Tales of AndresLionheart's backlog

[Honor_Hand]

N64 games were also a lot more expensive in South America as well. Actually. PlayStation always had an advantage in this territory because the first two consoles (PS1 & PS2) were so easy to pirate. Finding pirated games from them was a common thing, which helped significantly in boosting sales of the consoles in these territories. And well, since governments really bat an eye at that, they just let it run its course. Nintendo 64, on the other hand, they weren't easy nor cheap to pirate at the time, so the only way was to buy the original, much more expensive cartridges. But with PlayStation, you could easily find a store, or anyone really, selling "burned CDs" of games. You could easily have thousands of games for a few bucks. Not saying that's the right thing, just stating how it was at the time. Since I grew up with N64, I actually had to be really selective with the games I'd purchase. 

 

Haven't played that many PS4 games, but yeah, I've noticed the trend of PS4 titles having easier requirements as far as trophies than most PS3 games. Personally, I think there are some PS3 games that are nuts with the requirements they have, but most of them do give a greater sense of satisfaction to complete compared to what we see today. I think many newer games today try to have achievements that are easier to complete by the player, nothing too taxing or time-consuming so that the player can feel rewarded in the end. On one hand, that's good, because it helps to streamline the time we spend on some games, but on another hand, it leads to not having that same sense of achievement from players who are looking for a challenge. I think it's just difficult to create a happy medium for everyone.

 

With PS4, Sony nowadays doesn't really have any standard with what has trophies or not. I've been playing Genshin Impact since last year, which is a great adventure-RPG title in and of itself. It is an FTP game and it does have some microtransactions, but regardless of that, the game is really, really good with hours upon hours of quality content, vivid visuals, and the developers constantly add new features and events to the game, yet it doesn't have a Platinum. That's kind of disappointing. And then you see 5 minutes pieces of crap release on the store complete with more than a dozen golds and 1 Platinum at the end and I can't help but roll my eyes at that. It's just baffling.

 

[AndresLionheart]

On 22/4/2021 at 3:33 PM, Honor_Hand said:

N64 games were also a lot more expensive in South America as well. Actually. PlayStation always had an advantage in this territory because the first two consoles (PS1 & PS2) were so easy to pirate. Finding pirated games from them was a common thing, which helped significantly in boosting sales of the consoles in these territories. And well, since governments really bat an eye at that, they just let it run its course. Nintendo 64, on the other hand, they weren't easy nor cheap to pirate at the time, so the only way was to buy the original, much more expensive cartridges.

We have talked about this a few times in this thread. But just to let @AJ_Radio know: Here in Argentina an N64 game used to cost anywhere from $120 to $150 (in USD). Adjusted for inflation that would now be a range from $195 to $245. Meanwhile you could get pirated copies of PS1 games in any videogame store for about $1 ($1.63 adjusting for inflation =P). Buying an N64 game was unheard of at the time, lol. I had about 4 games on N64, then the rest I played was rented. Meanwhile on my PS1 I had like 70 games no problem.

 

The same repeated again with PS2 vs Gamecube, sadly. Although prices for legit games were not as outrageous anymore. Nowadays legit copies of PS4 games in Argentina cost about $65-70, so about the same price that in the US because that's with sales tax included here. On top of that I'm a working single adult so I can buy all the shit I couldn't as a kid, lol.

 

On 22/4/2021 at 3:33 PM, Honor_Hand said:

Haven't played that many PS4 games, but yeah, I've noticed the trend of PS4 titles having easier requirements as far as trophies than most PS3 games. Personally, I think there are some PS3 games that are nuts with the requirements they have, but most of them do give a greater sense of satisfaction to complete compared to what we see today. I think many newer games today try to have achievements that are easier to complete by the player, nothing too taxing or time-consuming so that the player can feel rewarded in the end. On one hand, that's good, because it helps to streamline the time we spend on some games, but on another hand, it leads to not having that same sense of achievement from players who are looking for a challenge. I think it's just difficult to create a happy medium for everyone.

I'm sure you completed many more PS3 games than I did, so you would know better than me. Isn't it better than requirements were lowered a bit? Looking at games like Star Ocean The Last Hope or White Knight Chronicles scares me, lol.

 

I think there is are good middle ground examples already. Bloodborne did a great job making the list cover optional bosses and areas. In terms of collectables it only asks for all weapons, which are worth finding because they are all unique and worth a look anyway (different from Dark Souls where weapons just follow a few archetypes). Watching all endings (which can be done with save backups, too). It mostly tours you through the whole game so that you don't miss anything important (the Chalice Dungeons are the lowest point of that tour, though).

Then there are long ass games like Dragon Quest XI which instead of killing the player asking for 100% of everything only asks for about 70%. As far as I remember it only asks 100% of costumes, which is also something that has a noticeable change instead of just yet another armor with bigger numbers. On top of that all missable chests and stuff ger relocated if you missed them in a dungeon that becomes inaccessible due to story events. Having no missables in a game that takes 150 hours to beat is very thoughtful, lol.

 

On 22/4/2021 at 3:33 PM, Honor_Hand said:

And then you see 5 minutes pieces of crap release on the store complete with more than a dozen golds and 1 Platinum at the end and I can't help but roll my eyes at that. It's just baffling.

I really dislike this practice, too. I also can't understand how people can enjoy getting those piss easy plats that take 5 minutes. What's the value in them when you didn't have to put any effort to achieve it? I'm fine with easy platinums as long as the game is worth playing, though. I wouldn't put something like Spider-Man or Sly Cooper in the same boat just because their platinums are very easy.

[AJ_Radio]

On 4/22/2021 at 11:33 AM, Honor_Hand said:

With PS4, Sony nowadays doesn't really have any standard with what has trophies or not. I've been playing Genshin Impact since last year, which is a great adventure-RPG title in and of itself. It is an FTP game and it does have some microtransactions, but regardless of that, the game is really, really good with hours upon hours of quality content, vivid visuals, and the developers constantly add new features and events to the game, yet it doesn't have a Platinum. That's kind of disappointing. And then you see 5 minutes pieces of crap release on the store complete with more than a dozen golds and 1 Platinum at the end and I can't help but roll my eyes at that. It's just baffling.

 

1 hour ago, AndresLionheart said:

I really dislike this practice, too. I also can't understand how people can enjoy getting those piss easy plats that take 5 minutes. What's the value in them when you didn't have to put any effort to achieve it? I'm fine with easy platinums as long as the game is worth playing, though. I wouldn't put something like Spider-Man or Sly Cooper in the same boat just because their platinums are very easy.

 

I don't get it either. Sound Shapes and Orc Slayer was more than enough for me.

[Honor_Hand]

14 hours ago, AndresLionheart said:

We have talked about this a few times in this thread. But just to let @AJ_Radio know: Here in Argentina an N64 game used to cost anywhere from $120 to $150 (in USD). Adjusted for inflation that would now be a range from $195 to $245. Meanwhile you could get pirated copies of PS1 games in any videogame store for about $1 ($1.63 adjusting for inflation =P). Buying an N64 game was unheard of at the time, lol. I had about 4 games on N64, then the rest I played was rented. Meanwhile on my PS1 I had like 70 games no problem.

 

The same repeated again with PS2 vs Gamecube, sadly. Although prices for legit games were not as outrageous anymore. Nowadays legit copies of PS4 games in Argentina cost about $65-70, so about the same price that in the US because that's with sales tax included here. On top of that I'm a working single adult so I can buy all the shit I couldn't as a kid, lol.

 

 

Interesting. I really don't have much of a recollection of the cost of an N64 game here compared to the US back then but I can certainly remember they were many, many times more expensive than pirated PS1 games. Those were like 50 cents, lol. By the way, ¿cómo les decís vos a los juegos pirateados allá en Argentina? Here we called them "Quemaditos". You know, for the whole "burned CD" thing. =P With my N64 games, my parents would buy me 1 or 2 every 3 months or so. Eventually, I had my allowance to buy my own games, but I would buy one every 2 months or so, I think. I remember the price of some of them in bolívares at the time, but I have no way to compare them to the US at the time. But yeah, all my friends who had a PS1 or a PS2, they had it pirated and they would have hundreds of games on it.

 

PS4 games nowadays cost around the same here, but maybe a bit more depending on where do you get it from, how you pay, and so on. $70 is usually the best, as there are places where they can jack it up to $90 or more.

 

14 hours ago, AndresLionheart said:

I'm sure you completed many more PS3 games than I did, so you would know better than me. Isn't it better than requirements were lowered a bit? Looking at games like Star Ocean The Last Hope or White Knight Chronicles scares me, lol.

 

I think there is are good middle ground examples already. Bloodborne did a great job making the list cover optional bosses and areas. In terms of collectables it only asks for all weapons, which are worth finding because they are all unique and worth a look anyway (different from Dark Souls where weapons just follow a few archetypes). Watching all endings (which can be done with save backups, too). It mostly tours you through the whole game so that you don't miss anything important (the Chalice Dungeons are the lowest point of that tour, though).

 

Then there are long ass games like Dragon Quest XI which instead of killing the player asking for 100% of everything only asks for about 70%. As far as I remember it only asks 100% of costumes, which is also something that has a noticeable change instead of just yet another armor with bigger numbers. On top of that all missable chests and stuff ger relocated if you missed them in a dungeon that becomes inaccessible due to story events. Having no missables in a game that takes 150 hours to beat is very thoughtful, lol.

 

Maybe. There were many PS3 games that had a ridiculously high bar for their Platinum. A few others I'd add are Battlefield Bad Company, Gran Turismo 5, Killzone 2. Games with just exceedingly long requirements to complete with the sole purpose of making gamers grow insane while going for them. That's why I have kind of a middle approach towards it. Sure, there were some games that had balanced trophy lists and at the same time provided a good challenge that was rewarding for gamers and within reason, but then there were others that were just absurd and mind-boggling boring to do, or just flat-out insane in the requirements they wanted you to pull off. It's rare to see the latter in newer games. On top of games becoming a bit more hand-holdy, trophy lists have become way more approachable, for better or worse.

 

On one hand, it's great that some of the most tedious online grinds have finally disappeared. No one wants to spend 500 hours online doing some menial task for a trophy, that's not fun. But at the same time, there are games nowadays that don't even ask you to do a second run on hard or that just hand out a Platinum after completing just the first level. Games that are 20-minutes long at best, games that are just an absolute crapfest due to the number of bugs they have, or games that are just very poorly made, and then those get a Platinum as well. That's just sad.

 

I don't know. I'm all in for more reasonable achievements in games, ones that try to cultivate the fun in games by providing a reasonable challenge and stuff that can be completed within reasonable time metrics, but at the same time, I cannot favor games that hand out Platinum trophies like candy at a doctor's office. I mean, come on... Whatever happened to the merit of attaining one of these?

 

14 hours ago, AndresLionheart said:

I really dislike this practice, too. I also can't understand how people can enjoy getting those piss easy plats that take 5 minutes. What's the value in them when you didn't have to put any effort to achieve it? I'm fine with easy platinums as long as the game is worth playing, though. I wouldn't put something like Spider-Man or Sly Cooper in the same boat just because their platinums are very easy.

 

Same, I don't mind easy Platinums. It's good to unwind and relax too sometimes too, but people should at least try to enjoy or "play" the games. Skipping through a whole VN just for a virtual number it's really not worth it, in my opinion. If I were to play a VN, I'd least try to put some effort into understanding the game and appreciating for what it is. Same with the easy plats from a certain, well-known publisher. Some of the games they publish actually look okay to play, but come on, at least have people finish the game.

 

 

[AndresLionheart]

Blasphemous

Game Difficulty: 5/10

Platinum Difficulty: 5/10

Time to Platinum: 18 hours

 

Thoughts on the game

 

A friend recommended me this one a long time ago after playing it on release. I played lots a metroidvanias. The different thing this one does is that it makes the combat and difficulty more souls-like, or at least it tries.

 

Since people usually site this one as a souls-like but in 2D I was expecting it to be much harder and tense than it actually is. It may be that I have lots of experience with 2D platforming and action games, though.

Anyway, the game uses the beginning up to the first town as a tutorial. Right off the bat I was hooked with the gameplay because, while simple, it was fun to execute its mechanics.

Whenever I'm given a parry and a dodge I always try out if I can cancel my attack animations with those defensive maneuvers. In this game you can. Being able to cancel out into defensive actions allows me to go ham on offense and immediately cancel into defense, a simple system that I really enjoy in action games.

With no stamina bar and having attacks that can be cancelled like that it's hard to call this a souls-like, to be honest.

All of that is not bad, though, just different than what I was expecting. To be fair I actually prefer it this way, so more in this game's favor in my eyes =).

 

The exploration part of the metroidvania is also kinda not there all the way. Normally when I think metroidvanias I think about getting upgrades that then allow me to explore deeper. There are no mobility upgrades in this game. No double jump, no air dash. So whenever you reach an area you already know that you are gonna be able to explore all that's needed for the critical path. There are some inaccessible portions that may require relics that give immunity to miasma, that react to some red thingies that form platforms, or one that sprouts branches out of some spots, but all of that is optional stuff.

 

In terms of RPG mechanics, customizations, builds, and stuff of that sort, there are various menus with different kind of equipables of varying use. None felt especially powerful so I don't know what to think about it. I mostly used stuff that increased mobility and offensive capabilities. The problem is that the effects are so small that it's hard to care about them.

The spells on the other hand start simple and small, but later on when you get the end game ones they make you feel like much more of a badass.

 

The pixel art is beautiful. It doesn't try to look smooth and realistic like something akin to Ori and the Blind Forest, pixels are purposely marked so that you can see them on the character and environments. Characters are detailed and nicely animated, while the environments are rich and engrossing. The background details in some areas are especially nice, like those on Wall of the Holy Prohibitions.

 

Music is something that kinda takes a back seat. For most of my time I don't remember it coming up that much. The only time that I got kinda into it was in the Library because it added a lot to the ambiance of that place.

 

Bosses are varied in size, shapes and style of fights. Contrary to what I usually feel about bosses in games like Dark Souls, in this game there isn't a single boss that I think it's a waste or I wouldn't want to fight again (maybe with the exception of some serpent thing with a scorpion sting for tail, that one was kinda meh). The second to last fight was especially fun.

 

After mentioning the areas, enemies and bosses I have to mention the how weird and creepy a lot of these creatures are. I can't believe this shit is based on some religious stuff. All the deformed creatures, some creepy baby stuff, malformed things with multiple faces, some kid that burst out of a buffalo, sometimes it was difficult to discern friend from foe, lol.

 

What's also based on religious stuff is the story and setting. And to be completely honest, I have no fucking idea what anyone was even talking about in this game. Whenever someone spoke I got so lost that it all started to feel like gibberish, or some sort of fever dream.

There are also some corpses that you can listen on to with the aid of an item. Some give hints to solve puzzles, but a lot also just say some more shit that felt like complete bs to me, lol.

 

Even when so many patches have been applied some jank is still left. I ran into 3 or 4 bugs that soflocked my game and sometimes the controls felt unresponsive (mainly in very close range fight). These happened only on some odd occasions, so it doesn't ruin the game or anything of that sort.

 

With all that said I really enjoyed my time with this game. Right from the beginning when I first saw the graphics and had a taste of the combat I knew I was gonna like it. I also was expecting it to be hard but ended up being just right in terms of difficulty. While lacking some of the traditions of a metroidvania, it is still a game that can be wholly enjoyed by anyone who likes the genre.

 

Thoughts on the Platinum

 

No gonna lie, with so many missables I actually decided to play while following few directions found in the roadmap of the .org guide. It tells the general direction to go and what to do as to be able to 100% complete the game on the first playthrough, without spoiling anything or telling you were the non-missable stuff is. By following that you can go through and finish the game, then pick it up right before the final boss to go explore all that's left (and there is A LOT left after that).

 

The 2 trophies that I guess most people are gonna be afraid of are beating all bosses without using the healing flask and finish up to the mid way point of the game in under 3 hours.

 

About the no healing on boss fights: For me personally it made the fights more enjoyable. I would have probably one shot every boss if I could heal (with the exception of the second to last), but thanks to being limited on health I had to try most fights at least twice. There are lots of health upgrades and defense boosting equipables that can make the health bar last quite a long time. The exception boss I mentioned actually beat me like 5 times. It was a really fun fight, though! The video at the end contains a bit of the fight at the 15:49 mark.

 

As for the "speedrun"... I actually ended with a time of 1 hour 19 minutes, so not even half of the 3 hours given. I didn't die a single time and I wasn't that fast on my exploration. I went to areas I didn't need to and picked up some items here and there. The time is very generous. If you are having trouble with a boss you can always back up the save file and restore it if you die a few times.

 

Spoiler

 

There are a few things that are very easily missable, and missing one single thing means you cannot achieve 100% on that playthrough, which would mean you have to start over from the beginning because the trophy for 100% completion requires everything done in one singular playthrough. Although it's not exactly 100%... My save file shows 99.95% so I guess some hidden square of the map may not be needed.

Because of that I recommend following the roadmap of the guide in .org, unless you don't mind replaying the whole game. The one thing that I would add that the guide doesn't tell you to do is to mark on the map which corpses you talked to. You need to talk to all 33 corpses but the game doesn't keep track, so when the moment to clean up comes you will have to check every single one again just to be sure if you don't mark it (the game provides markers that you can place on your map).

 

I have to say that the clean up was super fun. There are lots of unique things to find out and areas that are completely optional. Before starting your clean up though I would recommend to donate 20k souls to the church. This unlocks a feature to teleport between the save statues that are spread all over the game world. This helps immensely with going back to areas to get all the stuff.

 

The beginning of the speedrun playthrough (up until the first real boss), some boss fight bits from my first playthrough, and at the end two instances of bugs that soflocked the game. It was recorded with the PS4 built-in feature, so the quality isn't the best and the framerate is lowered to 30fps.

Edited June 22, 2021 by AndresLionheart

[realm722]

On 6/21/2021 at 9:43 PM, AndresLionheart said:

Blasphemous Review -snip-

 

  Awesome job with this! I remember when Blasphemous was released and it catching my eye with such a distinct art style. Rather than play it I watched someone stream it but it definitely had a lot of positive qualities. I personally love games that while they ask for a 100% play-through and then speedrun, if you can blaze through it as quickly as you did (not much over 1 hour) you can feel very satisfied knowing you've conquered all of the mechanics and know the game inside and out. Keep up the great work!

[AndresLionheart]

11 hours ago, realm722 said:

 

  Awesome job with this! I remember when Blasphemous was released and it catching my eye with such a distinct art style. Rather than play it I watched someone stream it but it definitely had a lot of positive qualities. I personally love games that while they ask for a 100% play-through and then speedrun, if you can blaze through it as quickly as you did (not much over 1 hour) you can feel very satisfied knowing you've conquered all of the mechanics and know the game inside and out. Keep up the great work!

Thanks =). It was a very fun game indeed.

I was surprised to still find some odd control scheme choices that I've seen back when I watched my friend play the demo before the game released, but overall it plays really well.

 

And technically I'm not even done with it. Through updates there was a new area added and a NG+ mode which appearently also houses some new content.

There are no trophies for that but I still want to play, but I've kinda busy playing Guilty Gear Strive on PC D=. I also want to start the next thing, lol. I'm very close to getting to 100 plats =p.

[Honor_Hand]

First time I heard about this one. I'm really digging the art style and setting, and the combat as well looks like it could be a good time. Probably isn't as hard as some people make it out to be but it still looks like an enjoyable time. Would say the game is better suited for a combat and fast-paced traversal rather than exploration? It is a Metroidvania game but, by looking at your speedrun above, it seems to me that the game is probably more enjoyable at trying to beat it as fast as you can once you've mastered it.

 

Speaking of souls-like Metroidvania games, have you tried Death's Gambit? I haven't played it myself but it a name I frequently hear thrown around when speaking about hard Metroidvania games.

[AndresLionheart]

17 hours ago, Honor_Hand said:

First time I heard about this one. I'm really digging the art style and setting, and the combat as well looks like it could be a good time. Probably isn't as hard as some people make it out to be but it still looks like an enjoyable time. Would say the game is better suited for a combat and fast-paced traversal rather than exploration? It is a Metroidvania game but, by looking at your speedrun above, it seems to me that the game is probably more enjoyable at trying to beat it as fast as you can once you've mastered it.

 

Speaking of souls-like Metroidvania games, have you tried Death's Gambit? I haven't played it myself but it a name I frequently hear thrown around when speaking about hard Metroidvania games.

It was much easier than I anticipated. You can't spam dodges or parries but the enemies telegraph all of their attacks, so after being hit a few times you learn their timing.

 

Exploration is just fine. Each area is pretty much self contained with a main patg that goes back into a main hallway to open several shortcuta back, and some side areas with optional things. Some areas are connected to adjacent areas but most of the time that is also just for some extra stuff. My point is that you won't get lost or have to come back to an area for a required thing, kinda like how is usual in Symphony of the Night or Super Metroid.

 

It lends itself to fast-paced gameplay due to being able to spam attacks and cancel into dodges or parries. Not THAT fast because you can't spam dodges like you would spam slides in Mega Man, but fast enough, lol.

 

Death's Gambit I've heard the name but I don't even know how it looks. I remember it was released around the time Dead Cells was and people were comparing them. That's why I assumed it was a rogue-like, not a metroidvania.

[AndresLionheart]

So I've been playing more on PC lately. With all the shit Sony is doing and the stupid price the PS5 is at right now are kinda moving me away from Playstation. On top of this I'm very close to reaching 100 Platinums, at which point I may or may not take a break from completing games. All I know for now is that Tales of Arise is gonna be the 100th Platinum, then I'll see how I feel after that.

 

Let's do a fast one for two games I completed on PC not long ago.

 

Cuphead

Game Difficulty: 4/10

Completion Difficulty: 5/10

Time to Complete: 10 hours

 

I actually played this one co-op with a friend around the time it released originaly on PC. I wasn't intending to complete it fully but I was breezing through the game so fast that I kinda self imposed a rule: I would only consider a boss cleared if I got the maximum grade I could. Which in Regular difficulty is A+. You only need A- for the achievements.

Since my experience with the game was from co-op I couldn't believe how much easier it is in single player. Enemies have so much lower health, and having 1 less character moving and shooting makes everything more visible. Parrying is also much much easier on single player because the other player doesn't mess with your timing when they parry.

 

Anyway, long story short, after finishing the game I tried a few bosses on Expert, saw they were pretty fun and not that much more difficult, so I went for a fast clear. This time I didn't care about my grade, though. Getting all S Ranks on Expert is actually pretty difficult.

 

This is one I maaaaay redo on PS4 when it goes down to 50% off.

 

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Game Difficulty: 4/10

Completion Difficulty: 4/10

Time to Complete: 21 hours

(New numbers based on having plenty of experience from my original playthrough)

 

Yep, I did this one again (click here for original post). I have been waiting for it to finally go to 50% off on PC. It's always been discounted to 35%, but now the time finally came.

 

What can I say... this game is still a lot of fun. No other game yet has given me such a great combat system for 1v1 encounters. This time around I barely died and could breeze through pretty much everything. I also allowed myself to use resurrections, so I was free to make dangerous moves in battle if I wanted too. On my original post I mentioned that reviving wouldn't have helped me much, but now using it I can see how much easier it makes the game when you don't have the pressure of making a wrong move and just dying.

 

To go along with this I also recorded the final boss as I did when I wrote my original post. Sadly my computer is almost there with the specs, so there are points when I suffer framerate issues and some slowdown. The poor thing is like 13 years old, it does fine for how old it is. I would like to build a new one but the stupid graphic card prices discourage me from doing so. I could spare the money, but I cannot allow myself to support asshole practices of scalping. Anyway, here is the new final boss kill:

 

Here you can see my poor computer trying to keep up. The worst part is that the slowdown messes up with the parry timing, something very important in this game.

The last phase was pretty lame, though. For being the biggest, most accomplished warrior in all of Ashina he did do a very poor job when against the ropes...

Edited July 6, 2021 by AndresLionheart

[AJ_Radio]

I'm sort of in the same boat as you, but my backlog is what's preventing me from moving to PC full time. I still love trophies to this day, but I am appalled by Sony's lack of quality control, and their decision making these past couple years has been nothing short of lame. Jim Ryan is a stuck up asshole, whether people want to admit that or not.

 

Microsoft was great back in the day with the original Xbox and Xbox 360, but nowadays you're much better off playing on the PC anyway. My Windows 10 already has stuff built in that is connected to the consoles, but why would I game on the Xbox consoles when I can do the exact same thing on the PC? Microsoft had a good run with Halo, Gears of War and Forza. I think Forza is the only thing they care about anymore.

 

I've been loyal to PlayStation since the PS2 era, but that might change in the current PS5 generation.

[AndresLionheart]

So... I built a PC. I wanted to leave an update here because this also means that I will be less active on my Sony consoles.

 

With all the pricing bs and lack of compelling games on PS5 I started to check on prices for PC parts. I remembered that a friend of mine was working on building PCs so I asked him for prices. He has a supplier who of course sells stuff at wholesale prices, and since he is my friend he sold me the parts for no additional cost.

So, what did I build? Here are the specs:

• Asus Prime x570-P
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
• 32GB RAM
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070ti
• 1TB NVMe
• AIO watercooling and a 750w power supply.
• Asus VG248QG Monitor (24", 165hz)

All this means I'm pretty much switching to PC for multiplatform games. This includes Tales of Arise which was gonna be my 100 platinum. I still need one more platinum before I can get the 100th, but now I don't know what it's gonna be.

After that I will more likely be taking a long break from completing games. Probably for several years until PS5s can be purchased at their real price.

 

I always wanted to try out games at more than 60fps, that was one of the reasons to go for this. So far I've tried:

• Devil May Cry V (165fps)
• Final Fantasy XIV (120fps, I think. I didn't check the graphics options but the monitor set itself to 120hz)
• Divinity: Original Sin 2 (165fps)

Aside from that I'm still playing Genshin Impact which now runs at the max it can (it's locked at 60fps, sadly), and I was able to play Sekiro at max settings (another game locked at 60fps).

Since I could now play Sekiro without frame drops or slow down I decided to try out the Gauntlets of Strength. I first had to finish the game again to unlock the bad ending bosses, so that's all the practice I had before going into the gauntlets.

 

So far I've been really happy with this thing. There aren't any new games I want to play until Tales of Arise releases in September (which I hope is not locked at 60), this lul in game releases gives me some time to play some of these PC I've been unable to play, though. Not completing games is also gonna open some more time to try out more games.

 

With this I close my update: To show some of the smoothness, here is my one and only attempt at the Sekiro boss gauntlet that includes every single boss:

 

This is every single boss. Timestamps below:

Spoiler

0:11 Gyoubu Oniwa
3:11 Lady Butterfly
9:04 Genichiro Ashina
13:23 Guardian Ape
18:13 Corrupted Monk
23:14 Great Shinobi - Owl
29:53 Headless Ape
37:37 Emma, the Gentle Blade
39:26 Isshin Ashina
43:05 True Monk
47:07 Owl (Father)
53:40 Demon of Hatred
56:14 Genichiro, Way of Tomoe
57:49 Isshin, the Sword Saint
1:03:00 Inner Genichiro
1:07:57 Inner Father
1:15:26 Inner Isshin

 

[Honor_Hand]

Cool! Nice build right there. I have no clue of the specs of those parts but it sounds pretty high-tech. At the price PS5 consoles are going for right now, it certainly makes more sense to get into a nice PC at the moment. If you don't mind me asking, how much did you spend in USD getting all that? I'm aiming to build a new PC myself probably next year if the situation and money allows for it. However, I've been out of the sphere for so long that I don't have much of a clue on what are the standards nowadays and the cost of everything. I've heard a very powerful rig could easily land somewhere between the $1,500-2,000.

 

I'm not looking to spend that much to be honest, I just want something that can run games from the last decade at reasonable settings. I'm indifferent to FPS above 60. My budget for the CPU parts (excluding monitor, mouses, keyboard, and other peripherals) is about $700. Is this a reasonable number for what I'm looking to get? Do I need more, do I need less?  

 

Have fun with that if you've got there!

Unfortunately, you're at 666 likes right now and I'm about to break that sweet number you have right there, lol.

 

 

[AndresLionheart]

17 hours ago, Honor_Hand said:

 Unfortunately, you're at 666 likes right now and I'm about to break that sweet number you have right there, lol.

Lol! I noticed that too. It didn't last long xD.

 

So I spent about US$2000, with $1000 of those being the graphics card. However, that kind of specs cost around $3000 over here.

Graphics cards are still somewhat expensive, but the prices are coming down. The card I wanted was actually the 3060ti, which is a lot cheaper and it's only 10% less powerful than this one, but there weren't any in stock.

 

I kinda over spent but this processor (Ryzen 7 5800x) gives me leeway to one day being able to upgrade the graphics card if I need to.

There is this thing called bottleneck between the processor and graphics card. You want that to be below 10%. This combination gives me about 5% GPU bottleneck (which means the graphics card is slightly weakerthan what the processor would prefer), so I have up to 15% to the other side still =p.

 

I did go overboard for sure. I actually found where to unlock the fps on FF XIV and I was getting 190fps. I couldn't tell the difference between 120 and 165 so I just left it capped at 120fps.

If you want to play at 1080p60fps, you could de it with $700 if the GPUs for that range ever come down to their real price. You also save on the high refresh rate monitor, which can cost about triple of a regular one (mine cost $285).

 

A friend plays on a 1660 Super (which is a budget high performing GPU) and he gets 60fps on Genshin Impact (capped), 89fps on New World (lowest graphics settings). He was trying FF XIV yesterday but I haven't spoken with him on how it performed and if he liked the game.

 

If you are looking at budget GPUs, always check the xx60 models. The ones that end on 60 are usually the ones that have the best ratio between price and performance. The 70s are a little step above, then the 80 cost about triple for another 10-20% more performance, and another triple of the cost for the 90s which also improve like 10% on the previous cards.

Edited August 4, 2021 by AndresLionheart

[Honor_Hand]

5 hours ago, AndresLionheart said:

Lol! I noticed that too. It didn't last long xD.

xP

 

Holy hell, you really went overboard building that rig, haha. ? But yeah, that's good. Gives you a bit more leeway on enhancing it later on so that it doesn't end up obsolete so soon. $2,000 is in the range of what I often heard for a monster rig nowadays. I imagine with the inflation and whatnot, getting the parts over there was even more expensive. I'm going to have that bottleneck thing between the CPU and the GPU in mind for when I get to building mine. I really can't afford to spend that much on a PC but I see the $700 budget I had in mind is not too far from getting a somewhat decent performance on a budget build. My dad & I used to love building PCs back then when they were much more affordable for us but I can't really do that anymore now for obvious reasons.

 

I'm fine with the 1080p60fps, that's pretty much what I'm aiming at. I know more fps usually means smoother gameplay but I've read many people saying that the difference is barely noticeable over the 60 fps range, and well, anything over 120 is almost impossible to see any kind of improvement. I'm the kind of guy that doesn't mind playing at 30 fps (or even lower if the game's performance kinda suck lol). Those high refresh monitors are a hell of a lot of expensive. I was checking some on Mercado Libre the other day and even the small ones cost like 3-4 times the price of a regular PC monitor. I was like, "Nah, I can do just fine with a regular old monitor, just a decent size will do."

 

Many thanks for the tips right there, I really appreciate them. I'm still in the process of researching what the costs are and whatnot. Have some expensive ass anime titty figures to cover this year so I won't be able to start getting the parts for that PC until next year, but now I know what I'm looking at. Definitely want to see how Genshin performs on a decent PC, haha.  

 

[AndresLionheart]

28 minutes ago, Honor_Hand said:

Have some expensive ass anime titty figures to cover this year so I won't be able to start getting the parts for that PC until next year, but now I know what I'm looking at.

Aren't those anime titty figures nice...

There is one of the places where I'm gonna save lots of money from. I'm out of the anime figure market.

In the end I never got the Chocola figure I told you about that one time. After holding my money for over a year, Amiami wanted like 500yen more for the shipping or some shit. It's not much but that's not how a business like this works. I paid the order in full when money had more value, it's on them to fulfill the order that was already fully paid.

I also had a Dawn figure (the pokemon trainer) on hold, so I ended up getting a refund from the other order and paying the extra 500yen for this order from there. So the lost more than they gained, on top of losing a customer.

 

Inflation hit the prices of figures hard for me, so I can't justify the plastic anymore.

 

The other place where I'm gonna get money back to justify this PC is on game prices. Steam is so much cheaper than PSN. Guilty Gear Strive with the season pass was 1400 pesos (including taxes. That's about US$8.25), on the other hand it's like US$80 on PSN, lol.

 

Not all companies are as nice as ArcSys, but even in the worst cases the cost is still way lower. For example Tales of Arise is 4000 pesos on steam (plus taxes that's 6600 pesos), the game store I buy my PS4 games from will sell it at 9500 pesos.

Yeah, it's all digital, but I stopped caring about collecting lately. When putting costs into perspective I care more about saving some money nowadays.

 

I will probably still buy a phyical copy of Tales of Arise for collecting purposes, but that's only because it's Tales, if it was anything else I wouldn't.

Edited August 4, 2021 by AndresLionheart

[Honor_Hand]

49 minutes ago, AndresLionheart said:

Aren't those anime titty figures nice...

Anime titties are life. Word. ?

Oh man, what happened with AmiAmi? I am sorry to hear that it went like that for you. Was it due to COVID that they were asking more? I had one order stuck with them for a couple of months due to COVID and they did ask me for more on shipping to move it to DHL. I normally use SAL because it is cheaper but due to the pandemic, I had to get used to DHL to get stuff out of Japan. Earlier this year I had a figure of Coconut from Nekopara that I had to ship with DHL too. The pandemic really sent shipping costs to hell all over the world. It's a shame you couldn't get those Chocola titties home. And damn, you like some fine titties if I say so myself, Chocola from Nekopara & Dawn from the Pokemon series. You are a very refined gentleman, sir. I love those two a lot too. ??

It's hard to justify those expenditures on anime plastic, I know what you mean. ?

 

Now, Steam is one place where you're going to save a lot of money. The price of digital games there is second to none. They have great sales and most of the stuff is very reasonably priced. It's nothing like the shit Sony put us through on the PSN store. Not to mention that the catalog of Steam games is huge. Truth be told, most of the disposable income I allocate to games nowadays goes towards digital games too. I love physical but the situation I am in makes it hard for me to go that route, and even with the crappy prices on PSN, it's still more worthwhile for me to get some of those digital titles when they go on sale. I kid you not, I haven't bought a single physical game in more than a year now. There are a few I have been holding up that I would rather in physical form, but yeah, other than those, I'm pretty much on that same mindset as you.

 

[AndresLionheart]

16 hours ago, Honor_Hand said:

Oh man, what happened with AmiAmi? I am sorry to hear that it went like that for you. Was it due to COVID that they were asking more? I had one order stuck with them for a couple of months due to COVID and they did ask me for more on shipping to move it to DHL. I normally use SAL because it is cheaper but due to the pandemic, I had to get used to DHL to get stuff out of Japan. Earlier this year I had a figure of Coconut from Nekopara that I had to ship with DHL too. The pandemic really sent shipping costs to hell all over the world. It's a shame you couldn't get those Chocola titties home.

At first they wanted me to use DHL, but fuck that. I don't know how expensive it is to Venezuela, but to Argentina the shipping cost that was $10 with SAL would go to like $80. Yeah, you get it in like 5 days, but I'm in no rush to get my plastic that will sit on a shelf and look pretty.

This other method that was 500yen more is the next step after SAL. I know it is a bit more expensive but cmon... they can't be earning so little on the figure that they can't afford to take the hit. What was surprising though is that the package got here in 1 week. I wasn't expecting it for at least a month.

 

On the other hand, Play-Asia always comes through. One time they gave me a full refund for an order that was taking so long to be delivered that it was considered lost. I eventually got that one delivered, but I'm a good boy so I rejected it so that it would be sent back.

A month ago they did the same again for a game. They refunded me the $60 before it was sent back to them.

Then another time they sent me the wrong game, so to fix that they allowed me to keep this game and sent me what I asked for originally at no additional cost.

 

Maybe Play-Asia has spoiled me too much, lol.

 

On the Steam prices thing: is not only Steam, I checked Microsoft's store and the prices there are also very competitive to what Steam offers, not to mention Gamepass.

This price difference made me feel like a fool for allowing Sony not to do regional pricing like the other companies (even Nintendo does it, albeit to a lesser extent). I have never bought a full price digital game on PSN Store, but even at 50% off it is still more expensive than full price elsewhere, lol.

[Honor_Hand]

6 hours ago, AndresLionheart said:

Maybe Play-Asia has spoiled me too much, lol.

 

You never ship anything directly to Venezuela through regular postal mail to begin with, lol. Our postal system doesn't even work, so the chances of it getting lost or stolen are close to 100% Last time I checked, I think a regular figure through SAL is somewhere around $20, but through DHL directly to Venezuela is something around $120-145. Insanity! That's why I don't ship my stuff here directly. I have an address I use with a courier in the US to triangulate my stuff and get them here cheaper. It takes longer to arrive but's much more secure and cheaper. So SAL to the US for a big figure is usually around $24 while DHL is around $35-40. This is from Japan to the US. Takes like a day or two to get there through DHL and about 3 weeks through SAL. Then to Venezuela is about 2 to 4 weeks at $4,5 per pound through my courier. It's kind of a complicated setup but, well, y'know. ?

 

It seems Play-Asia has excellent customer service. So far I've only bought digital PSN cards from then but nothing in the physical department.

 

Yeah, I believe you, the kind of pricing we get on PSN is dismal at times. It's nothing like during the PS3 days. They're at the top of their game in regards to customer and reach so they pretty much don't see much of a reason to compete. That's why we as customers end up getting the short end of the stick from them in terms of sales and whatnot.

 

I made it a point to never buy anything digital for full price, it's just not worth it to me. The best I do is to try and get something from the sales when they are going on.

[AndresLionheart]

Dark Souls III

Game Difficulty: 5/10

Platinum Difficulty: 5/10

Time to Platinum: 38 hours

 

Thoughts on the game

 

After playing Dark Souls: Remastered and Bloodborne I wanted to play this one. I originally played it on PC because I saw that the Platinum was kind of annoying to go through. Requiring all spells and gestures means finishing several NPC quests, but these games tend to have easily missable shit when it comes to NPCs so I didn’t feel like putting in the effort for the required research.

A week ago I was browsing the south american Amazon for something completely unrelated and I ended up buying Dark Souls III along a few other PS4 games because they were cheap games (about US$15 each) and I needed to stack a few to get free shipping, lol (that’s how they always get you!).

I still didn’t intend on playing it, but then doing some research for guides and stuff I found out this amazing one. It’s exactly the type of guide I like: Simple, concise, to the point, and only mentioning things that are required for the Platinum. This completely solves the having to check a million different guides all the time to make sure you are not fucking up some NPC quest. I also found this other guide listing in a neat and concise way all the info for grinding the Covenant items.

 

I already shared my distaste for several design decisions in Dark Souls 1. This game pretty much fixes all of that while also adding way more build choices.

Animations don’t look like shit, the targeting controls work as expected, bosses are waaaaaay more fun to fight, music is much more epic, no area is a chore to traverse, there are plenty of shortcuts and bonfires, there are no BS mechanics like curse, and a lot more. For me personally there is no reason to ever play DS1 again.

I recompleted DS1 a month ago on PC and now I completed DS3, I have both fresh on my mind. With both experiences fresh I only confirmed what I already knew.

 

Last time I played a Dexterity build using the paired swords called Sellsword Twinblades. The community also sometimes calls them “Sellsword Winblades”, for good reason. Those swords deal an absurd amount of damage, and for PvP have a true combo using its weapon art. I had very little trouble all throughout the game last time thanks to that.

This time around I looked into Luck builds because I knew I was gonna need Luck for Item Discovery at the end when farming for the Covenant items. I prepared a Bleed dagger and a Poison dagger to make use of that Luck as well, but for most of the game I ended up using a regular Dex build with paired daggers this time. Overall the game was a bit harder. The daggers require more player skill due to the lower damage and range.

 

One cool thing about daggers in general is that their weapon art is “Quickstep”. It’s basically Bloodborne’s quickstep when dodging while targeting an enemy. I loved that about Bloodborne so I was really happy to find out about the quickstep in DS3.

The poison dagger was kinda fun to use on bosses that weren’t immune. It basically deals like 10 damage per second for like 3 minutes. So if the fight goes long enough that’s 1800 passive damage.

The bleed dagger on the other hand was a fucking disappointment. The information I read said it dealt 15% max HP damage + a flat amount based on the weapon proccing the bleed. Since I was using an innate +10 bleed weapon infused with a blood gem the flat damage is 200. I tried it against Nameless King, who has 7000 HP, and it only dealt 760 damage… Turns out that each boss takes a different %HP amount, which basically makes it trash on any boss because it doesn’t make up for the upfront damage that you are not dealing due to bleed-infused weapons having lower physical damage.

For Luck builds there is also Anri’s Straight Sword. Anri is an NPC that is important for one of the endings, so I couldn’t kill her early for her weapon. This means I didn’t have this sword until close to the end of the game. It’s very easy to use and hits very hard at 40-50 Luck. It also deals 10% blessed damage (killing skeletons in one go) and heals the wearer over time, which is a nice addition when exploring.

 

What about the game, though? Well, with the comparisons made to DS1 you can already see where I stand. I vastly prefer every single aspect of this game.

Exploring an area looking for items and secrets it’s about the same, well thought out and with plenty of little things to find out. The main difference is that you won’t be begging for a bonfire. Sometimes they may be a bit too close to each other, but I rather take that than sometimes having no bonfire in a whole fucking area (I’m looking at you New Londo Ruins…). My only gripe with the areas would be that the first few are not connected at all. You have to teleport with the bonfire from the tutorial area, and then at the end of the following area you are flown by some gargoyle thingies to a lower area. That’s about it, though. From there the whole game is connected (except for Archdragon Peak, which is an optional area).

 

The boss fight music hits on that epic feel that I love so much. It adds so much to the tension of the fights. I especially love the Abyss Watchers one, both the song and the whole way the fight plays out. Epic music is another thing missing in DS1. When I wrote about that game I mentioned that the boss music was kinda laughable most of the time.

 

I was a bit surprised of how bad this runs on PS4. I thought it was just gonna be locked at 30fps, but very often it dips way under that. On the Nameless King boss fight it even freezes for a few frames in the first phase when the King of Storms is flying around. The opening cutscene (the in-game part) was running at like 60fps, so for a second there I thought it was gonna be like that. Coming from playing DS1 on PC at 144fps was quite jarring.

 

What? You want to know about the story? Well, don’t ask me. I’m sure it’s epic and shit but I can’t care about the story when 99% of it is not told to me. I’m not in the business of reading item descriptions and cryptic NPC dialog to find out what happens. It looks like the same story from DS1 and DS2, tbh. Cursed undead people, some First Flame hogged by someone, a world in decline, something like that I’m sure.

 

Making new builds and running though this game is so fun. I’m already looking forward to replaying it again with a Faith build. I made an Intelligence build on my latest DS1 run, so I want to try out more of these spell-based builds (especially when Miracles have weapon buffing for 4 elements in DS3). Definitely doing it on PC, though. Not touching the PS4 version again, lol.

 

I put together some examples of boss fights with the paired daggers I used, Brigand Twindaggers. These clips come from the PS4’s replay saving feature that records the last minute of gameplay. I was too lazy to connect the video capture equipment: 

 

 Some examples of gameplay with the Brigand Twindaggers and low-investment buffing Pyromancies. Some bosses are during NG, others during NG+. The Ancient Wyvern one I'm not even using the daggers, I just find it funny to kill him that way.

 

Thoughts on the Platinum

 

As quickly mentioned before, plenty of missable things in classic FromSoftware fashion. This time around the bulk of collecting comes from spells, rings and gestures; no need to get all weapons.

Other than the NPC quests being easy to fuck up, everything is pretty straight forward. Boss souls are usually used to make 1 or 2 things, with one of them being a weapon most of the time. This means you would only need to do 2 playthroughs to be able to craft everything needed, but they decided to put special +1 and +2 rings in NG+1 and NG+2 respectively. Thankfully rings can be given to other people, so with a friend that has everything you don’t need to go all the way to the end of NG+2.

 

On the other hand, spells cannot be dropped, so those need to be acquired legit. Most of them are found or bought, but then there are a few that come as rewards from Covenants, and here is where shit gets real.

Covenants require special items to raise their ranks. At rank 1 and rank 2 they give out rewards. Rank 1 requires 10 of their item, Rank 2 requires another 20 of said item. These are meant to be obtained from PvP and co-op. Invading people, helping others with their invader, or helping people kill bosses. All these items can also be gotten from regular enemy drops at VERY low chances.

 

Two of these Covenants can be ignored if someone gives you the rings (Watchdogs of Farron and Rosaria’s Fingers). Aldrich Faithful have the spell as the first reward, so only 10 of their item are required.

This leaves us with the three that require 30 of their items: Warrior of Sunlight (Co-op bosses), Blade of the Darkmoon / Blue Sentinels (help people being invaded), and Mound-makers (invade as a crazy dude that has no allies).

 

Warrior of Sunlight was faster to farm in PvE rather than waiting to be summoned for a boss. To be summoned for co-op you have to wait in the area before the boss, so you can’t be farming on your end while waiting to be summoned for co-op.

 

Blue Sentinels on the other hand can be done while farming, so it was a fun distraction to be summoned to help people being invaded every now and again. It’s also possible to get the items while AFK since a lot of the time the invaders die before you can even get there, which still gives you the item. Without the summons you are looking at a 6-8 hours farm.

 

Mound-makers means invading to get legit. I did it once and felt like shit. I invaded some guy that was exploring the Grand Archives. I went up to him, we fought for a bit until I won and got my item. As I saw him die I thought of how shit it is to die and have to come back from the last bonfire. I don’t want to ruin people’s games, it makes me feel like an asshole troll.

Good thing is that these are super simple to cheese. All you need is a boosting partner. I fulfilled this task with @YankeeLance in less than 1 hour. All you have to do is password summon your friend somewhere with a bonfire beside a cliff. The person that’s going to get the items has to equip the Mound-maker covenant item and drop a sign using the Red soapstone. Your friend then summons you and as soon as you are in their world they jump off the cliff, dying and netting the summoned player the item. Do this 30 times for each player and there you go! Super fast and without having to ruin someone’s day.

 

All in all the grindy parts were not as bad as I expected. You can also respect in this game, so if your build has no Luck you can always respect at the end before starting to grind.

Edited November 3, 2021 by AndresLionheart

[AndresLionheart]

Elden Ring

Game Difficulty: 5/10

Platinum Difficulty: 7/10

Time to Platinum: 70 hours

(105 hours on First Playthrough on PC)

 

Thoughts on the game

 

After that Dark Souls 3 Platinum I kinda stopped playing on my Sony consoles. I was at 99 Platinums and didn’t know what to do. I wanted to do Tales of Arise but without a PS5 at the time I bought it on PC to play the much better version (165 fps).

A month ago PS5s finally started appearing at stores at their real price. Even without a PS5 I had already bought the game, however I didn’t feel like replaying it yet.

I had just played Elden Ring on PC to completion, but I wanted more, so I bought it on PS5 to make it the first thing I play on it xD.

 

The overwhelming praise the game got by pretty much every single person says it all. This game is an experience. It’s mostly the same gameplay as Dark Souls 3, only on a much bigger scale. It contains a little bit of DNA of each FromSoftware title: The story of Dark Souls 1, the powerstancing of Dark Souls 2, the speed and general gameplay of Dark Souls 3, some of the stealth mechanics and posture elements of Sekiro. And everything blended together into a big open world.

 

Personally I feel that the open world is the biggest improvement to the formula. Sometimes these games can feel a bit overwhelming because they keep the player on edge the whole time. You have to be careful around every corner or you risk losing progress and experience. Elden Ring keeps those tense areas with mini-dungeons that can be found everywhere, and the much bigger and intricate Legacy Dungeons, which have the more traditional tight design. But when you are out on the field it is much more relaxing. This switch between tense areas and relaxing overworld help alleviate the sense of dread, and I really like that.

Another great change that the open world brings is the possibility for players stuck on a boss to go somewhere else instead of having to grind for levels or bash their head against the boss until its dead. I don’t have that kind of problem in these games, but I know it’s still is a good change.

 

The art style and vistas are phenomenal. The graphics may not be the cutting-edge stuff that idiotic people that only care about graphics look for, but it trumps that easily with the art direction. There is so much more color that there has ever been in these games. The variety of creative areas and places to discover is incredible as well. There was always something new to discover that made me look around and appreciate the effort and detail on every corner.

 

There are so many new weapons and spells. The addition of DS2’s powerstancing also opened the door to a variety of dual-wielding builds. Being able to freely change the skill and affinity of regular weapons makes experimentation much more feasible. I haven’t checked but I feel like any combination of stats can be viable. You can even change your character’s appearance at any point without any cost.

The only thing that still limits the experimentation is weapon upgrades. The ability to purchase the stones needed to upgrade a weapon should immediately become available as soon as the player upgrades a weapon past certain points (like after making a weapon +4 the stones needed to upgrade from +1 to +3 should become buyable)

 

It’s incredible that FromSoftware was allowed to make such a big game without being force to shoehorn in ANY sort of microtransactions. This is a game through and through, and a clear example that games do not need to try to squeeze every penny out of their players to make money, all that is needed is to make a good game, a product that players would want to play.

 

Thoughts on the Platinum

 

Would you look at that, this is Platinum #100… Not the most eventful one like it was with Tales of Symphonia as the 50^th, but I needed to get one that deserved a spot like that before I could go play other stuff like Astro’s Playroom and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. I originally wanted to have Dragon Quest Heroes 2 take this spot, but never got around to it and now I was pressed for time =P.

 

Anyway, a MUCH simpler Platinum that the Dark Souls games. It is more comparable to Bloodborne. In terms of collecting stuff only the legendary rarity equipment and spells are required, other than that is just beating every important boss. Sidequests are required to get to some of these bosses, as well as unlocking the 3 main endings. As per usual it is possible to use save backups to get every ending in the same playthrough. The bad news is that the “cutting-edge” PS5 doesn’t allow to backup to USB drives… I remember Sony saying that that was something that would be added in the future, but I don’t think they were being honest. In the end it was either $10 for a month of PS+ to use Cloud saves or having to replay a minimum of 12 bosses per playthrough (on top of having to redo sidequests that I had already completed). I decided that the $10 were worth less than the time I would need to invest.

 

As I mention in the “time to platinum” part, I played this on PC first. Down below I will leave some bosses, including an infamous one that you may have heard of before, although I got her down in a pretty infamous way as well…

 

The female character is using a Dex/Arc build (PS5), while the male one is on a Dex/Int build (PC). Yes, I know, I'm very creative and used Katanas on both =).

 

One of the hardest bosses FromSoft has ever made. It may not look like it here because I'm using a broken build that is very effective against her, and she used stupid attacks on phase 2.

 

Such a sick fight. One of my favorites.

 

No name on the title or showing it on the thumbnail just in case. Spoilers, of course.

Edited May 9, 2022 by AndresLionheart

[AJ_Radio]

Very big gap between posts. I guess the PC kept you busy for a while.

[AndresLionheart]

10 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

Very big gap between posts. I guess the PC kept you busy for a while.

Yes, it did. It's a pretty powerful PC, and with it came along my first experiences into the world of over 60fps.

The smoothness, speed and resolution made me not want to go back to the slow PS4, lol. Games are also a lot cheaper and I have access to Game Pass, so lots to play and replay to enjoy the 144+ fps.

 

Now with the PS5 I can also go back to PS4 games with faster load times, and in some cases, better fps if the game had unlocked framerate.

 

Still, I will most likely only use it for exclusives. Elden Ring looks and performs much better on PC (after the initial patches). On PS5 the graphic details are lower and it runs mostly at 60fps but drops pretty frequently (in performance mode. It probably runs at like 30fps in resolution mode).

[AJ_Radio]

How much did you pay for your PC?

[AndresLionheart]

12 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

How much did you pay for your PC?

It was back in September 2021 and was about US$2000. Keep in mind that I'm in Argentina. Any imported good is usually 50% more expensive over here, so in the US my PC would probably cost about US$1400.

 

I also shared the specs a few posts back if you are curious about them.