Jens

Good day to you, my rogue-lite friends! I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread in which we could just share all kinds of experiences, tips, frustrations and revelations we had in Neon Abyss. This game is so incredibly niche and rogue-lites have thousands of questions to be answered, might be worthwhile to gather them all in one spot instead of 200 tiny threads I won't be able to contribute a whole lot just yet because I barely started it (and therefore suck), but I'll get there, I promise. If you consider anything CRUCIAL to new players just @ me or shoot me a PM and I'll try to work it into this starting post. Let me just start by saying that taking damage by your own blocked shots (mostly because of that block egg) might be the most annoying design decision I've seen in a rogue-lite. Really hard to learn the game when you can't locate the source of you taking damage in 50% of the cases...

That will most likely be my last post in this thread because every single platinum will feel a little less important after this one. Yakuza 6 is down and with that the whole main series. It would be kind of weird to just talk about Yakuza 6 on its own when the whole series is so much more. So I'll just say that: Yakuza 6 is kind of the buffet of Yakuza games. You can eat what you want and how much you want, but it's completely up to you. The completion requirements are so much lower compared to the other games, it's pretty simple. How much of an extra effort you want to do is completely your call. It felt kind of anticlimactic as a "completion package" because of that, but it's still a nice change of pace for once. The story has some odd twists and yes, cliches are plenty, but it was still as rock solid as always. I don't see anyone playing this one first (and that would be a bad idea I think), so my opinion on it is kind of not all that important to be honest If you stuck around for so long this one definitely won't be a disappointment for you. Maybe not your absolute favorite among all of them (probably on my... third place battling for it with Yakuza 1), but still absolutely entertaining. I only disliked a few things. The combat with this engine feels a little bit delayed, it's definitely less visceral than the older games. You can really tell the combat of Yakuza Kiwami 2, Yakuza 6 and Judgment apart from the rest of series. Not terrible by any means, but still a little bit less satisfying. And they kind of picked most of the minigames I disliked and made a little bundle of my "worst of" in terms of that, but you can easily ignore them, so it's not really a burden. It's still a miracle to me how a series with 7 humongous and pretty similar games (8 if we include Judgment) could keep my attention the whole way through. But it did... it did with flying colors. The Completion Lists were always extremely motivating, no matter what they demanded. The minigames were always fun to tackle, no matter how much effort they required. The stories turned a little cliche over time, but they still absolutely got the job done and were a big help in keeping at it (and made my girlfriend cry on numerous occasions, especially this very one). The side missions kept being bizarre and entertaining, the characters were always as likable as ever, it's just such a complete package top to bottom. Everything just clicks, it's like a very well-oiled machine. That mix of a serious crime thriller - story, absolutely bonkers sidequests and the grand completion package... the perfect trifecta right there. Just check a few profiles on this site. If you see one game completed you usually see those people going for the other ones as well, can't be a coincidence right? It's a treat and looking back on it I would easily take on Yakuza 7 - 12, no questions asked. And that's it. Very unlikely that another series will take the throne away from this one. That's just the perfect mix that resonated 100% with us. Yakuza 7 will happen, 99% sure about that, but this one is a chapter closed for sure. There's easily 10x as much to say about it all, but words won't do it justice. That's something you just have to try out for yourself.

Just shortly after talking about RAD and Risk of Rain 2 they got a sale... I took that as a sign of fate and bought both

Ripple Time!!

I mean... there is the separate trophy list for the original Persona 5 But I immediately get what you're saying. Persona 5 was quite the game changer for me too. When the credits come up after more than 150 hours and your first thought is "Aww... it's over already?" you might have found THE winner. And that with me not really being into Anime stuff whatsoever. But you'll be fine. You still have so many Ateliers to run and bread to synthesize. You won't run out of options in the near distant future

That's good to know. At least I've used it to clear the "Don't pick up any hearts" one, I'll take that as a start Do you know if there's any way to quickly reset that scenario in which you can get those trial items without having to watch the intro and tutorial again? Other than uploading and downloading your save file, that would always work I guess. That chance seems to be gone once you die and that would be quite the ordeal otherwise. Haven't tried it yet though. You're definitely not wrong. If Gungeon would have crashed at all I couldn't see myself going for that platinum back then because that would've been an even harder kick in the teeth. It's good enough at the moment to just slowly grind away to finally feel free switching to Hard again. Currently playing on Easy to secure a good streak of unlocks / grinding progress. And once more those are games I kept in the back of my head for quite some time now and I thank you for your recommendations I just try to avoid mixing too many rogue-lites at once because I have an easier and better time in those if I stay in the game with my brain. Once you understand the items, consumable / unlockable economy, gameplay loop and so on everything becomes easier. And my tiny brain can only contain so much of that information at once So it might be a little rogue-lite stop until Neon Abyss seems to be fixed (well, or dead, who knows), but afterwards I'll surely take another close look at the games you've mentioned. Especially Risk of Rain 2 seems to be an interesting option. I could really see myself wanting to play that one co-op with someone at some point in the future, that would be a unique experience for a rogue-lite. It's just a little complicated at the moment for various reasons. The more I hear about it from you guys the more I wonder how it went right by me as a rogue-lite guy myself. It sounds like it could be right up my alley, a slightly less frantic Nuclear Throne. But on the other hand... if a friend wouldn't have mentioned Neon Abyss I wouldn't have noticed it either. So I might just be a little out of the loop And let me take a second to mention that RAD and Risk of Rain 2 just got another sale discount today (over here in the EU at least). Your recommendations are hell on my time and wallet.

Well, guess you got me. Children of Morta was on the mental list for a while now, Rad is now sitting next to it And with Neon Abyss I'll just keep chipping away at the grindier stuff (999 runs in general, deaths, treasure chests, you name it) and maybe fluke into an Ares kill. But some serious completion-oriented play will have to wait for after the patch. One quick question though. The trophies that require you to not lose a heart during a run, or not picking one up during a run. Are they talking about completing a whole run to the very last endboss or can you "cheese" them on a new save file? Seems way easier to achieve when the end goal is only Argus.

Nope. I have seen the name pop up here and there, but I wouldn't have put it in the same basket as Neon Abyss and Co. To me it always looked like Hob. Worth a recommendation in your eyes? All other somewhat similar games I've played are The Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, Slay the Spire, Wizard of Legend, Flinthook, Downwell (close-ish), Rogue Legacy (also close-ish).... and one black and white game on Steam where you play as a girl in a school (?).... I completely forgot the name of it and Google isn't cooperative.

So I definitely do not want or attempt to devalue your tip, if people REALLY struggle and just want to get it over with that might be helpful. I can see Gungeon being pretty stressful for people with completionist attitude being "stuck" in this game and never getting the hang of it. But if you really have to force that exact scenario in a game - and in a genre - that really builds on randomness and beating the odds you might just have picked the wrong game altogether. So I definitely wouldn't recommend jumping into this game with that mindset from the start because it kind of defeats the purpose of a rogue-lite. That learning curve of learning the items, getting further and further every single run etc. is the whole essence of this game, so at least give it a normal shot at the start.

Well that's great news, thanks for the info Because I definitely like it overall too. I won't say that it will crack my top 3 of rogue-lites 100% just yet, but it hits all the beats at least in a good fashion and going for it all seems pretty compelling. Unlocking things is alright, beating the learning curve is good as always, that's almost all it takes for me. But knowing that they are on their way of fixing it would make me feel less bad about stopping for a while. My biggest gripe with it is that it's not very... flashy. It's called "Neon Abyss" and they just put some lazy neon signs on the walls and call it a day. I imagined it way brighter and flashier, but it looks kind of generic. The game could have the name Tech Abyss or Bug Abyss and it wouldn't really fit any less. They could've learned a lesson or two from Gungeon or Isaac, if you see those games in action you know exactly what it is. That's not a death sentence for the game though, just a minor disappointment.

Well... my second day of focusing on Neon Abyss ended it quite the failure. I lost my third very potent run to that annoying black screen issue. The shops don't spawn any items, you warp to (or in my latest case just enter) a room and that's it, the screen stays black and your run is gone. That's something I really can't stand, having your run depend on the game not shitting the bed. I might put this game on hold until it (hopefully) gets patched one day. Quite the buzzkill to be honest. Am I unlucky or is this just that common?

Oh snap. I just checked my profile for fun expecting nothing new, but I got a J with Judgment, a V with Valthirian Arc and a W with Wizard of Legend (and even 3 other options) Color me super surprised. And now I would just need a Q and a Z.... that's almost too close to ignore... But I really don't want to whip Ziggurat out again

https://psnprofiles.com/trophy/2901-pier-solar-and-the-great-architects/34-thats-slippery It's not the last trophy I have left in Pier Solar, but seeing what that trophy demands from you killed the urge to go for everything else. What a bizarre and punishing minigame in a RPG. Kind of funny, but still 100% random

I would be surprised if a lot of people knew that one, but FTL: Faster Than Light was probably the most relaxing time I ever had with a game. So much coffee in that time... No idea how they would or even could translate the controls to PS4 though.

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I was just thinking about this more than once and then I felt like posting it out of curiosity It's hard to nail down in such a short title, but my question would be: What is the biggest / most popular / best video game franchise you never played? Especially one, which you could see yourself liking, but it just never happened for whatever reason. I'll just start to give you some of my examples. I never played any Metal Gear. I got my PS1 pretty late and Nintendo had me in its grasps and I never owned a PS2, so there go a lot of options out the window. On PS3 and PS4 I just never had a time where I would feel like it because of other games taking my attention at the time, although I usually like stealth stuff. And I was always wondering if I would enjoy following these extremely cinematic story experiences; but with MGS V in my PS+ backlog.... maybe some day. Another one would be The Elder Scrolls, especially Skyrim I guess. I could see myself wandering around for 200+ hours and just do everything there is, but Skyrim would grow my backlog into an insurmountable pile, so I always shied away from it. My other problem would be the horror stories I keep hearing about bugs and lazy ports where no issues are resolved whatsoever. Despite that it's one RPG I always considered trying because I rarely played games like that. But when I did I usually liked them. And my last one I can think of is kind of a stretch, but it still somewhat counts I think. And that would be Dark Souls. I played about half of Demon Souls back in the day, but the games changed so much after that I don't think that completely counts. And after that I just rented Dark Souls 3 and just reached boss #2 (so no real experience there) and just recently I only got to the first boss of Bloodborne. So maybe this one will be the first series to officially leave my mental list. So I would be interested in some stories from other people or if it's just me who thinks about playing something, but never doing it I even thought about using this headline for some "We play" thing, but with that I would probably bite off more than I can chew 😅 But this would probably be one of the few activities I could see myself participating in.