have some paths to explore and it'll be interesting to see what opens up when I clear the Crystal Kingdom out. I'm really enjoying the Sorcerer game play. As long as I know where the enemies are, or if I have an idea of where they are, I am able to engage with a lot of enemies on my own terms and find ways to gain an upper hand in battle before even dealing any damage. Aural Decoy is such an incredibly useful ability for managing enemy engagement that I am flabbergasted whenever I hear that it's a weird spell choice.
It also took me near 60 hours to learn that roll-attacks are a thing. I sure am smart.
I'm pretty sure I like Dark Souls. I don't think I'll play it again, because I don't typically replay games, but the dance-like cadence of the combat can really suck you in and entrance you. Soul Arrow, step step, Aural Decoy, Heavy Soul Arrow, step, Aural Decoy, weapon swap, stab stab, weapon swap, Soul Arrow.
Have you been the victim of an unprovoked attack from a Silver Knight? Have you fallen due to poor construction and lack of city-mandated guard rails? Fallen down an unsecured elevator shaft? Call Ornstein & Smough today for a free consultation. We have countless decades experience making sure our clients get what's coming to them. Most of our opponents don't reach court of the Princess of Sunlight for litigation! Call Ornstein & Smough to have your legal issues Executed.
If you can't tell, I beat the dumb law firm and made the next major plot advancement. I still haven't figured out what the Covenants do (I'll get there eventually), but I switched from the Covenant of the White to the Princess' Guard, mostly because the dude I signed on with before was an asshole. I also gained the fast travel option, so woo.
OH! I also finally got to use that item that let me invade the Fire Keeper Murderer's world.
I... forgot the dude's name. He dead now though. I did the justice.
I also got eaten by the big eel dude at Firelink, and placed the Lordvessel in the big bowl.
Now, I might have some options paralysis. Here are the places I can go, that I remember.
I can go deal with the Hydra in Darkroot.
I can go figure out what's going on with the large painting in Anor Londo.
I can go past Anor Londo, past the Gold Gate that opened.
I can go deal with Ceaseless Discharge.
I can try to find the gold gate that appeared to open near Ceaseless Discharge.
Haven't decided where I want to go yet, but I'll figure something out.
I want to talk about the fight with the Law Firm. What a frustrating piece of ass it was. Thinking about the fight now just causes the spine area between my shoulder blades to tense up. I would LOATHE to play this game again, just because I do not want to deal with them again. I feel relieved that I don't have to see their stupid faces again, but I'm also angry that I had to deal with them in the first place. I am more pissed off than anything with that fight. I'm making myself mad and anxious just writing this. Goddamn it. It took several hours of kiting attempts, awkward lock ons, a few camera angles getting wedged in the corner, a few dozen lucky as hell last minute dodges, and a bunch of getting snuck up on by a dude the size of a house, but I finally got past them.
Fuck Ornstein and his weirdly homing jump attack. Fuck Smough when he does the Dedede butt smash from outside your range of vision. Fuck Ornstein and his slippery constant dodging and avoid spells at point blank range. Fuck Phase 2 Smough and his double choo choo train attack where the second one hits me as soon as I stand up. Fuck their 1-2 attack combos, where one knocks me down, and the other hits me the split-second I am able to be damaged again.
BONUS ROUND! Fuck the Giant Knight that can hit you once you're in the boss room.
I will burn Anor Londo to the ground, and leave nothing but ash, fascinating architecture be damned.
Supposedly this fight was one of the harder points in the game, but I'll believe that when I see it. The game has been nothing if not a string of "Hardest parts of the game", so I'm going to believe in the pattern that I've seen, instead of what I've heard. I'm hoping the next part isn't as difficult. The sooner I can forget about these jokers, the better.
UPDATE: Forgot Red/Blue. Added and corrected rankings. Also expanded Gold/Silver section.
Lists are fun. Thinking and comparing things is fun. Let's go.
These lists will reflect the games I have played. They'll be listed by release set.
12. Diamond/Pearl/Platinum (DS)
The introduction of Cynthia was neat, and the digging minigame was fun, but man, this one felt boring as hell. Adding the Physical/Special split for moves i probably the best thing it did though. Prior to these games, moves used either Attack or Special Attack depending on their type. For example, all Ghost type moves used your Attack state in generations 1-3, while all Fire attacks used your Special Attack (RIP Flareon, with your higher Attack than Special). This split made the stat used move-dependant.
11. Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon (3DS)
This has played out identical to Sun and Moon for the most part, barring the introduction of space cops, but after a few islands I'm not seeing enough to differentiate it from the previous entry in the series. Maybe it changes towards the end. We'll see.
10. Pokemon Go (Mobile)
Might be cheating to add this to the list, but don't care. Pokemon Go is ok, but I don't like doing the raid shit and battles that the game needs me to do to progress.
9. Sun/Moon (3DS)
This is probably the easiest game in the series. I'm not hating on that fact. Pokemon games are designed for children, and I've been playing these things for over 20 years. I know what's up. I like the aesthetics of the tropical islands, and the removal of HMs was an interesting choice. ust having a Pokemon that you can call on to push boulders, or to surf on, or to fly you wherever is nice, and doesn't require the use of a team slot. Team Skull is outstanding and useless, as a gang of misfit kids would be. Them being a decoy antagonist team is outstanding.
8. Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald (GBA)
We're getting to the point where I'm starting to split hairs, since I like a lot of the Pokemon games. I wish there was more to the Contests than there was, and I didn't quite care for Team Aqua and Team Magma as much as villians. Kyogre Groudon and Rayquaza are neat though.
7. Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire (3DS)
This was a toss up between this, and the next on on the list. While it's more of the same, it also adds a really cool epilogue chapter focused on Rayquaza,and found a way to add more of the previous legendaries through Wormholes. Plus, you get to fly around on a Latios or Latias, and that's cool. Seeing a rendered Hoein below you as you fly is super cool.
6. Fire Red/Leaf Green (GBA)
This one wins out over ORAS just because of Gen 1 nostalgia. Sorry. It was close.
5. Red/Blue/Yellow (GBA)
These games are a charming mess. This is the Pokemon game that I've spent the most time with. Part of the endearment to it comes from when I speedran the game, a few years ago. Well, learned half of the speedrun. The game feels like a little engine that could, at times, barely chugging along as some dumb glitch is waiting to pop up. From Badge Boosting, to Crits ignoring all stat changes (including your Attack up buffs), to Ditto's transform locking you out of Struggle, Trainer Fly, and of course, MissingNo, these glitches paint a messy picture of this game. Normally, I rail on glitches, and games getting love despite of them, so this may seem hypocritical, given my thoughts on everything Bethesda develops, but a few things set this apart for me. It was a new franchise, it was on old handheld technology, and this was back in the mid 1990s. Fixing a game wasn't as easy.
It's hard to ignore the nostalgia of the game and what it represents to this entire franchise. It's hard to separate the fondness I have for Charmander, Bulbasaur and Squirtle from my childhood and nostalgia, but I think this is right for the game. I have immense fondness for it's jankiness and what it's done, but other games did it better.
4. Silver/Gold/Crystal (GBC/3DS)
Let the Hate Flow Through You. Don't get me wrong, I love these games. They're some of my favorite. I just think the remaining 3 are better. The introduction of the roaming legendaries was neat. The addition of Dark and Steel were also great, to check some of the issues with the first game. Totodile is my boy. Top 4 is pretty good! It had a lot of neat things, like introducing the day/night cycle, rematching trainers, and fixing a lot of the issues that plagued generation 1.
For the record, if you want to play Gen 2 again, but want to play it a bit differently, I recommend looking up "Pokemon Crystal Clear". It's an open world hack for Pokemon Crystal that gives you like, 25 starter options, you can start in either Kanto or Johto, and the game has a scaling difficulty, so you can do the gyms in any order you'd like. The downside is that it takes away the plot, but if your goal is the whole "To be a master" type thing, this may work well for you.
3. HeartGold/SoulSilver (DS)
So is top 3! Walking Pokemon! They're so cute. Walkin' around with you as you travel. Also, using the Physical/Special split that was introduced in DPP, it makes a good game better.
2. Black/White (DS)
The difference between 1 and 2 are close.
Black/White have villians I actually enjoyed fighting, because they were pretty shitheads. Their entire process was running rallies convincing people that they were enslaving Pokemon, and that they should be released... So THEY would be the only ones with Pokemon. It's so silly, I love it.
These games also did something I absolutely adored. Before you beat the Elite 4, you can ONLY see new Pokemon in the wild. You may get some people from other countries carrying like, a Pikachu, but you will not be able to capture one in the wild. You only see Unova native Pokemon until you beat the Elite 4. After that, other species start to fill the world. Sure, it's gamey, but it's Pokemon. The game also uses seasons that change on a monthly basis. The terrain of the world changes through the year slightly, so you may be able to access a certain optional location in Winter in the mountain that you couldn't access in other season. To help with this theme, they introduced a Pokemon whose appearance is determined based on the season you find it in.
Also, unlimited use TMs is a godsend, and carried over to every game after.
1. X/Y (3DS)
I wish the quality of life changes in this game were kept across later generations. The ease in which you could access Super Training, a way to raise your Pokemon's EV stats through a Minigame, rather than hunting out 200 Mankey to raise your Attack EVs or whatever, was fun. It made getting a Pokemon with the stats you wanted easier. Having three different, yet easily accessible, movement speeds was nice, between walking, rollerblades, and the traditional bike. The addition of Fairy type added some new wrinkles to the metagame, and brought Dragon types down a peg. Previously, Dragons were only weak to Dragon Type and Ice Type moves. Now they're weak to Fairy types, and Fairy types are immune to Dragon moves. THis also affected Poison and Steel types, as Fairy types are weak to those types of moves.
The France-inspired Kalos was pretty to walk around, had some interesting architecture, and was an overall treat to explore. Some of the new Pokemon are absolutely some of my favorites, with the Honedge line, the cursed goddamned sword, being tops. Mega Evolutions added another interesting gameplay mechanic and made some older Pokemon really interesting. Shout out to Mega Kangaskhan, and Johnny Six-Spoons (Mega Alakazam).
Team Flare, the villain organization of the game, is the campiest, most ridiculous, over the top villains in the series. They were flaming red-orange suits with bright orange like... half-pompadour. It's great.
More lists will happen when the mood strikes. I'll probably do a Final Fantasy one at some point and I don't know what else. Maybe Doom if I get around to Doom 2016 at some point.
We have cleared the narrow ledge with the archers firing huge arrows, and unlocked the gate by the blacksmith.
What a dumb stupid trek this area has been. It's not JUST that I'm bad at all games, but it's so the fact that the part I just cleared had some of the most frustrating enemy placement I can recall. The two archers on the ledge were such a huge roadblock for me. I ended up spending hours just trying to get past them. They weren't the only cause for frustration, mind you. The big iron guardians and the electric spear demons had their moments, but navigating that ledge made me feel helpless.
But that's in the past now. It can't hurt me anymore.
I think.
Now, I am navigating through huge... castles, I guess. For some reason I'm not getting a castle-y vibe from them but whatever. Common language prevails. I guess it's a castle.
Anyways. I wanted to talk about Anor Londo's aesthetic. While I am not a fan of the perpetual sunset color scheme, I do adore the building aesthetic and architecture here. The vaulted ceilings, large windows, and the tiling of the floor speak very well to me. I am reminded of Kamurocho in Yakuza 0. Not only do both Anor Londo have a strong sense of what they are, but also when. Kamurocho feels like a bustling, crowded Japanese city, and Anor Londo feels like a castle town, full of estates and buildings on the horizon. The wide sweeping walkways between buildings by the first bonfire make it feel like it could have been a busy throughway between the high ceiling chapels.
Anor Londo actually feels very Dungeons and Dragons to me. This area feels like it could be part of an abandoned castle town that a party of adventurers explore, dealing with the living armor guardians, and the demons that moved in. Hell, even the monstrous blacksmith in this area feels like a nice enough dude who is just doing his job. You could make a hell of a mid-level adventure out of this place.
Thematically, this place is the strongest for me so far. The Lower Burg tells an interesting story as well, as an undesirable place to be, acting as the literal foundation for the city above, but I really enjoy the design of Anor Londo... Apart from the unfair enemy placement on the walkway.
With that section behind me, what's next? Well, I can get back into the castle easy now, and decide if I want to deal with the iron knights everywhere. I could backtrack through the building and go through the fireplace stairway I found and see where that goes (which I think is the play here). Or I can try to go down to the main floor of the castle, and try to deal with the shiny friends there. Decisions abound.
I do want to talk about sense of place in some games, and just highlight some ones that I really love. Kamurocho and Sotenbori feel so excellent to be in. Kamurocho feels like a bustling city during the real estate boom of the 80s (obviously). The neon lights everywhere, the chatter, the cramped feeling of the alleyways... It makes you feel like you know this place after spending a few hours there. The environment serves the theme.
Final Fantasy XV qualifies as well. Not so much because it's a place I love exploring, but it feels like a for real road trip game. You're cruising the roads of varying quality, dumb chatter going on between friends, and you're driving past towns and cities along the way. You stop at a local diner to get their take on a popular food, or find local treat that you can't find anywhere else. Setting matches themes perfectly.
The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild conveys a sense of emptiness with pockets of civilization, following the calamity that befell Hyrule. It feels lonely to wander sometimes, but it also feels peaceful. On a sunny day, watching some deer or rabbits run around fills my heart with mirth.
I want to like the feeling of Anthem. Anthem, on the surface does a lot of things right. It has the small hub area that they want you to explore and learn the name of each person in town. The big open areas try to tell some sort of story, with the wreckage. It doesn't do it for me. It doesn't tie together in a way that resonates with me.
A strong sense of place can really convey emotions and feelings to the player. It's great to be able to say "What lies beyond" or "what happened here" or "What else is here" are such interesting questions and feelings to have when playing a game. It's not a matter of just checking boxes about what to include, after all, I can find scurrying wildlife in Anthem, but it also has to connect with the player.
It's really hard to put this into words, as it is so closely tied to feelings and emotions. You could point me to several games that look like they have these details and unified themes, but if I'm not connecting to an area, then it's theme or aesthetic aren't as appealing.
I'll just wrap this here: Anor Londo is cool to look at and explore.
I don't understand the usage of Pastebin. I don't like how transient the posts there are.
Anyways, I wanted to talk about streaming a bit, specifically some stuff about my channel and how I feel about the subject. You can find my channel here
I've been streaming off and on for over 5 years now. Started off in the Mega Man X speedrunning community, where I met a bunch of people I call friends now. I'm glad I started using Twitch and met some people I'm close with.
So, the stream update. Around January, I thought about stopping streaming. I was in the middle of playing Persona 5 and had just started Dark Souls. I thought, and shared with others, that after I finished those two games, I'd probably take a break from streaming, since I was feeling burned out, even though I wasn't streaming much.
Then something changed.
It wasn't that I was getting more views on the stream, which kind of happened after awhile, but it was that I was able to talk to people about what was going on after it. And I was finding myself just relaxed and laughing at myself again.
For a time, when things went on, I was getting frustrated more easily and I wasn't just laughing like I used to. I wasn't entertaining myself by making up bullshit songs or running a dumb stream of conscious sentence meant as a joke insult to the game. Writing about my Dark Souls experience has helped to. I've bene able to engage with these games outside of the stream and it's felt good.
For example, when I was playing Persona for a bit, it was whatever, but then one of my friends started watching, and he got hooked, and we went through this whole rollercoaster together. It made it fun as hell. We got to shit talk characters we hated, and talk about the wild shit that happened, both during stream and between them. In Dark Souls, I have people who are there to laugh at the dumb shit with me after they watch the vods or whatever. It's fun to be able to engage with your own idiocy. It makes the streams where nobody's there more enjoyable too, because it puts me in a mindset where I'm not just grinding away at the game, i'm not worried about anything else, I'm being dumb and stupid, and I stopped caring if my dumb stupidity was annoying someone.
So yeah, I'll try to freestyle a game-themed version of "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" as I run back to a section for the eights time, only to lose the rhyme after 2 bars. Yeah, I'll call a lovingly rendered cup a "Cup-ass cup" when i doesn't do anything, but looks out of the ordinary.
I'm having fun streaming again, even if it's just for me. Laughing at myself is my strongest strength, and it helped stave off that burnout I was feeling before. After Dark Souls, I plan on tackling Monster Hunter World fior a bit. Don't think I'll play that one through, but I want to play more of it. As for my other game, it's going to be Fire Emblem Warriors, because feeling like a minion destroying demigod will be fun. I'll sprinkle smaller games in as well, like Riven, maybe some Baba is You, and other puzzly games. We'll see.
