Author Topic: What are you playing?  (Read 692396 times)

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Offline BranDonk Kong

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #475 on: August 09, 2014, 12:14:09 AM »
Fez (PS4). I just downloaded and started this game probably less than an hour ago. It's pretty cool - kind of annoying, but I hope I finish it. I also hope it doesn't take that long to finish. PS Plus Instant Game Collection is great, especially when you have a PS3 and a PS4.
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Offline Oblivion

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #476 on: August 09, 2014, 01:06:50 AM »
Cool... but annoying?

Offline azeke

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #477 on: August 09, 2014, 02:20:57 AM »
Fez (PS4). I just downloaded and started this game probably less than an hour ago. It's pretty cool - kind of annoying, but I hope I finish it. I also hope it doesn't take that long to finish.
Main campaign took me about 15+ hours.
Puzzles are often way dumber than you think, most of them just ask you to input certain button inputs at a certain place.
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Offline Triforce Hermit

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #478 on: August 09, 2014, 08:03:18 AM »
Final Fantasy XIII: Plot is crap, main game is awful, battle system is fine though. Post game is amazing. Why the hell I have to slog through the entire game to just to enjoy it is beyond me. This game did not warrant two direct sequels. Still, I invested myself in this game so I'm going to probably buy the sequels.
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Offline azeke

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #479 on: August 11, 2014, 01:33:53 AM »
Aside from finishing up DMC1.

Fantasy Zone (MAME):
Horizontal movement it's like a swimming in a ocean, speed is annoyingly variable because you're constantly fighting the flow and it changes back and forth so it's hard to adjust to this.
It's pretty hard. So far i got to level three and was one UFO away from seeing the third boss.

Fast Racing League (WiiWare):
Completed A set of challenges! They really should have added a few invisible walls in some of them -- i cheated with one challenge by simply jumping off one side of a road and landing further down on the spiral shaped road.

I still can't beat second cup though.

Mega Man 1 (3DS VC):
Stuck on second boss rush, the biggest problem is fire man. He destroys my healthbar and i don't have health enough left to beat Wily's machine.

Logical way to counter Fire Man is use ice beam but i wish i could use Ice Man's ability to float in the air, but i am guessing i can't actually do it, so all you have to do is spam ice beams.
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Offline azeke

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #480 on: August 18, 2014, 03:08:05 AM »
Spent most of my last week going through

DMC3 (360):
Game has great cutscenes that are not only amusing but are also showing gameplay features -- even with how outrageous these videos go, there will always be some move in the cutscene that you can actually do in-game, it's almost a tutorial in sense.

Game has many minor changes that just make sense and were long due for the series -- mission select right from the start, total ranking screen right from the start, lots of little things that just make playing the game much more pleasant.

Combo bar which shows how much time you have left until your combo dies is taken straight out of shmups. It's cool how combo mechanic forces you to diversify your moves because spamming the same move will lead to your combo downgraded.

It kinda bugs me how controlling the game is tied to RB button. Many moves including dodges are done with a combination RB and face button pressed and left stick pushed in some direction. So you're gonna be awkwardly clutching your controller lots of times while playing the game. It just gets physically tiring a bit. Playing Bayonetta again this weekend felt almost liberating after DMC3 because it doesn't require holding RB at all (jumping back into DMC3 required relearning controls though, because my fingers were still in Bayo mode and i kept pressing wrong buttons).

Targeting is kinda cumbersome to work with in big crowds though. Lots of time i had the wrong move coming out because game targeted the wrong enemy. Not a big deal though, because regular encounters with mobs in DMC3 are pretty easy (at least on normal). Only the bosses are actually hard and can kill you.

Simple jumping feels more efficient than rolls to evade attacks, because jump is one button and roll is again a combination of RB, jump button and left stick pushed left or right. As it happens jump has some invinciblity just like roll, so so far simple jump feels like the better way to dodge attacks.

Killed Virgil on first try, i used the dumbest strategy there is -- hit him, if he parries, roll away and hit him again. Nelo Angelo boss fights, who is a similar sword wielding boss and is the same character in DMC1 were more intense, varied and fun. Virgil 1 was kinda disappointing, but i expect next fights with him to be better.

Nevan was fun and cutscene you get after you defeat her was AMAZING. And, again, all that coolest stuff in the cutscene Dante just did? All playable! And that makes it a million times better.

After that was Godzilla dragonfly monster. Had to switch to Trickster for that one because of explosion attacks it does when i try to get close to it. Dashing away with Trickster made this boss much simpler.

Now i am up to mission 12. And have to fight some kind of horse carriage from hell. Fun times.

Bayonetta (360):
Squeezed some Bayo time in between DMC3 sessions.

I Pure Platinum'd Prologue on Hard and it was pretty painful, lots of retries. You need to move strategically around graveyard so that you combo doesn't die during all three waves. Combo limit for plat on Verse 1 is pretty harsh. Thankfully on Verse 2 combo ain't no thing, but it's still hard because you're facing Gracious and Glorious which are the hardest enemies in Bayo (WAY harder than any of the bosses except Jeanne or any other mooks, because of how fast they are).

Then got Platinum on Route 666 which was just as hard. Verse 1, again, wants to never drop your combo for entire duration despite that there are enemies standing WAY away from you shooting fireballs that you can't get to quick enough without your combo dying. And Verse 2 was just a nightmare with three Gracious and Glorious AND a traffic that harms you if you're not careful. I kinda cheezed it with shotguns because their shots stuns and that stops their ultra fast attack patterns.

And finally i Platinum'd Remembrance of Time. The highlight there was Alfheim where i fought two Jeannes. Remember Gracious and Glorious? Jeannes are just as fast if not faster AND have have attacks that they can activate from afar. HAVE FUN.
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Offline azeke

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #481 on: August 19, 2014, 01:06:43 AM »
Last night.

DKC2 (GBA):
Bramble Scramble should be taught in schools. As an example how not to design platforming levels.

Organic artstyle that makes judging if whether you're gonna hit the obstacle or not harder than it should be (many years later Rayman did the very same mistake).

Most of the level you spend flying with the parrot who also has his own hitbox, so now you're twice as big. That makes a problem with undecipherable hitboxes on surrounding vines even worse.

Background is visually busy and sometimes makes it hard to see enemies.

Cheap offscreen attacks by dragonflies. And you need to attack enemies who are offscreen as well.

Unintuitive controls when moving from vine to vine when they're crossed:

^ screenshot is from Gameboy game, but these intercrossed vines are in SNES/GBA version too

Apparently i can only move from vertical vine to horizonthal vine only if i am positioned right. Before that i thought i had to jump off it which in half of the times lead to me hitting ceiling spikes.

Took me a few months to get through this level. I usually played it a few times, died and then put it aside for weeks.

DMC1 (360):
I have no idea why am still playing it. I guess it's THAT good.

I was just playing on Dante Must Die mode and tried to fill up encyclopedia of enemies which gathers information about all attacks they do and all tricks you can do to kill them. I still have a few entries not filled up. The only way to fill up entries is either to get hit by these attacks or to discover and execute these tricks -- then they will be recorded.

While i am at it, i also S-ranked first and second level. Took me a while to kill Phantom on DMD. He hits really hard on this difficulty, so you have to be very safe (or extremely reckless to destroy him with the fastest time possible).

DMC3 (360):
Defeated horsie from Hell. Cheesed it by dashing around with Trickster style and by shooting from afar with Spiral (sniper rail gun). Jumped on top of a carriage a few times and did a decent damage on top of it.

Next boss is Vergil 2. Vergil 2 obtains a new weapon which is extremely similar to Ifrit from the first game, which was the best weapon to use against Nelo Angelo (Vergil) in the first game.

Now Vergil has Ifrit-like weapon with the same charged combo, same uppercut and most importantly -- the same divekick that i loved to abuse so much against him in DMC1. The tables has turned and now i am the sword wielding guy against hard hitting gauntlets.
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Offline BranDonk Kong

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #482 on: August 19, 2014, 08:02:17 AM »
The Last of Us Remastered (PS4) - dope ass game. Been stuck at the part where you first encounter a bunch of runners and a clicker for a bit...gotta come up with a strategy.
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Offline pokepal148

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #483 on: August 19, 2014, 12:20:06 PM »
Ogre Battle 64. Been trying to grind some of my weaker dudes so that I'm not so overall underleveled.

But what's this? A TBS game with a story that (mostly) isn't country A has invaded country B? Say it isn't so. What madness.

I do love how they first introduce the ogres by basically having a rebel soldier find a dead imperial soldier and starts wondering how he died given that the rebels had just arrived and then another imperial screams for help
« Last Edit: August 19, 2014, 03:03:08 PM by pokepal148 »

Offline Adrock

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #484 on: August 19, 2014, 09:36:18 PM »
I finally opened Darksiders 2. Meh...

I was surprised there were no updates, mandatory or otherwise. I have no idea if that's because THQ is no more and the updates were yanked or if there never were any to begin with. I'll look it up, but I'm already typing this.

I'm going to give it more time. So far, it's pretty boring. I don't really care for Death. I liked War in the original more, and I would have preferred Fury over another overly-muscular dude. Then again, I have a feeling Fury would have just been scantily clad and heavy-chested and frankly, these kinds of character design cliches are tiresome. The voice acting and narration are way too over-dramatic. I feel like Vigil Games thought their story was grander than it actually is. And they cheat right in the beginning. After the first boss, Death is whisked away to a world than isn't Heaven, Hell, or Earth. What the fuc...

Still, I paid $10 for this game. I'm nitpicking so far. Ultimately, even if I don't finish it, I won't regret picking it up.

Offline Ceric

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #485 on: August 19, 2014, 09:39:02 PM »
I was trying to finish Depression Quest.  Didn't realize it didn't save my progress ... Which is depressing.
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Offline Shaymin

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #486 on: August 19, 2014, 10:35:17 PM »
I was surprised there were no updates, mandatory or otherwise. I have no idea if that's because THQ is no more and the updates were yanked or if there never were any to begin with. I'll look it up, but I'm already typing this.

THQ went belly-up within a few weeks of the Wii U's launch, so they wouldn't have had a chance to get anything through Nintendo QA if they even cared to. I've had several clipping issues and at least two hard locks, which is apparently only an issue in the Wii U version.
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Offline ShyGuy

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #487 on: August 20, 2014, 12:21:52 AM »
I'm playing the AC IV and Call of Duty Black Ops II I just got in the mail. They are like Summer Blockbusters.

Offline MagicCow64

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #488 on: August 20, 2014, 01:25:44 AM »
Ogre Battle 64. Been trying to grind some of my weaker dudes so that I'm not so overall underleveled.

But what's this? A TBS game with a story that (mostly) isn't country A has invaded country B? Say it isn't so. What madness.

I do love how they first introduce the ogres by basically having a rebel soldier find a dead imperial soldier and starts wondering how he died given that the rebels had just arrived and then another imperial screams for help

This is one of the best games ever, but super hard. Beating this ranks for me along side with unlocking T.T. in Diddy Kong Racing as one of the hardest things I've pulled off. I highly recommend looking at a guide to the bevy of secret game systems/hidden characters as it makes the game a lot more fun and beatable.

Offline MagicCow64

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #489 on: August 20, 2014, 01:32:28 AM »
I finally opened Darksiders 2. Meh...

I was surprised there were no updates, mandatory or otherwise. I have no idea if that's because THQ is no more and the updates were yanked or if there never were any to begin with. I'll look it up, but I'm already typing this.

I'm going to give it more time. So far, it's pretty boring. I don't really care for Death. I liked War in the original more, and I would have preferred Fury over another overly-muscular dude. Then again, I have a feeling Fury would have just been scantily clad and heavy-chested and frankly, these kinds of character design cliches are tiresome. The voice acting and narration are way too over-dramatic. I feel like Vigil Games thought their story was grander than it actually is. And they cheat right in the beginning. After the first boss, Death is whisked away to a world than isn't Heaven, Hell, or Earth. What the fuc...

Still, I paid $10 for this game. I'm nitpicking so far. Ultimately, even if I don't finish it, I won't regret picking it up.

Yeah, I really couldn't get into this. It's not much of a Zelda clone, all told. It's really combat heavy with a not-great combat system, and it's approach to puzzles is more God of War than Zelda. I quit after I hit a get-three-things quest inside of a get-three-things quest in a generally shitty environment. Nonetheless, I guess this as close to a Zelda-clone as we get these days. I kinda feel the same way about Okami, which I thought was painfully mediocre on the actual gameplay, but nonetheless deserves a soft clap for trying to spread a form.


Offline azeke

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #490 on: August 20, 2014, 11:58:48 PM »
Dark Souls (PC):
Spent last night going at Bell Gargoyles. As a single entity gargoyle isn't too bad, but of course as one can tell from the introducing cutscene the second one joins in the fun once once the first gargoyle goes down to 70% of health (or is it timer based?).

This boss fight is clearly made along the template of Agni & Rudra. Two bosses, with somewhat limited set of moves (so that you can find openings, keep an eye on both of them and not get too overwhelmed).

Of course, Dark Souls, being the game it is, is around 10 times slower than DMC3. And you have less operating space on the roof fighting BG, because you can fall off the edge (pretty sure i died from that more often that from gargoyles themselves). Also in DMC3 (as is the case with all bosses) Agni & Rudra actually evolve and go through phases gaining new moves, while Bell Gargoyles' attack patterns stay the same.

The best way to fight A&R is actually to stand between them (because they harm each other and camera handles better that way), while this is a big "no-no" with Gargoyles (which is kinda more logical). Camera can also be a problem with Gargoyles, so once in a while you need to remove lock-on or switch it to other gargoyle.

I used Halberd which is extremely slow but this isn't a big problem against BGs because they're even slower. Usually i could manage to get first BG to 30-50% but then got caught by fire from the second. So i grinded a bit, upgraded Halberd, picked another armour with a bit more fire resistance and finally killed them.

I guess now i have to go underground, which i tried to postpone as much as possible. That place is creepy, yo.
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Offline ShyGuy

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #491 on: August 22, 2014, 01:17:46 AM »
Good Heavens, AC IV is like Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Is this the best game of the series?

Offline azeke

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #492 on: August 22, 2014, 01:33:23 AM »
Good Heavens, AC IV is like Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Is this the best game of the series?
Best would be ACII or Brotherhood.

ACII is super cool with gorgeous Italian architecture that you can actually climb all over and stuff. Brotherhood is virtually the same game, but polishes a few things over II.

Revelation is again, the same game, but it probably has the best story of them all.

Naval stuff in IV is cool at first but gets obnoxious later on.
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Offline ShyGuy

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #493 on: August 22, 2014, 01:44:22 AM »
Maybe I should pick up ACII. The parkour is getting on my nerves. That and the collectathon that makes Star Fox Adventures look streamlined.

Offline azeke

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #494 on: August 22, 2014, 01:49:25 AM »
Maybe I should pick up ACII. The parkour is getting on my nerves. That and the collectathon that makes Star Fox Adventures look streamlined.
This is actually why i enjoy AC series to begin with. So if you don't like these elements, i don't think you'll like any of them.
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Offline ShyGuy

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #495 on: August 22, 2014, 02:04:19 AM »
I would like the parkour if it didn't seem to get in the way so often. I'm trying to catch a courier and suddenly I jump and climb up the wrong ledge or get to close to haystack and dive in. I think it would actually work better if the environment was a little simpler.

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #496 on: August 24, 2014, 02:25:09 PM »
I was going to go back and start up the copy of Galactic Civilizations II I got on Steam a while back but I got tired of jumping through the hoops of its DRM to get it to start and switched to the similar Endless Space instead. I'd describe it as the space 4X equivalent of Civ V, a bit streamlined with a simple and straightforward interface.
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Offline oohhboy

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #497 on: August 24, 2014, 03:07:02 PM »
I have had Endless Space for a long time, but the big problem with the game is combat. Nice to look at, but the fundamentals are so simple that you end up pretty much doing one thing. Get bigger ships, lasers and stick a combat hero on it, then go to town. Except that fleet strength isn't invasion strength so now you have to get another dumbass fleet to finish things off and it can take ages. Then there's the AI fleets you can't catch because they keep moving.

Everything else about it is good, but damn the combat.

Playing Napoleon Total War. Napoleon just about walks over just about everybody as long as you don't do anything dumb like not resting or challenge an army that has so many dudes that it can physically surround you and/or have another full stack of reinforcements at which point you run out of ammo. Massive killing fields with 20-1 K/D being fairly normal.

With the other generals you have to be a little bit more careful and pick good terrain since your not likely to stock them with the best dudes nor is the general the best.

The AI gets pretty funny at the end when you run up to huge full stack peasant armies sometimes without a proper general. The sheer number of bodies thrown at you is a real threat just from the attrition if you don't set up kill zones and have cavalry to shatter their units. Nit of good fun that can be had for pretty cheap.


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Offline azeke

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #498 on: August 25, 2014, 12:30:25 AM »
^ i fell off Total War series after playing LOTS of Rome and Medieval II.

Some of these days i will come back to it to try either Empire or Shogun II. Apparently, Rome II was a dud which is a huge shame.

Donkey Kong Country 2 (GBA):
Still the same complaints. Artstyle makes it too hard to judge where the platforms start and ends (which is kinda crucial in platformer game). I am at Mudhole March, and there are a lot of jumping on narrow lily pads.

Not only these lily pads are circular and have hard to discern hitboxes, control issues also make it harder than it should be. When i press B (or whatever roll button is) in the middle of a jump and land on a pad after that, Diddy will do the roll because it's saved in a queue of commands or something. Obviously that leads to Diddy slipping off the edge.

Dark Souls (PC):
Messing around. I was trying to kill that Black Knight on top a tower, but kept failing, so i changed approach and picked Thief's light armour.

Additional perk of Thief armour is that now you can get to enemies almost point blank without them hearing you. So this time i sneaked up to Black Knight, executed backstab with an axe and ran away. He chased me for a while on a winding stairs (the camera is so awful in there, very hard to see if BK is coming down), but then stopped and resumed his post on the tower.

I sneaked up to him again and did another backstab. After that he chased all the way down and i did the finishing blow as he was exiting the tower.

Then messed around with dragon on a bridge. You can goad to land on a bridge and then, when he is on the other side of a bridge you can make a run for it and reach the other side (saw it in a let's play, no way i could figure it out).

Area you unlock there is kinda useless because there is nothing in there. Some loot like Claymore -- too bad i can't wield it. Also it unlocks a new shortcut between areas but it's not too important.

Devil May Cry 3 (Xbox 360):
One thing i didn't mentioned before is that game looks gorgeous. Sure, DMC1 was also nice looking in spots and gothic artstyle and foreboding atmosphere really carried the visuals, but it was still carrying too much of a Playstation 1 jank.


^ even to this day, lots of games in similar setting (like say Dark Souls) look empty and drab by comparison to DMC1 with it's extremely rich environments.

DMC3 has similar gothic atmosphere with super detailed backgrounds that DMC1 had, but now it's all polished and actually looks like and plays like a modern game.

Getting S-ranks in this game will be much harder, all you needed to do in DMC1 was to hit time and orbs requirements, but now it's time, damage, orbs AND combo. The last one might the hardest to pull off because it forces you diversify your moves and relying on the same ones will lead to your combo dying.

I am near the end of a game and (OF COURSE!) it's a Boss Rush. Remember these bosses you had difficulty to defeat one by one, now you fight them all one after another. Oh joy. At least now i have some health refills between bosses and can't restore some of my life with devil trigger, Viewtiful Joe or Mega Man didn't have any of that in their versions of Boss Rush.

8 (eight) bosses in a row. Are you kidding me, Capcom.

Okay, it's actually not TOO bad, some of these bosses are kinda pushovers and with some i had enough practice to kill them reliably (Nevan). It's still extremely hard though especially with health dwindling after each boss.

Devil May Cry 4 demo (Xbox 360):
I remember checking out demo year or two ago, when i was only starting out with CUHRAYZEE genre. I wanted to compare my impression now that i am very well versed in it.

DMC4 looks gorgeous. Super clean and bright visuals - something i wish Bayonetta had. It almost makes DMC3 look bad, and 3 is a beautiful game to begin with.

Both levels i was playing with Nero and while somewhat similar to Dante he is generally slower, which i kinda like and has grappling and throwing mechanic which is okay i guess.

Level design is now much more open this time which reduces camera problems significantly. Games in this series kinda like to get into cramped spaces (castle corridors, winding stairs and such), it's about time they shed that element for better playability.

Also:
Rayman Legends (360) -- finishing "Back to Origins" levels. WHY, Ubisoft.
Devil May Cry 1 (360) -- finishing S-rank run on Dante-Must-Die mode and trying to complete files on all enemies. Apparently some moves you can only be performed on one difficulty and don't appear on other. So even after completing Dante-Must-Die mode, i will have to carry on with Normal mode (again) to do these moves for encyclopedia.
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Offline Oblivion

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #499 on: August 25, 2014, 12:34:57 AM »
Dark Souls (PC):
Messing around. I was trying to kill that Black Knight on top a tower, but kept failing, so i changed approach and picked Thief's light armour.

Additional perk of Thief armour is that now you can get to enemies almost point blank without them hearing you. So this time i sneaked up to Black Knight, executed backstab with an axe and ran away. He chased me for a while on a winding stairs (the camera is so awful in there, very hard to see if BK is coming down), but then stopped and resumed his post on the tower.

I sneaked up to him again and did another backstab. After that he chased all the way down and i did the finishing blow as he was exiting the tower.

Then messed around with dragon on a bridge. You can goad to land on a bridge and then, when he is on the other side of a bridge you can make a run for it and reach the other side (saw it in a let's play, no way i could figure it out).

Area you unlock there is kinda useless because there is nothing in there. Some loot like Claymore -- too bad i can't wield it. Also it unlocks a new shortcut between areas but it's not too important.

One: you need to learn to parry. Makes the entire game easy mode.

Two: that area is far more important than you realize. I won't spoil it though. You'll have to figure it out on your own.