Arcesius' Pursuit of Completion

[Arcesius]

New Megapost incoming! Quite some progress to update and one less review in the production line! ? Let's get right to the games! 

 

Nioh 2

This is, once more, a fantastic game. I don't know what makes this game so appealing to me (well, I know, but it's a combination of many things), but it is just a game that tickles all the right places when it comes to action RPGs.

 

I am meanwhile in the third region (no idea how many there are.. still spoiler-free here), but I decided to ditch my Dual Swords and try out something different. I am now using the Switchglaive, one of the new weapons introduced in this sequel, and I gotta say.. it's probably one of the most fun weapons I have ever played with in a video game. It is designed to stance-switch mid combo and is thus a very technical weapon, but when used properly is just devastating. It's also the only weapon that scales primarily with Omnyo, so I decided to go for confusion and am thus rocking a Fire&Water Omnyo Master. ??

 

 

Trials Fusion

If you look at my trophy log it could seem like I have not been playing this game. Wrong. There are 120 challenges needed for "Is There Anything You Can't Do?", the hardest trophy in the game, and I have meanwhile completed 115/120 challenges ? But the ones I have left are of course brutally hard... Pipe Phobia, Top Roach, Be one With the Bike and Rabbit's Survival Run are extremely difficult, and will take many hours of practice to get. 

 

@BB-BakkerJ You gotta make your videos public! I know you have some more challenges on your channel... ?

 

@det_gittes I know you are worried about Afterburner (maybe you've done it already). It honestly isn't as bad as I thought, so give it a go! I don't like the mechanic either, but it didn't take too long. The frustrating thing was that I made it three times through all the rings just to fail to make it through the last one  Use the Roach...

 

 

Crypt of the NecroDancer

After getting Speed Demon, I decided to install the DLC and went on to beat the game with Nocturna, one of the new characters. On my way to beat the game I accidentally amassed 6'000 and then 8'000 Gold (I killed the shopkeeper early to get items for free so had nothing to spend my gold on from then onward), and got those trophies as well ?

 

I'm currently working on the Extra Modes. I have already completed Phasing Mode, Randomizer mode and Mystery Mode. The first two were pretty cool, but Mystery Mode sucks big time. Enemies and Items are just obscured question marks, so you have to make blind purchases and figure out what weapon you are currently fighting with, which items you have, etc... it's not fun, but I got it out of the way and don't plan on playing this mode ever again. 

 

I will attempt No-Return Mode with Cadence and once that's done, Hard Mode. Yes, there is a Hard Mode now, because the game was too easy ?. 

 

 

And with these updates out of the way, it's time for the next review: 

 

 

 

 Platinum #67 – WipEout: Omega Collection

 

 

• 100% Enjoyment: 7/10

• 100% Challenge: 6.5/10

 

This was a game I got free from PS+, and since I have little experience with racing games and this one was highly rated, decided to give it a go. I certainly did not know what I was getting myself into, but overall I had a good time with WipEout. I guess if you wanna try the franchise out, this is the game to go with. 

 

 

100% Enjoyment

 

OK let me be honest from the start. One of the first thoughts that came to my mind while playing this game was that it is non-kids version of Mario Kart ? I wasn’t expecting there to be weapons in this game, I thought it would be a racer similar to Trackmania Turbo, where you just need to beat times and race against opponents. But nope, turns out that there are many, MANY (too many ?) distinct events. In some events you need to finish a track under a certain time, or a lap as quickly as possible, you have regular races against AI enemies with or without weapons enabled.. and then you have Combat events, where you score points by destroying enemies with weapon-pickups. And the worst of them all: Zone events.

 

In Zone events you cannot control your speed. Instead, acceleration is automatic and your ship speeds up gradually over time. This doesn’t sound too bad, but for some reason the devs decided to use psychedelic color schemes in this mode, which change depending on the current speed class, and are sometimes so bright and lacking contrast that you really cannot see anything. This, combined with these events taking the longest to complete (10+ minutes) made them the least enjoyable type of event for me, at least in 2048.

 

What’s 2048 you ask? Well, WipEout: Omega Collection is a collection (duh) of previous WipEout games: WipEout 2048, WipEout HD and WipEout Fury, a DLC-pack for HD. In my opinion, 2048 was the most fun, as it included the more memorable tracks and was visually more appealing… Have a look! ?

 

 

HD was alright but a step down, and Fury was completely unnecessary, filled with forgettable tracks and introducing the worst type of events overall (particularly Zone Battles… ugh). It also made the game longer than it needed to be, although I got the platinum in about 35 hours (nothing compared to the 130 hours I needed for Trackmania…). But maybe I just wanted the game to be over by that point and I’m being unfair to Fury, who knows.

 

 

100% Challenge

 

I have to admit, I expected this game to be more challenging. The trophy list definitely sounds intimidating: Elite-Pass all events in the 2048 campaign (get the highest ranking) and get a Gold Medal in all HD and Fury events on the highest difficulty,

 

But it really isn’t as difficult as it sounds, or at least I personally didn’t have too much trouble with the game. In 2048, the hardest events were definitely the Zone events, but that had more to do with the psychedelic colors I mentioned above and less with handling the speed itself. In fact, I left the Zone events for last and by that time I knew all the tracks by heart, so that even the hardest maps took me 4-5 attempts at most (many I managed to get in 1-2 attempts). Even reaching Zone 75 in Altima, which I thought would be borderline impossible, wasn’t as difficult as I’d thought... ?

 

In HD, arguably the most challenging events are the races on the highest speed-class “Phantom”, which are known for the cheating AI that will do everything it can just to make you suffer. And sure, it was noticeable, the AI really is aggressive and cares more about sabotaging your race than its own racing lines, but besides 1-2 maps where I had trouble anyways (Chenghou Project, fuck that map), I didn’t have too much trouble. I even won the 8-map tournament on Phantom speed-class on my second attempt, though I probably had quite some luck as well.

 

Then there is that one trophy for which countless threads have been created… The “Beat Zico” trophies, of which there are two in this collection. As I just found out, it seems that Zico was a staff member in Liverpool, so these trophies basically amount to “beat this really tight developer time”. And while people seem to agree that beating his time in HD is far harder than in 2048, I actually thought the opposite. It took me way over 100 laps (I think even over 200) to beat Zico’s time in WipEout 2048, but it only took me 39 laps to beat the time in HD:

 

 

I think this is because in HD there is a specific racing line you have to follow if you want to have any chance at beating the time. But the track in 2048 is much wider and open, with multiple paths and shortcuts, and thus allows for many different, valid racing lines and consequently comes with way more places where you can screw up... 

 

Last but not least, also a huge shout-out again to @BB-BakkerJ for helping me out with the online trophies. There are only three, but could have been a pain to do, and I’m generally not interested in online-play, at least not with randoms ?

 

 

And with that, only Darkest Dungeon is waiting to be reviewed... ? 

 

[Baker]

Wow you’re blasting through Trials Fusion. It personally took me way longer, although I did leave most base game challenges for last. At this rate you’ll be done in no time.
 

About the video’s, I like them to be private. It’s more for my own viewing pleasure to rewatch some gaming stuff I’ve done ?. But here they are, maybe they can be of some help.
 

 

 

 

Rabbit’s Survival Run is honestly pretty easy and with Be One With The Bike it’s just that first annoying CP. The other two are very hard. Most say Top Roach is the hardest but I’ve spent a lot more time on Pipe Phobia, but I suck at wheelies ?. Good luck man!

[det_gittes]

You're certainly keeping yourself busy and entertained  Good job on your progress / achievements in all of those games! 

 

1 hour ago, Arcesius said:

 

@det_gittes I know you are worried about Afterburner (maybe you've done it already). It honestly isn't as bad as I thought, so give it a go! I don't like the mechanic either, but it didn't take too long. The frustrating thing was that I made it three times through all the rings just to fail to make it through the last one  Use the Roach...

 

 

Well, in my case it's down to three challenges, but I'm only actively pursuing one - Pipe Phobia. The other two, Goal-Line Technology and Afterburner, are irritating, so I'm leaving them for the final clean-up (I don't suppose any one of them is a deal-breaker for 100%, just a wasted hour or two). With Pipe Phobia, it's just a matter of time, I've gotten to the final section already twice and faulted there, that was pretty annoying, but I've made good progress on controling the wheelie, so I will get it one of these days. I've got to admit, though, that it's a huge relief not having to think about the Top Roach any more ? Good luck on the remaining challenges, and report your progress, it's a fun read!

[Arcesius]

21 hours ago, BB-BakkerJ said:

Wow you’re blasting through Trials Fusion. It personally took me way longer, although I did leave most base game challenges for last. At this rate you’ll be done in no time.

 

To be fair, I still have the hardest stuff left... Speedcuber (though I might save some time here thanks to your tip with the Track Central), RedLynx times and the four extreme challenges... So I might still need a while ?

 

 

21 hours ago, BB-BakkerJ said:

About the video’s, I like them to be private. It’s more for my own viewing pleasure to rewatch some gaming stuff I’ve done . But here they are, maybe they can be of some help.

Rabbit’s Survival Run is honestly pretty easy and with Be One With The Bike it’s just that first annoying CP. The other two are very hard. Most say Top Roach is the hardest but I’ve spent a lot more time on Pipe Phobia, but I suck at wheelies . Good luck man!

 

Fair enough.. Thanks for posting them though! ? I think I'll return to those four challenges once I'm done with everything else, though. There's still a lot to do where I can improve my skills. For example, I haven't done the Fault One Zero DLC yet (because it takes forever to reach lv. 100...) but I saw that I need to pass all tracks there with the Rabbit. Perfect opportunity to get used to the bike for Rabbit's Survival Run! ?

 

 

21 hours ago, det_gittes said:

Well, in my case it's down to three challenges, but I'm only actively pursuing one - Pipe Phobia. The other two, Goal-Line Technology and Afterburner, are irritating, so I'm leaving them for the final clean-up (I don't suppose any one of them is a deal-breaker for 100%, just a wasted hour or two). With Pipe Phobia, it's just a matter of time, I've gotten to the final section already twice and faulted there, that was pretty annoying, but I've made good progress on controling the wheelie, so I will get it one of these days. I've got to admit, though, that it's a huge relief not having to think about the Top Roach any more  Good luck on the remaining challenges, and report your progress, it's a fun read!

 

Holy shit, huge congrats are due in that case!! I had checked your replay on Rock of Rages since I saw that it was a 0-fault but it was a great time with the Viper, so I had no idea you got it done... Must be a huge relief! ?

 

As for the other two besides Pipe Phobia... No, they really aren't a deal-breaker. Goal-Line Technology took me probably slightly longer than Afterburner, but it's just about knowing where you need to slow down and where you need to catch up to the ball. I made it twice to the last ramp just for the stupid glowing ball to roll down the ramp before I could push it over the finish line ?

 

 

 

As for my own progress... I got Anger Management, though it was while practicing in Track Central. I figured out that the Roach is the bike to go for me (but it seems like I'm the only one that feels that way ?), and I almost reached the fourth circle on my first attempt afterwards on the real track whilst on fire! So I'm confident that I can get it done in the regular track as well (and I want a video of me doing it ?). The only problematic part is the huge gap with the three metal platforms in between, since it slows you down a ton. 

 

But I've in the meantime moved on to the Empire of the Sky DLC, where I got Global Sizzling (what's up with this game and fire???), and had a lot of fun with Way of the Machine. What a great track! (Also... how come I could beat it? It seemed impossible only a couple of weeks ago..)

 

I have Three Birds One Stone left, which seems to be a bitch. ? I'll practice that one today and then it's time to move on to the Fault One Zero DLC! 

[ZoutjeNL]

Glad you are enjoying the Switchglaive! I rocked as an omnyo mage/melee switchglaive build, so fun! Switching stances all the time gives the weapon so much diversity. Also making Omnyo strong is fun. Applying all the status effects is a ton of fun. Good luck finishing those 5 final brutal challenges, with your skill and determination I am sure you will have it finished in notime! Glad you are done finishing Mystery mode as you didn't like it, always nice to have something you dislike within a game out of the way so you can focus on the more enjoyable stuff. 

 

Also a great review! Surprised to see that you didn't find it as hard as most people. Especially that Zico trophy where people just make it to be the impossible. Well done! Looking forward to the DD review. 

[Baker]

1 hour ago, Arcesius said:

 

As for my own progress... I got Anger Management, though it was while practicing in Track Central. I figured out that the Roach is the bike to go for me (but it seems like I'm the only one that feels that way ), and I almost reached the fourth circle on my first attempt afterwards on the real track whilst on fire! So I'm confident that I can get it done in the regular track as well (and I want a video of me doing it ). The only problematic part is the huge gap with the three metal platforms in between, since it slows you down a ton. 

 

Congrats. But if I were you I’d just leave it at this. You described the hardest part of this skill game, the big gap and getting through it quickly enough so you won’t explode. That is tough to do on round 3 and even tougher on round 4 and that’s were almost all my runs ended. Save yourself from hours of frustration ?.

Edited April 19, 2020 by BB-BakkerJ

[Arcesius]

1 hour ago, ZoutjeNL said:

Glad you are enjoying the Switchglaive! I rocked as an omnyo mage/melee switchglaive build, so fun! Switching stances all the time gives the weapon so much diversity. Also making Omnyo strong is fun. Applying all the status effects is a ton of fun. Good luck finishing those 5 final brutal challenges, with your skill and determination I am sure you will have it finished in notime! Glad you are done finishing Mystery mode as you didn't like it, always nice to have something you dislike within a game out of the way so you can focus on the more enjoyable stuff. 

 

Also a great review! Surprised to see that you didn't find it as hard as most people. Especially that Zico trophy where people just make it to be the impossible. Well done! Looking forward to the DD review. 

 

Absolutely enjoying it thus far. I mostly embue it with Water magic and use Guardian Spirit skills or Fireshot to deal Fire damage and apply confusion to the enemy (still need to unlock Fire Familiar...). I also use Weakness Talisman because it fits my playstyle, but I stay away from Sloth or Carnage, as they would probably make the game a lot easier and it's just not how I like to play ?

 

Btw, how are you liking Thumper? And are you playing it with or without VR? ?

 

 

53 minutes ago, BB-BakkerJ said:

Congrats. But if I were you I’d just leave it at this. You described the hardest part of this skill game, the big gap and getting through it quickly enough so you won’t explode. That is tough to do on round 3 and even tougher on round 4 and that’s were almost all my runs ended. Save yourself from hours of frustration .

 

At least I won't go hard on it now but I might revisit the challenge once I'm done with everything else and clean up some times ? But yeah that part definitely seems the hardest, especially on the fourth circle (the third one seems ok if you skip the second platform at least). 

 

 

As for why I dislike Mystery Mode in Crypt of the NecroDancer... This is how the game looks like in that mode: 

 

 

So you are left guessing what weapons, shovels, torches, spells, etc.. you have equipped, you need to make blind purchases as seen in the picture, and all enemies look like the one on that picture... just a generic black blob with a question mark... Not really a mode I would call "fun" ?

 

 

 

[det_gittes]

3 hours ago, Arcesius said:

To be fair, I still have the hardest stuff left... Speedcuber (though I might save some time here thanks to your tip with the Track Central), RedLynx times and the four extreme challenges... So I might still need a while 

I remember watching @Floriiss play Trials (not live, but he posted videos on YT, which are still available there) and I was quite impressed because he wouldn't progress (to the next event / DLC pack) before finishing the one he was currently on. So naturally he got Is There Anything You Can't Do before ever playing a DLC track. While this may seem impressive (and it certainly was), I don't think it's the optimal way to play this game, unless you want to impose an additional challenge upon yourself. As this game is all about constant improvement, it will save a lot of time and frustration if you first become a better rider and only then revisit the hardest challenges. So in that sense I think you're going about it the less frustrating way. But surely everyone may play as they please (though to me completing the Top Roach shortly after passing the track for the first time is truly mind-boggling).

 

3 hours ago, Arcesius said:

As for the other two besides Pipe Phobia... No, they really aren't a deal-breaker. Goal-Line Technology took me probably slightly longer than Afterburner, but it's just about knowing where you need to slow down and where you need to catch up to the ball. I made it twice to the last ramp just for the stupid glowing ball to roll down the ramp before I could push it over the finish line 

Well, some challenges in Trials are down to luck and Goal-Line Technology is definitely one of them, last night I started the track with the Pit Viper rather than the default Roach and I got the challenge on my second try. Out of curiosity, I also started the Afterburner and though I didn't get it (well, I went for it not longer than for 10 minutes), I started getting to farther circles, so yeah, it's definitely doable. As for Pipe Phobia, I was pretty sure last night that I got it (and on a very nice, controlled run too), but the challenge didn't register - I had to watch the replay in slow motion to see that when I was riding off the longest pipe section, my front wheel made the slightest of contacts with the edge of the pipe ?. But I know that it's coming one of these days ?. 

 

3 hours ago, Arcesius said:

But I've in the meantime moved on to the Empire of the Sky DLC, where I got Global Sizzling (what's up with this game and fire???), and had a lot of fun with Way of the Machine. What a great track! (Also... how come I could beat it? It seemed impossible only a couple of weeks ago..)

 

I have Three Birds One Stone left, which seems to be a bitch.  I'll practice that one today and then it's time to move on to the Fault One Zero DLC! 

Did you pass the WotM on your first attempt? If so, that's impressive. If not, that's still impressive, given that you haven't played Trials for too long. It's a long track with a couple of tricky obstacles, but for me the one that stopped me in my tracks for quite a while was the two steep platforms with a step in-between them. I know that once I passed that obstacle, I proceeded to pass the track. It was the same thing with Inferno IV - other than the first jump, which seemed impossible at first, I was stumped on the jump from the wheel to barrels and then from barrels, over a bomb, to a pipe to a platform. A couple of runs ended there, but once I did pass that obstacle, I also finished the track.

 

As for Three Birds One Stone, I got it fairly recently and, surprisingly, it took me very little effort. I would restart immediately if I ever got more than 1-2 faults on the first zone, but within a few attempts I was able to get to the last two obstacles of the last warp zone in 1-2 faults - having around 10 attempts for the very last obstacle gives you quite a lot of wiggle room for adjustments, although I never worked out a strat for the last obstacle, just counted mostly on a lucky jump. 

[ZoutjeNL]

2 hours ago, Arcesius said:

 

Absolutely enjoying it thus far. I mostly embue it with Water magic and use Guardian Spirit skills or Fireshot to deal Fire damage and apply confusion to the enemy (still need to unlock Fire Familiar...). I also use Weakness Talisman because it fits my playstyle, but I stay away from Sloth or Carnage, as they would probably make the game a lot easier and it's just not how I like to play 

 

Btw, how are you liking Thumper? And are you playing it with or without VR? 

 

 

 

I am liking Thumper so far. I have completed it previously on PC but it has been a couple years. I unfortunately don't have a VR otherwise I definitely would have as it is the perfect game for VR! The only downside is that I only can play it for a short time. My eyesight has been getting worse over the last few years. Because it requires full focus I play it just a little bit every day. Today I woke up with a headache so I skip playing it today and hopefully will continue tommorow if it is better again. 

[Arcesius]

 

4 hours ago, det_gittes said:

As for Pipe Phobia, I was pretty sure last night that I got it (and on a very nice, controlled run too), but the challenge didn't register - I had to watch the replay in slow motion to see that when I was riding off the longest pipe section, my front wheel made the slightest of contacts with the edge of the pipe . But I know that it's coming one of these days . 

 

Damn that sounds disheartening! ? I had something very similar happen to me two days ago when I went for "Shoddy Workmanship". I even followed the replay in slow-motion with the free camera but just couldn't see where my wheel touched a plank somewhere... That sure sucked ?

 

But hey, you are almost done! All you need is to keep at it and you'll get Pipe Phobia eventually... But you know so yourself ?

 

 

4 hours ago, det_gittes said:

Did you pass the WotM on your first attempt? If so, that's impressive. If not, that's still impressive, given that you haven't played Trials for too long. It's a long track with a couple of tricky obstacles, but for me the one that stopped me in my tracks for quite a while was the two steep platforms with a step in-between them. I know that once I passed that obstacle, I proceeded to pass the track.

 

Not quite... but almost... on my second attempt! But I almost made it on my first. I got to the last checkpoint with like 7 minutes remaining and I just chocked so hard.. I could for the life of me just not get to the finish line. And it's just a Bunny Hop! I couldn't believe it ?

 

But I know which platforms you mean... That and just the preceding CP are definitely the hardest, no doubt about that. 

 

 

4 hours ago, det_gittes said:

As for Three Birds One Stone, I got it fairly recently and, surprisingly, it took me very little effort. I would restart immediately if I ever got more than 1-2 faults on the first zone, but within a few attempts I was able to get to the last two obstacles of the last warp zone in 1-2 faults - having around 10 attempts for the very last obstacle gives you quite a lot of wiggle room for adjustments, although I never worked out a strat for the last obstacle, just counted mostly on a lucky jump. 

 

Got it a couple of hours ago, but it was not without sweating... I got to the last checkpoint even with only 3 faults once, just to fail to make it out in time. In my successful attempt I made it there with 5 faults, and completed the challenge with 13 ? No consistency whatsoever. But hey, it's done! 

 

Now, I might have to break my rule to leave a DLC unfinished... I'm just at level 87 right now and there is a trophy in "Fault One Zero" that wants me to be lv.100. I would have thought that by doing so many challenges in the base game I would reach lv. 100 easily, but I was wrong... ?

[lilpain97]

Correct me if I'm wrong but you can sort of guess enemies by putting the hearts option on. They pop up above the head and although not perfect you can get some idea of them. Haven't playing in so long... I probably should go back plat and call it quits lol. Huge congrats on everything btw

[Arcesius]

5 hours ago, lilpain97 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but you can sort of guess enemies by putting the hearts option on. They pop up above the head and although not perfect you can get some idea of them. Haven't playing in so long... I probably should go back plat and call it quits lol. Huge congrats on everything btw

 

Thanks man! ?

 

Absolutely, in my actual run I turned the hearts option on... But it sometimes still is a guessing game (Yellow Skeleton Mage or Yellow Armored Skeleton?)... Plus I am not yet that familiar with the Zone 5 enemies ?

At least it lets you identify the mini-bosses easily. Still, spending your money on stuff that you don't know you want, not knowing if you have any healing item on you (only Cookies are identifiable since you can stack them... In my screenshot above I have 6x cookies),... kinda takes the fun away, at least for me. I was lucky enough to grab a blood-weapon in my run, so healing wasn't an issue. 

 

I think you could get most of the DLC trophies fairly quickly... The "all-chars run with DLC" will surely take some practice, as there are three new characters in the DLC and one of them is a total pain to play... And story mode requires consistency with Aria as well, so I won't be able to do that anytime soon ? 

 

Why did you stop playing btw? I know you only have extremely difficult tasks left to do in the base game, but did you ever start practicing the all characters run seriously?

Edited April 20, 2020 by Arcesius

[lilpain97]

6 hours ago, Arcesius said:

 

Thanks man! 

 

Absolutely, in my actual run I turned the hearts option on... But it sometimes still is a guessing game (Yellow Skeleton Mage or Yellow Armored Skeleton?)... Plus I am not yet that familiar with the Zone 5 enemies

At least it lets you identify the mini-bosses easily. Still, spending your money on stuff that you don't know you want, not knowing if you have any healing item on you (only Cookies are identifiable since you can stack them... In my screenshot above I have 6x cookies),... kinda takes the fun away, at least for me. I was lucky enough to grab a blood-weapon in my run, so healing wasn't an issue. 

 

I think you could get most of the DLC trophies fairly quickly... The "all-chars run with DLC" will surely take some practice, as there are three new characters in the DLC and one of them is a total pain to play... And story mode requires consistency with Aria as well, so I won't be able to do that anytime soon  

 

Why did you stop playing btw? I know you only have extremely difficult tasks left to do in the base game, but did you ever start practicing the all characters run seriously?

Thats true lol, you can get messed up by it all considering so many enemies share the same health pool and items have similar costs ect. Blood weapon sounds great on that lol, I can imagine thinking its food but finding out its useless. But blood weapon just kill 10 enemies? Or half with thorns??? And you're set for healing.

 

All chars DLC I assume its mary... She's a... Yeah you know lol. Aria is weird af, as I could do Cadence so consistent without dropping beat or no damage with dagger but Aria took a good few attempts. I took a 5 month break came back and got a run... Died to wall pig after killing final boss... Next few runs I got it though. You got this for sure, you have some hard shit done and seem to have the dedication for it. Are you stacking Aria low btw%? 

 

I stopped playing for the same reason I sort of stopped playing games now. Won't go into detail but yeah. Life just kinda took a huge nose dive when everything was starting to go well so I lost a ton of motivation and its happened again. Weird because I was plating/100% games but I couldn't do long sessions no more and CoTND was something I felt I would need to dedicate most my time to so dropped it. Aside from that I burnt myself out on it because I did play PC ver as well, I have actually done all Chars on PC and have Coda. Iirc the furthest I got with her was 1-3 after like an hr or so but only hit it once and I didn't get close after a few more hrs lol. So I was very capable of getting a run going for PS4 ver. Also... Buying a xim lmao

 

[det_gittes]

Well, it happened last night, finally - I got Pipe Phobia after several good runs which ended on the very last pipe section. I hope you don't mind me posting the video (for reference, what else ?). Today I also got Afterburner (I hate it) and that completes the trophy list for Trials Fusion - I spent so much time with this game (the majority of which was unrelated to trophies) that I will probably come up with a write-up at some point. Obviously I will still happily follow your progress!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOk3hj43HXo

Edited April 21, 2020 by det_gittes

[Arcesius]

On 20.4.2020 at 11:39 PM, lilpain97 said:

All chars DLC I assume its mary... She's a... Yeah you know lol. Aria is weird af, as I could do Cadence so consistent without dropping beat or no damage with dagger but Aria took a good few attempts. I took a 5 month break came back and got a run... Died to wall pig after killing final boss... Next few runs I got it though. You got this for sure, you have some hard shit done and seem to have the dedication for it. Are you stacking Aria low btw%? 

 

Yeah, Mary... stupid sheep ? And I agree, Aria is kinda weird... I play with all characters trying to not drop beats, so it's not like I'm used to let enemies get to me by standing still, but it's the "make no mistakes" part that makes Aria difficult for me, especially having only the dagger to work with. Starting in Z4 with no upgrades whatsoever makes her pretty challenging, but I'll get it eventually ? Not doing low% from the get go though, just beating her would be already great ?. I haven't played her much yet, but my PB is Z2-3 so should get a clear soon, once I return to her.. Or at least I hope I do. 

 

Dying to the Wall Pig must have hurt ? Her final boss doesn't look easy at all, either. 

 

 

On 20.4.2020 at 11:39 PM, lilpain97 said:

I stopped playing for the same reason I sort of stopped playing games now. Won't go into detail but yeah. Life just kinda took a huge nose dive when everything was starting to go well so I lost a ton of motivation and its happened again. Weird because I was plating/100% games but I couldn't do long sessions no more and CoTND was something I felt I would need to dedicate most my time to so dropped it. Aside from that I burnt myself out on it because I did play PC ver as well, I have actually done all Chars on PC and have Coda. Iirc the furthest I got with her was 1-3 after like an hr or so but only hit it once and I didn't get close after a few more hrs lol. So I was very capable of getting a run going for PS4 ver. Also... Buying a xim lmao

 

I'm sure the current situation doesn't help, either.. sorry to hear that you are in a low currently. But hey, you are not forcing yourself to do something you don't enjoy, and that is definitely something that not everyone could recognize and act accordingly ?

 

Alright if you did all chars on PC I guess you have played your fair amount of hours on that platform, too... I can only dream of unlocking Coda at this point ? But I am indeed playing with Keyboard.. the Xim wasn't cheap, but I thought if this game will give me 500+ hours of playtime, it's money well spent... 

 

 

13 hours ago, det_gittes said:

Well, it happened last night, finally - I got Pipe Phobia after several good runs which ended on the very last pipe section. I hope you don't mind me posting the video (for reference, what else ). Today I also got Afterburner (I hate it) and that completes the trophy list for Trials Fusion - I spent so much time with this game (the majority of which was unrelated to trophies) that I will probably come up with a write-up at some point. Obviously I will still happily follow your progress!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOk3hj43HXo

 

Holy crap, sincere congrats!! That is one amazing 100% right there ? And of course you can post the video... Nicely done! 

 

Knowing how much you like the game, I assume getting that 100% won't mean you are done with the game, am I right? If you at some point decide to write down your thoughts... let me know where to find your post... Looking forward to it! 

 

There is no progress to report from my side, though... I've started practicing for Speedcuber in Track Central, that's the next challenge I'll be tackling ?

 

 

  

[lilpain97]

3 hours ago, Arcesius said:

 

Yeah, Mary... stupid sheep  And I agree, Aria is kinda weird... I play with all characters trying to not drop beats, so it's not like I'm used to let enemies get to me by standing still, but it's the "make no mistakes" part that makes Aria difficult for me, especially having only the dagger to work with. Starting in Z4 with no upgrades whatsoever makes her pretty challenging, but I'll get it eventually  Not doing low% from the get go though, just beating her would be already great . I haven't played her much yet, but my PB is Z2-3 so should get a clear soon, once I return to her.. Or at least I hope I do. 

 

Dying to the Wall Pig must have hurt  Her final boss doesn't look easy at all, either. 

 

I'm sure the current situation doesn't help, either.. sorry to hear that you are in a low currently. But hey, you are not forcing yourself to do something you don't enjoy, and that is definitely something that not everyone could recognize and act accordingly 

 

Alright if you did all chars on PC I guess you have played your fair amount of hours on that platform, too... I can only dream of unlocking Coda at this point  But I am indeed playing with Keyboard.. the Xim wasn't cheap, but I thought if this game will give me 500+ hours of playtime, it's money well spent... 

 

 

 

  

I actually laughed out loud when dying to the wall pig lol. Same thing happened on SMB last lvl for impossible boy. I just laugh mostly... Mostly. As for Aria yeah you're definitely getting it done, 2-3 is great if you haven't played much.

 

The current situation does and doesn't help... Doesn't because I'm stuck inside and can't really go out to keep my mind off things. Does because as soon as its over... Work will be extremely awkward to work with the person. But oh well, enough of that.

 

Yeah thats why I was gonna buy it to basically force myself into plating lol and you definitely get your money out of it if you do. Nope lol, I played first on PC but didn't beat everyone, I then went to ps4 got the hang of it then went back to PC and did an all chars run. Good luck with the 100% and I know for sure you will get it if you keep at it. Now to take a break from this site.

[det_gittes]

11 hours ago, Arcesius said:

Holy crap, sincere congrats!! That is one amazing 100% right there  And of course you can post the video... Nicely done! 

 

Knowing how much you like the game, I assume getting that 100% won't mean you are done with the game, am I right? If you at some point decide to write down your thoughts... let me know where to find your post... Looking forward to it! 

 

There is no progress to report from my side, though... I've started practicing for Speedcuber in Track Central, that's the next challenge I'll be tackling 

Thanks! And yeah, I will probably stick around with this game for a bit longer as I feel I've improved in harder stuff even though I've only played challenges for the past month or so. And I will probably try to move up the leaderboard position a bit, maybe top ten for my country (currently 13). 

 

Now it's really down to the hardest trophies for you and this is where patience and persistence will pay off ? Speedcuber is probably more annoying rather than hard, but speedruns (not all are very hard, though) and the remaining challenges will likely take quite a lot of retries ? ?

[KaKrackle]

On 20/04/2020 at 0:46 PM, lilpain97 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but you can sort of guess enemies by putting the hearts option on. They pop up above the head and although not perfect you can get some idea of them. Haven't playing in so long... I probably should go back plat and call it quits lol. Huge congrats on everything btw

Your mum gey

[lilpain97]

19 minutes ago, KaKrackle said:

Your mum gey

Oi, less of that around here. Only I can call peoples mums gey, at least you got the gey part right though so ill let it pass.

[Arcesius]

With that short intermezzo out of the way (?), very brief weekend-update from my part! I am currently away from home, so haven't made any progress over the weekend, but there is still stuff to report since my last post: 

 

Nioh 2

I am meanwhile in the fifth region (out of how many, I don't know), and currently thinking about respec'ing my character to try out something different. Don't get me wrong, the build I'm using is a lot of fun, but Nioh offers soooo much diversity, it's insane, so I'd like to try something else out... Maybe a lightning-Odachi build? 

 

Why ain't I making more progress, you ask? Well, for one, because of the other two games I'm playing... But also because each mission takes freaking forever! The last main mission I did was on the short side, but some missions have taken me 1.5-2 hours to complete.. and that's not because I keep dying at the bosses (which admittedly I sometimes do), but because the levels are extremely long! ?

 

So yeah... I'm often like "let's make some progress!". Two hours later I'm still playing the same mission... ?

 

 

Trials Fusion

It's down to the final 10 challenges! 

 

I spent probably too long going for Speedcuber, but that's done ? When I reached side 40, I panicked so hard that I reset the skill-game by accident, so my Leaderboard-score is still at 37 ? No way I'm doing it again though, so 37 it is. 

In any case, practicing the skill-game in Track Central probably saved me a lot of time. Still, I got to the point where I could do sides 1-29 in my sleep, but I messed up constantly either on side 30, 34 and twice on 37... Such a frustrating challenge... The individual obstacles ain't even difficult, but the messed-up physics and length of each run turned this into a minds game... Luckily, I won ?

 

I also made some progress towards RedLynx to the Sword. I beat 5/10 developer times, albeit on the easier tracks. I'm particularly proud of Short Circuit, where I'm 4 seconds faster than anyone else on my friends list ? So 5 developer times still need to be beaten, and then it's all about the last 5 challenges remaining in the base game. 

 

 

Crypt of the NecroDancer

Meanwhile I completed Hard Mode with Nocturna and No-Return Mode with Cadence! The latter one was not fun at all... In that mode, you lose half a heart whenever you step on the tile you were one beat ago. I even had the worst thing happen to me, where I beat the final boss, AND THEN PROCEEDED TO DIE ? 

 

I have since then been practicing a Nocturna All-Zones in under 15 minutes, a similar challenge to Speed Demon, which I posted a video of, but with a different character and one more zone (in the DLC you have 5 Zones instead of 4). During one of those attempts, I got an application error, which resulted in a corrupt savefile... Sooo, no biggie, right? I mean, what did I lose.. just the unlocked characters, but I need to play a ton still, so I can just unlock them again... Right! But there is also this one trophy for killing 3 Green Bats, and I was already at 2... Sooo... back from the start? ? Those bats are extremely rare, by the way. I have been playing this game for about 60-65 hours by now, and have only seen 2 of them. 

 

"But Arcesius, you got the cloud save... so what's the problem?". Well, if you remember, I don't have PS+ anymore on my main account, since I purchase games on my Swiss account now, so I have PS+ there... So cloud saves are disabled. However, my PS+ expired one month ago, and I haven't found a Green Bat in that time. Plus, I am now afraid that this could happen again... So what did I do? What any good Swiss person would (not that I'm Swiss, but I try to adapt ?), throw money at the problem. Now I have 2x PS+ subscriptions ? At least I have my old save back, and can use cloud saves again. 

 

Oh well. 

[Copanele]

4 minutes ago, Arcesius said:

So what did I do? What any good Swiss person would (not that I'm Swiss, but I try to adapt ), throw money at the problem. Now I have 2x PS+ subscriptions  At least I have my old save back, and can use cloud saves again. 

 

Oh well. 

That is legit the funniest first world solution I have read  I'd 100% do the same if I had the chance.

[det_gittes]

11 minutes ago, Arcesius said:

Trials Fusion

It's down to the final 10 challenges! 

 

I spent probably too long going for Speedcuber, but that's done  When I reached side 40, I panicked so hard that I reset the skill-game by accident, so my Leaderboard-score is still at 37  No way I'm doing it again though, so 37 it is. 

In any case, practicing the skill-game in Track Central probably saved me a lot of time. Still, I got to the point where I could do sides 1-29 in my sleep, but I messed up constantly either on side 30, 34 and twice on 37... Such a frustrating challenge... The individual obstacles ain't even difficult, but the messed-up physics and length of each run turned this into a minds game... Luckily, I won 

 

I also made some progress towards RedLynx to the Sword. I beat 5/10 developer times, albeit on the easier tracks. I'm particularly proud of Short Circuit, where I'm 4 seconds faster than anyone else on my friends list  So 5 developer times still need to be beaten, and then it's all about the last 5 challenges remaining in the base game. 

Have fun with the remaining chalenges ? And now you know what makes Speedcuber so irritating! I actually tried it for fun the other day and I died at 39! But whenever I start it, my palms start sweating, it's insane  Also... I took a break from Pure Pool, which I've returned to to get a few more trophies if possible, and played Fusion last night - I got the notification about your records and... well, it's absolutely nothing personal ?, you know that I do want to move up in the leaderboards a bit (currently at around 2200th position). But yeah, I have to admit that you got a nice run on Short Circuit!

 

I also watched @SlimSanta94 play Fusion today and your ghost was involved, which reminded me that I haven't seen a progress report in a while - but that's fixed now ?

[KN_Kirai]

On 3/5/2020 at 9:05 PM, Arcesius said:

I have since then been practicing a Nocturna All-Zones in under 15 minutes, a similar challenge to Speed Demon, which I posted a video of, but with a different character and one more zone (in the DLC you have 5 Zones instead of 4). During one of those attempts, I got an application error, which resulted in a corrupt savefile... Sooo, no biggie, right? I mean, what did I lose.. just the unlocked characters, but I need to play a ton still, so I can just unlock them again... Right! But there is also this one trophy for killing 3 Green Bats, and I was already at 2... Sooo... back from the start?  Those bats are extremely rare, by the way. I have been playing this game for about 60-65 hours by now, and have only seen 2 of them. 

 

"But Arcesius, you got the cloud save... so what's the problem?". Well, if you remember, I don't have PS+ anymore on my main account, since I purchase games on my Swiss account now, so I have PS+ there... So cloud saves are disabled. However, my PS+ expired one month ago, and I haven't found a Green Bat in that time. Plus, I am now afraid that this could happen again... So what did I do? What any good Swiss person would (not that I'm Swiss, but I try to adapt ), throw money at the problem. Now I have 2x PS+ subscriptions  At least I have my old save back, and can use cloud saves again. 

 

Oh well. 

 

I don't know much about Crypt of the NecroDancer but from what I've been reading on your posts and by looking at the trophy rarity, I can tell it's a pretty damn difficult game where you have to put in hours of gameplay: plus it reminds me a bit of the Binding of Isaac, so I can understand even just a little what it would be like to get a save file corrupted in these types of games (I would've legit cried had that happened to me, even if I didn't lose much by it). I guess if I were the one playing, being the paranoid being that I am, I would be backing my save file every two seconds ?

 

 

[Arcesius]

On 3.5.2020 at 9:27 PM, det_gittes said:

Have fun with the remaining chalenges  And now you know what makes Speedcuber so irritating! I actually tried it for fun the other day and I died at 39! But whenever I start it, my palms start sweating, it's insane  Also... I took a break from Pure Pool, which I've returned to to get a few more trophies if possible, and played Fusion last night - I got the notification about your records and... well, it's absolutely nothing personal , you know that I do want to move up in the leaderboards a bit (currently at around 2200th position). But yeah, I have to admit that you got a nice run on Short Circuit!

 

I also watched @SlimSanta94 play Fusion today and your ghost was involved, which reminded me that I haven't seen a progress report in a while - but that's fixed now 

 

You started Speedcuber for FUN? ? I don't want to see that skill-game ever again...

 

You really got a nice run in Short Circuit! Now for the next challenge: I beat your time in Elysian Skies so have fun taking that back ? 

 

Now I 'only' have Sleepy Creek left... seems that most find either that or Seismic Activity to be the hardest time to beat. I have to say, I have not felt frustrated one second while going for the dev times... It is just super fun trying to improve ? 

 

Let's see if I can get the trophy by tomorrow... 

 

 

On 5.5.2020 at 1:30 PM, KN_Kirai said:

I don't know much about Crypt of the NecroDancer but from what I've been reading on your posts and by looking at the trophy rarity, I can tell it's a pretty damn difficult game where you have to put in hours of gameplay: plus it reminds me a bit of the Binding of Isaac, so I can understand even just a little what it would be like to get a save file corrupted in these types of games (I would've legit cried had that happened to me, even if I didn't lose much by it). I guess if I were the one playing, being the paranoid being that I am, I would be backing my save file every two seconds

 

Let's just say, having this game on my profile means that no other game will ever be rated a 10/10, since nothing comes even close to NecroDancer. There are only 5 platinum achievers on Playstation, and all needed over 900 hours to get there... All trophies but the two hardest ones can be achieved in 150-200 hours or so, with the last two taking many hundreds of hours of practice.

 

 

Just to quote K1ttyloaf, one of the five achievers: 

 

Quote

Idk it took my about 6- 8 hours a day practice for almost a year on a keyboard. 

 

 

Or to quote the one and only Floriiss: 

 

Quote

At that time I played Crypt of the NecroDancer every single day for two months straight, approximately 4 to 5 hours on a daily basis. [...] After those two months had past (approximately 300 hours of playtime) I had finally cleared Coda.

[...]

When I came back to the game I focussed on the last trophy (Lowest of the low) for about 2.5 - 3 months, Probably around 400+ hours of playtime. 

 

That's 700 hours of practice for two trophies. TWO TROPHIES! ? And it's not like everything else is a walk in the park, either.. 

 

So yeah, even a tiny bit of lost progress hurts ?

 

 

By the way, what did you think of the FF7 Remake? ? I know you are a long-time fan of the series as well, so I'm curious. 

[det_gittes]

12 hours ago, Arcesius said:

 

You started Speedcuber for FUN?  I don't want to see that skill-game ever again...

 

You really got a nice run in Short Circuit! Now for the next challenge: I beat your time in Elysian Skies so have fun taking that back  

 

Now I 'only' have Sleepy Creek left... seems that most find either that or Seismic Activity to be the hardest time to beat. I have to say, I have not felt frustrated one second while going for the dev times... It is just super fun trying to improve  

 

Let's see if I can get the trophy by tomorrow... 

I agree that the dev times are very reasonable most of the time - Sleepy Creek is the only one which is harder because there are quite a few places where you can screw up and the time requirement is on the tight side - but I won't be suprised in the least if you get it soon, curious to know what you think of the track. As for Elysian Skies, I'll let you sit on this one for now, I didn't like the track too much and right now I am planning to reduce faults on base game extremes. At the same time, I think I will be taking more breaks from Trials, there are just too many other games that I would like to play and I don't have too much time. If you finish ahead of me on Sleepy Creek, be sure that I won't try to beat you back any time soon, that's another track I don't feel like replaying