NZBigC Posted October 5, 2022 Share Posted October 5, 2022 On 6/13/2022 at 7:52 PM, jonesey46 said: I have been well and truly rumbled. I decided to give Mein Leben on Wolfenstein 2 another go after not attempting it for at least 2 years, things were going well until this fucking shit ^ I wasn't even mad, I just laughed. I would have been raging lol. Probably would have deleted it after that too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted October 10, 2022 Author Share Posted October 10, 2022 We're well in to Spooktober! ??? I'm starting some new spooky traditions. I want to play a new spooky game every October. Last year I played Outlast for the first time, although I actually started it one day late on the 1st of November but I'm counting it! Outlast became one of my favourite games actually, and certainly in my top 3 horror games. This year I'm playing the Amnesia games for the first time, through the Amnesia Collection which was on PS+ a while back. I completed the first group of areas, up until you use the acid to burn the first flesh wall. Didn't see a single monster yet but tension was definitely running high. I'm impressed by the atmosphere the game sets. My other tradition, which I also started last year, is to play the entirety of Resident Evil 1 Remake on Halloween. This one seems destined to be broken as there's no way I'll always have a few hours spare to run the game in one go. Especially with my first child on the way ?. Hope everyone has a great October! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grotz99 Posted October 10, 2022 Share Posted October 10, 2022 10 hours ago, jonesey46 said: We're well in to Spooktober! ??? I'm starting some new spooky traditions. I want to play a new spooky game every October. Last year I played Outlast for the first time, although I actually started it one day late on the 1st of November but I'm counting it! Outlast became one of my favourite games actually, and certainly in my top 3 horror games. This year I'm playing the Amnesia games for the first time, through the Amnesia Collection which was on PS+ a while back. I completed the first group of areas, up until you use the acid to burn the first flesh wall. Didn't see a single monster yet but tension was definitely running high. I'm impressed by the atmosphere the game sets. My other tradition, which I also started last year, is to play the entirety of Resident Evil 1 Remake on Halloween. This one seems destined to be broken as there's no way I'll always have a few hours spare to run the game in one go. Especially with my first child on the way ?. Hope everyone has a great October! I try to plan to play at least one scary game during October every year. In 2020 it was Alien Isolation and last year was Resident Evil Village, I recommend both. For this year I got The Quarry to play through with my wife since we went through Until Dawn a few years back and it was fun time, even if the game is like one of those corny scary movies, which honestly makes it better. The Evil Within games are also on my list. I tried to start Amnesia a while back and it creeped me out so bad that I stopped. Same happened to Resident Evil 7, but I picked it back up later and made it through. I think I have a better feeling for playing these type of horror games now that I should go back and tackle it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted October 12, 2022 Author Share Posted October 12, 2022 On 10/10/2022 at 8:37 PM, Grotz99 said: I try to plan to play at least one scary game during October every year. In 2020 it was Alien Isolation and last year was Resident Evil Village, I recommend both. For this year I got The Quarry to play through with my wife since we went through Until Dawn a few years back and it was fun time, even if the game is like one of those corny scary movies, which honestly makes it better. The Evil Within games are also on my list. I tried to start Amnesia a while back and it creeped me out so bad that I stopped. Same happened to Resident Evil 7, but I picked it back up later and made it through. I think I have a better feeling for playing these type of horror games now that I should go back and tackle it. I looooove Alien Isolation! Alien is actually my favourite film and that game honors the film so well. Until Dawn is good, but it's hard to be scared by it as its so god damn funny. Everything the characters say is just golden cheese. I don't know if I've toughened up over the years having played a few horror games now but Amnesia isn't really scaring me. The atmosphere is dripping and I love it, but the monster stuff just doesn't do it for me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James_Tonto Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 (edited) 14 hours ago, jonesey46 said: I looooove Alien Isolation! Alien is actually my favourite film and that game honors the film so well. Until Dawn is good, but it's hard to be scared by it as its so god damn funny. Everything the characters say is just golden cheese. I don't know if I've toughened up over the years having played a few horror games now but Amnesia isn't really scaring me. The atmosphere is dripping and I love it, but the monster stuff just doesn't do it for me. I'd say you've probably just toughened up. I can run Dead Space 1 & 2 without my buttcheeks clenching in terror now, I completed Dead Space 2 after not touching it for 10 years and wasn't frightened. But it might also be that you've just been overly saturated in Horror games? Bad cause you don't get scared, but good in that you can appreciate the atmosphere, enemies and environments more. Edited October 12, 2022 by James_Tonto Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted October 13, 2022 Author Share Posted October 13, 2022 (edited) 11 hours ago, James_Tonto said: I'd say you've probably just toughened up. I can run Dead Space 1 & 2 without my buttcheeks clenching in terror now, I completed Dead Space 2 after not touching it for 10 years and wasn't frightened. But it might also be that you've just been overly saturated in Horror games? Bad cause you don't get scared, but good in that you can appreciate the atmosphere, enemies and environments more. Yeah, in Amensia's case I'm loving the atmosphere. But the monsters actually just annoy me haha cause they usually block you from progressing and you have to cat and mouse them a little bit before you can move forward. I remember being scared to death playing these games as a kid. Now that I've played so many games, I understand their limitations much more. I'm always hyper aware I'm playing a video game and find it hard to get super immersed. I think that has a lot to do with it too. Edited October 13, 2022 by jonesey46 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grotz99 Posted October 13, 2022 Share Posted October 13, 2022 20 hours ago, James_Tonto said: I'd say you've probably just toughened up. I can run Dead Space 1 & 2 without my buttcheeks clenching in terror now, I completed Dead Space 2 after not touching it for 10 years and wasn't frightened. But it might also be that you've just been overly saturated in Horror games? Bad cause you don't get scared, but good in that you can appreciate the atmosphere, enemies and environments more. I didn't find Deadspace to be too bad, something about having a weapon put my mind at ease a little. That being said though, one of the more scarier games I played a while back was FEAR. Even with a weapon, it was a creep fest. But, this is why I haven't gone back to Outlast after noping out of it real quick a long time ago, you just have to run and hide. I might give it another go soon... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted October 13, 2022 Author Share Posted October 13, 2022 26 minutes ago, Grotz99 said: I didn't find Deadspace to be too bad, something about having a weapon put my mind at ease a little. That being said though, one of the more scarier games I played a while back was FEAR. Even with a weapon, it was a creep fest. But, this is why I haven't gone back to Outlast after noping out of it real quick a long time ago, you just have to run and hide. I might give it another go soon... FEAR! That little girl gave me the creeps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted October 24, 2022 Author Share Posted October 24, 2022 Platinum #260 - Hollow Knight Introduction This post requires quite a bit of backstory before I can get into the post proper. Please forgive me for being a little self indulgent ?. Hollow Knight is an indie darling and has a huge reputation for being the best indie game ever made. In November of 2020 it was given away to all subscribers of Playstation Plus. Up until this point I had never heard of the game, I had maybe seen a couple things about it and had seen the main character in some profile pictures on here. I liked the look of the art style and so thought, what the hell? Lets download it. I had absolutely no idea what the game was going in. Hollow Knight is now my favourite game of all time. I am 100% serious when I say that this game changed my life. Hollow Knight has broadened my gaming horizons ten fold. I am now more open to indie games which has lead to me discovering some amazing games like Spiritfarer, Celeste and Hotline Miami. Hollow Knight taught me to not back down from a challenging title which again, has lead to me discovering some incredible games like Bloodborne, the Souls series and Returnal. Hollow Knight made me appreciate video game music more and kickstarted a VG Vinyl collection that has been somewhat taxing on the wallet. All this is to say that Hollow Knight has been the best gaming experience I've had in my entire gaming career and it has opened so many doors for me. This may not have happened if I never took that chance on this free PS+ game. I originally platinum'd this game in June 2021, after struggling for months with the 5th pantheon. A few months back I had bought a $20 PSN card to buy the NA version of Resident Evil Code Veronica X (long story) and had some money left over. I realised that Hollow Knight had two stacks and having already played the game several times already I thought why not play it again and get the platinum all over again? So that's exactly what I did ?. I struggled with the 5th pantheon again but it didn't take me as long this time! I was on my hiatus when I got the platinum for the EU version but one of the good things about doing it again is that I get to write about it here! Story Hollow Knight has a souls-like story. In that you explore the world and piece together the events that took place to lead the world to the state its in. Hollow Knight does this so god damn well it's actually impressive. Everything has an explanation and if it doesn't, it can be theorised and backed up with convincing evidence. One of my favourite experiences with this game has been discussing it's lore and story with other fans on Reddit or Twitch. Hollow Knight takes place in Hallownest, a vast kingdom of bugs in ruin. Hallownest was once ruled over by the Pale King, a god like being who granted the bugs of the kingdom free will and minds to think. After many ages of prosperity an infection started to take hold of Hallownests citizens. To combat this, the Pale King created the Hollow Knight in order to contain the infection. You play as the Knight, who has come to Hallownest to explore its depths, and potentially have a say in how its future pans out. If you're a fan of this game then you've almost certainly heard of mossbag. But if you haven't then I cannot recommend his lore video enough. You can watch that HERE. Gameplay Hollow Knight is a metroidvania. Hallownest is a vast world to explore with many different areas. Some areas cannot be accessed until certain items, abilities or powers are gained. The Knight arrives in Dirtmouth at the start of the game and this acts as a home base of sorts, as you explore, more NPCs will arrive here and some even act as merchants. Dirtmouth is (almost) at the top of Hallownest and everywhere else is below it. As you descend the depths of this once great kingdom you will encounter many different types of enemies. Due to the nature of the world, enemies tend to be in "tribes" and only appear in their respective areas. The Knight has a sword or a "nail" and you can use this to hit enemies. The Knight can also use spells which uses 'Soul', a substance which you gain from hitting enemies. You can also use Soul to heal yourself. Enemies come in all varieties such as a regular bugs, flying bugs, mushroom people, spiders and even jellyfish. Each area tends to have a handful of bosses too and the bosses in Hollow Knight are the absolute best part of the game. They are often accompanied by an absolute banging boss theme. To aid you in exploration you have a map. This map first needs to be purchased by a map maker in each area who has the most catchy humming tune ever! Once you buy this map it gets filled with all the places you've explored once you rest at a bench. Filling out this map and slowly realising the breadth of the kingdom was one of my favourite aspects of the game. As you explore Hallownest you will also collect charms. These are like perks that can alter your abilities such as giving you more damage or a longer reaching nail slash. You can only equip a limited amount though and that's how charm builds come into play. You will no doubt make your own build that compliments your own playstyle. You also collect Geo on your journey. Geo acts as the games currency and can be used to buy charms and upgrades from merchants. Geo is very important early game but you almost always end up with too much in the endgame. Throughout Hallownest there are benches, these act was your checkpoints. When you die, you leave behind a shade and you respawn at your last bench. Like the Souls games you have to retrieve your shade after death in order to get your Geo back. If you die on the way then all that Geo is gone. Infuriating when it happens! You can upgrade the amount of health you have, the amount of soul you can carry and the damage you deal. You will gradually upgrade all of this as you play the game. Hollow Knight is a very challenging game. Combat can be very demanding in some areas and punishment can be quite harsh. The difficulty gradually ramps up as you get better yourself and as you upgrade your character. You can't really out-level this game the same way you can in Souls games. The world of Hollow Knight is an absolute joy to explore and it's my favourite part of the experience. Do yourself a favour and experience it for yourself! Trophy Thoughts Hollow Knight is a challenging platinum, mostly due to the pantheon trophies. These trophies cover an area of the game known as Godhome. This area contains 5 pantheons of boss battles. The first 4 contain 10 or so bosses but the fifth contains (almost) every boss in the entire game, which amounts to just over 40. You have to fight and beat all these bosses in one go and it ends with a much tougher version of the final story boss. It's a very tough challenge and it took me months to accomplish the first time round. This time it only took me a couple of weeks, which is still a long time considering I had already done it in the past! It had been a while though! All other trophies will come naturally with play. You need to beat the game to the maximum percentage which entails beating every boss, collecting every item, charm and upgrade, and completing a journal containing all enemies in the game. It's so much fun to do though and while some of the bosses might offer a challenge (like Nightmare King Grimm) it's nothing too taxing and can all be done with a bit of practice. Just be thankful the trophy list differs from the PC version! Which contains many more challenging achievements such as beating the game on perma-death mode and several speedrun challenges. Summary I have nothing but good things to say about this game. Its art style, world, story, characters and music are all 10/10 in my opinion. This is an experience that should not be missed! I have a son on the way and I absolutely cannot wait until he's old enough to play this game. Best Bit The whole game Worst Bit The agonizing wait for Silksong Arbitrary Rating 10/10 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted October 24, 2022 Share Posted October 24, 2022 8 hours ago, jonesey46 said: Hollow Knight is now my favourite game of all time. I am 100% serious when I say that this game changed my life. Hollow Knight has broadened my gaming horizons ten fold. I am now more open to indie games which has lead to me discovering some amazing games like Spiritfarer, Celeste and Hotline Miami. Hollow Knight taught me to not back down from a challenging title which again, has lead to me discovering some incredible games like Bloodborne, the Souls series and Returnal. Hollow Knight made me appreciate video game music more and kickstarted a VG Vinyl collection that has been somewhat taxing on the wallet. All this is to say that Hollow Knight has been the best gaming experience I've had in my entire gaming career and it has opened so many doors for me. This may not have happened if I never took that chance on this free PS+ game. This is such a wonderful review. Hollow Knight is absolutely one of those games that has garnered a zealous niche fanbase (360k subreddit on a single-player game from 2017 that is STILL active!) I knew a little bit more about the game and how critically acclaimed it was when I played it back in May 2020, but holy crap, I remember the simple sensation of: "how on earth did this small studio in Team Cherry make ALL OF THIS????". I'm also so glad you mentioned mossbag in your review. I LOVED watching his videos even while after playing the game since it sort of extends the life of the game in your head even after you're well past having played it. Consider yourself lucky you played it recently. Imagine having played it the first few months before it became an indie hit beloved darling and having to wait ALL that time for Silksong when people originally expected it to be DLC ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted October 25, 2022 Author Share Posted October 25, 2022 11 hours ago, realm722 said: This is such a wonderful review. Hollow Knight is absolutely one of those games that has garnered a zealous niche fanbase (360k subreddit on a single-player game from 2017 that is STILL active!) I knew a little bit more about the game and how critically acclaimed it was when I played it back in May 2020, but holy crap, I remember the simple sensation of: "how on earth did this small studio in Team Cherry make ALL OF THIS????". I'm also so glad you mentioned mossbag in your review. I LOVED watching his videos even while after playing the game since it sort of extends the life of the game in your head even after you're well past having played it. Consider yourself lucky you played it recently. Imagine having played it the first few months before it became an indie hit beloved darling and having to wait ALL that time for Silksong when people originally expected it to be DLC Thanks a bunch for the kind words! I am an active member of that sub-reddit and you're right, that and mossbags videos have extended the life of the game and made the wait for Silksong a little less agonizing. I had the same experience. Once I got to Greenpath on my first playthrough I remember thinking "how the hell did such a small team make something so beautiful?" and then that awe just kept going every new area I entered. I've been huffing copium since I finished this game for the first time. I genuinely believed Silksong would be releasing early 2021 haha! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted October 25, 2022 Author Share Posted October 25, 2022 (edited) 💯 100% Achieved - Dishonored 💯 DLC Dunwall City Trials The Knife of Dunwall The Brigmore Witches Original Platinum Date - 27th November 2012 100% Completion Date - 22nd October 2022 Gap - 9 years, 10 months, 22 days Reason - Difficulty of 'Dunwall City Trials' put me off, didn't think I could get 100% Hardest DLC Trophy - Daredevil (2.71% Ultra Rare) Main Game Thoughts Dishonored was probably my game of the year in 2012 (between that and Far Cry 3). It started my love of the immersive sim genre and turned Arkane into one of my favourite developers (which was later cemented with the release of Prey). I'm a big fan of both stealth games and first person perspective games so its a no brainer that I love Dishonored. It has a simple story, told very well. Choices matter in this game and certain choices can drastically change your experience. It's a shame then that this series seemed to fizzle out with a whimper rather than a bang. The sequel performed abysmally unfortunately, which turned the planned DLC 'Death of the Outsider' to be spun into a stand alone threequel to tie up all the loose ends and finish the story. It's even more a shame that Deathloop performed so well compared to Dishonored, because of how derivative it is compared to Arkanes other works. But I digress... The last thing we need is me complaining about Deathloop again. I was in a Dishonored mood actually and just fancied playing it again. I had no intention of going for 100% initially. After beating the main game I played the story DLCs and then just on whim, checked out the trials DLC and ended up having so much fun that I achieved the 100% almost naturally. DLC Thoughts Starting with 'The Knife of Dunwall', the first in a two part story expansion which runs parallel with the events of the main story. At the start of the main game, the Empress of Dunwall is assassinated and the player character Corvo is framed for the murder. The person who actually murdered the Empress is Daud, a master assassin and killer for hire. This DLC has you play as Daud and it shows what he got up to following the events of the Empresses fall. It also sets up the events of the sequel which I absolutely love. Daud is approached by the Outsider, a supernatural being capable of bestowing his mark upon people down on their luck in order to give them powers. The Outsider is an old "friend" of Daud's and he claims that after killing the Empress, he can no longer help him, his actions have spelled his downfall. But before that happens, there's one last job for him to take care of. The Outsider gives Daud one name, "Delilah", and sends him on his way. After several months, Daud finally has a lead on this Delilah and follows it up. This leads into the 3 levels of this DLC and ends with Daud meeting with Delilah which sets up their confrontation in the second part. The levels take place in a slaughterhouse, a politicians house and a flooded district of Dunwall (which appears in the main game). The level design of the first two are outstanding and are much more interesting and fun when compared to any levels in the main game. For both story and gameplay purposes, Daud is a much more interesting protagonist than Corvo becuase for one, he isn't silent, he actually says things. But also his powers are much more interesting than Corvo's too. Both characters can teleport using 'Blink' but Daud's version freezes time when still, which makes it much more practical for tactical maneuvers. He also has a 'Pull' ability which can be used to pull loot and items to you rather than having to go up to them and pick them up manually. This makes staying in stealth much easier. There are other powers, but I didn't use them. I tend to play Dishonored games in mostly complete stealth, only using traversal powers and assassinating targets by hand. I actually already had the 100% for this DLC, which I got back in 2013 when it released. Still though, I had to make sure to loot as much as possible on this re-play so that I could have enough to get 'Enough Coin to Disappear' in the next DLC. Moving on to 'The Brigmore Witches', this continues the story from the previous DLC and concludes Daud's story (for now). It's also essential to understand most of the events that take place in Dishonored 2. You can transfer your save over from the previous DLC which lets you continue with all your collected gear, loot and moral choices. This was necessary for me to achieve the previously mentioned 'Enough Coin to Disappear' trophy, which is for finishing the DLC with 10,000 coins and in Low Chaos (essentially means not killing many people). Another 3 new levels in this one, and in my opinion, aside from two levels in Dishonored 2, the second level is the best in the series. The first level uses the prison area from the main game but who doesn't love a prison break? The second level is a dock area that is currently in the middle of a gang war, and the third level is at a rundown witches manor. Gameplay is identical to the previous DLC. The story follows Daud tracking down Delilah and eventually trapping her in her own magic painting world. Which she breaks out of several years later, which leads to the events of Dishonored 2. The three trophies I needed to 100% this DLC was to complete it without killing anyone, without alerting anyone and the aforementioned money one. Not being seen and not killing anyone are mainstay trophies for Dishonored and appear in every campaign. They aren't too difficult but do require a lot of save scumming 😬. And now for the pièce de résistance, Dunwall City Trials. I used to hate trial based game modes. Because they usually want you to play the same thing over and over again to get a slightly better time or score. They tend to be made absurdly difficult, requiring complete mastery over the games mechanics to succeed. What changed? Well, if you read my previous post on Hollow Knight, then you'll know! Mastering and overcoming a challenge is super satisfying and I no longer back down from a challenge. Dunwall City Trials consists of 10 challenging trials, with 6 of those having more challenging 'expert' versions. These trials focus on different aspects of the games mechanics, such as combat, powers, traversal and stealth. The trophies require you to get 3 stars on every trial, including the expert versions. To collect a certain collectible in each trial, and various trophies relating to completing trials in specific ways, or performing certain actions during the trials. The most infamous trophy on this list is 'By My Hand Alone' which is to survive 12 rounds of a combat challenge, killing all enemies by yourself. The issue here is that some rounds have rival faction enemies who try to kill each other. There is some RNG involved but not as much as some would have you believe. These trials require you to have complete mastery over the games mechanics and no other trophy expresses this more than Daredevil. Bonfires is a challenge where beacons appear around a map and you need to get to these as fast as possible. There is a timer ticking down and each time you reach a beacon, you gain a little more time. The issue is, is that sometimes beacons will appear at the other side of the map and you lose so much time getting there that it's impossible to gain it back. The trophy requires you to perform 6 specific 'tricky' jumps in one round. Understanding and memorising these jumps is hard enough but you also have to get to the beacons quick enough to keep your time up. Couple that with the somewhat janky controls of the first Dishonored and the abysmal frame rate of the PS3 version. Well, you have a frustrating time on your hands! Getting this trophy definitely made me much better at the traversal mechanics, so mission accomplished I guess? In the end, I had a great time getting these trophies and mastering this DLC. It's made my already very high opinion of Dishonored even more positive. Final Thoughts Dishonored is a series that is already dead unfortunately, and that's a darn shame as it's such a unique experience. The sequel definitely improves a lot of things from the original but I can't help but feel the original really was lightning in a bottle, and you just can't beat it. The sequel also never iterated on the trials unfortunately. I would have loved to have had a new set of challenges using Dishonored 2's updated engine and refined mechanics. For anyone looking to play this game and are worried about the trials DLC. Don't worry about it. It's certainly a challenge but nothing a bit of practice can't solve. And it's damn satisfying to complete. Whats next? I already have 100% for Dishonored 2 and Death of the Outsider. I can always do it all again with the PS4 Definitive Edition of Dishonored and I almost certainly will. Although, not any time soon. Hopefully Deathloop receives a sequel that improves on the first ten fold and can capture the magnificence of the Dishonored series. It already has the powers right? Thanks for reading Edited November 8, 2023 by jonesey46 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted December 28, 2022 Author Share Posted December 28, 2022 This year I replayed all the Souls games including Bloodborne and Elden Ring and I have so much to say about these games that I'm going to do a big long post on here going through my experience and talking about each game individually. Long story short, I really like these games. I've started to write this up and will post it when its done. Hopefully soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted January 13, 2023 Author Share Posted January 13, 2023 (edited) In the year of our Elden Lord 2022 I decided to replay every Souls game along with its spiritual successors Bloodborne and Elden Ring. This time though I set a couple of rules. 1. Must be played with a build that I have not tried before 2. Must beat all bosses without summoning My reasoning for these rules is simple. Rule one because it’s easy to fall into a trap with difficult games, in that it’s easy to just stick to what works for you. This time I wanted to play in a completely different way to challenge myself and to fall out of my comfort zone of using the most OP DEX focussed weapon I can find. Rule two because, while summoning is a perfectly viable way of beating bosses, and something I’ve used quite a bit, again, I wanted to challenge myself to learning the bosses’ patterns and taking them down by myself. These games have become very important to me, and their gameplay scratches an itch that no other game can. They haven’t ruined other games for me or anything like that, but they are always at the back of my mind. To the point where I could be playing a completely different game and I think “I’d rather be playing Dark Souls”. So, with that out the way lets go on a journey together. In this post I plan to go through my experiences with all games one by one. I played them in release order (remakes and remasters not withstanding) and so it only makes sense to go through them here in the same order. Also, Sekiro will not be included, as it doesn’t really belong in this series of games, it’s its own thing entirely. If you really wanted to read my thoughts on Sekiro however, I have a review right here in this thread and you can read it HERE. These aren’t going to be comprehensive reviews, not that I’ve ever done anything comprehensive in this thread anyway, but more a discussion about my experience on these specific playthroughs. Some experience with these games may be required to know what the hell I’m talking about. Let’s fucking do this. *Queue the Elden Ring main menu theme* - First, some backstory At the end of 2020 I was burnt out by trophy hunting and decided to take 2021 off. My plan was to try out some new games and not worry about the trophies. It half worked as I played a bunch of new games and as mentioned in my comeback post and my Hollow Knight review, doing that broadened my gaming horizons and allowed me to find new genres to appreciate and to not be so scared of a little difficulty. As mentioned, the other half of that resolution didn’t work as I was back to hunting platinums by summer. My first Souls game was Bloodborne in March 2021. As anyone who has played these games will know, your first Souls game is always the hardest and often your favourite. This is the case for me with Bloodborne. The reason I started with Bloodborne was because it was free as I had claimed it on PS+ a while back and, I had heard nothing but good things about this game. Seriously when was the last time you saw someone be negative about Bloodborne? I then moved on to Dark Souls Remastered which I adored. Dark Souls 2 (Scholar) was next, and I bounced off it super hard. I don’t know, something just felt off. I’d heard lots of negative things about Dark Souls 2, so I assumed the game was just shit. Feeling unsatisfied not being able to continue the series I did some research and found out all I had to do was level ADP lol. Went back and started a new character and now I love Dark Souls 2. Then I powered through Dark Souls 3. Got the Demon’s Souls remake for Christmas and then played Elden Ring on release. I also played Sekiro in 2022 too. As I was motivated by getting the platinum when first playing these games, I skipped over the DLC for Dark Souls 1 and 3, and some of the DLC for Dark Souls 2. Fromsoft are good like that, they don’t tend to do trophies for DLC. So, these new playthroughs had the added benefit of trying out the DLC and experiencing ALL these games have to offer. A small but enjoyable thing that came out of these playthroughs was the character creation. I decided I would make a new character for each game and give them a little backstory. My wife helped greatly with this, and she even came up with all the names. It was something I looked forward to when starting each game. As I tend to play myself in RPGs, for these playthroughs I decided all the characters would be female. And thus, The Sorority was born, or rather, the Soulrority (I’m sorry). - The Soulrority Here we have all our beautiful, powerful, and otherwise badass women. From left to right we have. Jezebel - sorcerer, slayer of demons Edwina - moonlight mage, chosen undead Marigold-Piper - absolute fucking tank, bearer of the curse Vanessa Von Earl - arcane scholar, huntress Tatiana - crystal mage warrior, ashen one And finally, Astrid - wolverine wannabe, tarnished (You can click on their respective names to see the full-size screenshot I took of each) These queens absolutely slaughtered everyone in their path and took no names. They brought down demi-gods and gods alike; they brought down demons and ancient beings you can’t even comprehend. What started out as a bit of a joke turned into a cherished tradition. My wife and I had a blast coming up with these characters and enjoyed giving them little back stories. We grew to love these characters quite a bit. Often when struggling with a boss my wife would say “come on Tatiana, pull it together” rather than addressing me, the one playing the game. Anyway, now you know my Souls history and have met our wonderful ladies, lets get into the games proper. - Demon’s Souls [2009/2020] Okay so straight off the bat I’m kind of cheating here. I said I played the games in release order but I’m starting with a game that came out in 2020? Wtf!? Well, to be fair, the remake of Demon’s Souls is technically the same game as the original. Despite being eye wateringly beautiful the game plays the same and mechanically still shows the evolution of Froms’ game design when moving on to Dark Souls and beyond. Will I play the original? Maybe one day. The monkey part of my brain is still considering the grind it takes to get the platinum and the obvious difficulties it brings with its servers being shut down. I still boot up my PS3 often so that isn’t an issue for me. Anyway, this was my second playthrough of Demon’s Souls and I’ve since then done a third playthrough and the more time I spend in Boletaria the more I love this game. I’m going to do an updated ranking at the end of this post and Demon’s Souls has climbed a few spots since my last one. It helps that the remake is just so gorgeous to look at but mechanically this game has so much weight to it that makes the world feel like a real place. In the later games, especially Elden Ring movement has become so fast and fluid, it really makes me appreciate the clunky nature of Demon’s Souls. Jezebel, the first of the Soulrority, is a mage and thankfully, Demon’s Souls’ mage starter class starts with everything you need, and it can carry you right to the end. I quickly learned that mages are super OP in Demon’s Souls and while fun, make the game trivial. For the record, when playing these games, I always go for a DEX based build relying on fast weapon strikes and dodging. Playing a mage was completely new to me and the novelty was a lot of fun. Taking everything out at range was like playing a different game. On my first playthrough I found Demon’s Souls to be quite difficult and I know I said playing a mage trivialises the game but this playthrough helped me understand it’s mechanics better and on my third playthrough where I played as a knight, I got through my most dreaded areas with ease. So much so, that I believe this to be the easiest Souls game in my opinion. Those dreaded areas are the first two levels of the Shrine of Storms, those roly-poly skeletons can get fucked. The Flamelurker boss and the Man Eaters boss. The Man Eaters is where I died the most actually and that’s due to being punted off the edge of the arena. While I will always prefer the world design of Dark Souls, there’s something to be said for Demon’s Souls level design. Being able to switch freely between these very distinct areas has a certain charm to it. And while I truly believe Dark Souls improved on this in EVERY way, I think I prefer Demon’s Souls approach to levels over the likes of Dark Souls 2 and 3. In those games, levels are connected, but not really as they are often separated by chasms or hallways and you can, and sometimes are even required to, warp to the levels anyway. It's interesting to note that most of Demon’s Souls bosses are gimmick bosses. All the bosses in this game have been done better in later games but it’s interesting to fight them at their most basic form without all the flashy stuff surrounding them. I may be pointing out the obvious here, but Demon’s Souls really is the Souls games boiled down to its most basic elements. There’s something to love about its simplicity and after fighting the endgame bosses in Elden Ring, a bit of simplicity is most welcome. It’s also very short as you can reach the end in about 8 hours if you take your time to explore and engage with some of the NPC quests. Jezebel lulls the old one back to its slumber and thus becomes a new monumental. No biggy. It’s now time to check in with Edwina over in Lordran. I heard she was inflicted with some kind of curse and has been imprisoned? Hm. - Dark Souls [2011/2018] I know I’m not breaking new ground here, but I really want to talk about the world design of Dark Souls and how, in my opinion, no other game has matched it. The fact that from Firelink Shrine, the starting area, you can physically walk to almost every area in the game AND it makes sense within the world is incredible and really makes this game special in my opinion. I think it’s just the asylum, painted world, the kiln and of course Anor Londo itself which requires a loading screen. When it comes down to it Bloodborne is my favourite of the series, but the world design of Dark Souls is such a shining beacon of brilliance, much like the sun of Anor Londo, I often think about it being my number 1 after all. I don’t want to talk down the other elements of Dark Souls by any means but without its wonderful world design I really don’t think Dark Souls would be as popular as it is. Famed YouTube critic Matthewmatosis said that Dark Souls is more than the sum of its parts. And I echo that statement wholeheartedly. Aside from its world and level design, when looking at Dark Souls constituent parts, none of them are particularly great, they’re good sure, but not overly so. Add them all up though and you get this experience that is elevated by all those parts complementing each other and making something truly special. Wandering around this world for the first time and piecing it all together as you open shortcuts and paths back to previous areas is an experience I wish I could forget and relive it all over again. It cannot be understated how much I love this part of the game and revisiting Lordran still has that effect on me, although not as strong as the first time. I cannot wait to show my son this game when he is older and watch him explore this magnificent world for the first time. But I digress, lets get back to our hero Edwina. She has somehow ended up here and to break this curse she’s been afflicted with she needs to ring ‘the bell of awakening’, whatever that is. Like Jezebel, Edwina is a mage. Unfortunately, Edwina’s build is a little more complex than Jezebels. While Jezebel started with decent gear and more powerful gear only enhanced her abilities marginally. Edwina starts with basic items and the gear we want will enhance her abilities quite considerably. Her gear isn’t easy to obtain though and requires trudging through most of Lordran with less-than-optimal equipment. Firstly, her beautiful robes. The Sage Robe. To gain this you need to gain access to one of the endgame areas and witness the downfall of a dear friend. Edwinas seen some shit, trust me. In the same area, Edwina gains her sword. A Fromsoft staple, the Moonlight greatsword. And to get this, she needs to cut the tail off a fucking dragon. Edwina’s focus though, is her spells. She pretty much gets through the whole game using the Soul Spear/Arrow spells and they hold her in good stead. I mean, even the toughest bosses went down in only a few casts. Much like Demon’s Souls, playing a mage in Dark Souls pretty much trivialises the game. The only boss I struggled with was The Four Kings. This was partly my fault though as I went there a little early, and Edwina is a bit of a glass cannon. I essentially had no time to cast my spells so I ended up having to equip the heaviest armour I could find, casting a protection spell and going to town on them with my Moonlight Greatsword. I find Dark Souls unique approach of having a set number of spells to cast rather than a mana pool interesting. It means that I can absolutely load my character up with spells and never have to worry about managing resources like with spice in Demon’s Souls or blue juice in later entries. Again, it makes the game super easy although if you don’t plan and run out of spells, with no bonfire in sight, then yeah, you’re fucked. Going back to the Moonlight Greatsword, it was a struggle to get the damn thing. Having to cut off Seaths’ tail is no easy feat for a mage and with no upgraded melee weapons to her name, it took a few tries to say the least. Once I was able to focus on Seath properly though, he went down quickly. As stated, bosses didn’t give me a hard time but for some reason with Dark Souls, the first area, Undead Burg always puts me through my paces, no matter what character I’m playing. This was my third playthrough of Dark Souls and I think most of my deaths happened in Undead Burg. That fucking spear guy under the bridge? And the poison rats straight after? And then the armoured boar? God damn that bit always catches me off guard. In Demon’s Souls I wont usually die in the first two stages of Boletaria, my first death would probably be in the Prison of Hope in Latria. Same with Dark Souls 2, my first death is usually in No Mans Wharf, after going through Forest of the Fallen Giants and Heide’s Tower of Flame. I’m not sure what makes Dark Souls opening areas so difficult though. My guess is the level is designed to teach you that this game doesn’t mess around and will fuck you, if given the chance. The shining moment of Edwina’s journey is of course, playing the DLC, something I have never done up until now. Accessing the DLC is laughably complicated. It’s not an option in the menu, no. You must rescue an NPC in one area, gather an item in another and then when you return to the NPC you get transported to the past! Figuring this out without a guide would be head scratching to say the least. Simply put, I love the DLC. It has two of my favourite boss fights of Dark Souls, Khalameet and Artorias. Although, looking ahead its interesting to note how simple these boss fights are when compared to Midir of Dark Souls 3 and really any of the knight fights in the later games. I also really enjoyed the lore of the DLC and I feel it went a long way into helping my understanding of what happened in Lordran and the overarching story. With all that out of the way, Edwina makes her way to the Kiln, bitch slaps Gwyn and ushers in the next age of dark. You see, when Edwina meets Frampt for the first time, she finds him obnoxious and a bit of a bootlicker. Where as Kaathe is all like “fuck this place and fuck Gwyn”. Edwina is a bit of a rebel at heart, so she chooses to side with Kaathe and become a dark lord. No idea what happens to her after that but centuries later, our next hero of the Soulrority is making her way to the ancient land of Drangleic… - Dark Souls II/Scholar of the First Sin [2014/2015] Ah, the most maligned of the series and unfairly so, I think. Look, Dark Souls 2 has its issues, most certainly. But its criticisms of being a ‘bad’ game are so far off base its ridiculous. It has some of the best features of any Dark Souls games which actively got carried over to the later games including everyone’s golden child, Elden Ring. Dark Souls 2 is a fantastic game with an absolute breadth of content to enjoy. Sure, its level design is miles away from what Dark Souls offered, and its boss fights aren’t as interesting either. But it’s world, story, characters, music, build variety, weapon combinations and its vast array of content make it a fantastic experience. It’s also worth mentioning that its DLC is some of the best content any Souls game has to offer. That’s my defence of Dark Souls 2, and I won’t repeat myself. Now, let’s see how our next hero of the Soulrority is getting on; Marigold-Piper arrives in the Things Betwixt but unsure why. All she knows is she’s been afflicted with a curse; the same curse Edwina caught all those years ago. She meets a nice Irish lady in Majula who informs her she needs to acquire great souls to become lord of Drangleic and end the curse once again. With nowt better to do, she thinks “might as well”. Unlike Jezebel and Edwina before her, Marigold-Piper wouldn’t know a magic spell if it hit her in the face. Instead, she’s an absolute tank and carries two greatswords which look like debris she’s pulled off the side of a building. Honestly, it was a challenge to name her something other than Helga. Thankfully, the only equipment in her build that matters is the greatswords and these are easy to get at the start of the game. All you need to do then, is power level your STR to be able to wield the things (also remember to level ADP so you can roll). Armor doesn’t matter. In fact, we’re now into the realm of Fashion Souls where armor isn’t as important as it was in the earlier games. I just put her in the outfit that complemented her massive physique best. The obvious reason for this choice of build, is one of Dark Souls 2’s most unique and best features; powerstancing. Basically, Marigold-Piper can dual wield two massive swords and swing them together for massive damage. If you’ve never played Dark Souls 2 with a powerstancing build then I urge you to try it as soon as possible. It’s so much fun and the damage output is insane. Even the hardest bosses in the DLC, a la Fume Knight, never stood a chance. So, this playthrough consisted of me bonking everything in sight and not looking back. The four great souls offer no challenge to Marigold-Piper, after that she storms Drangleic Castle finds the king, calls him a dickhead, goes into the past via some memories and then usurps the throne. A crown looks good on her, I think. In all seriousness though, the main game of Dark Souls 2 is all pretty standard stuff and as much as I love exploring the various areas, it really doesn’t offer much of a challenge, even with a lesser build. The DLC is where things pick up. Having gotten the platinum for the Scholar of the First Sin version of Dark Souls 2, I only had to dip my toe into the DLC so to speak. This time however I went all in and explored as much as I could and beat every boss. The first DLC is Crown of the Sunken King which has Marigold-Piper venturing under ground to explore a vast labyrinth of temples. I’d say this is my least favourite of the DLCs but it’s still damn good content, which goes to show how good Dark Souls 2 DLC is. In this vast underground cave is a pyramid, which is full of traps, secret doors and hatches and lots of hidden enemies. It’s a real challenge to navigate and that’s what makes it so much fun. Each of the three DLCs for Dark Souls 2 follows a basic rule of 3 bosses; 2 new and unique bosses, and a reskin. Crown of the Sunken king has Elana who can summon help and Sinh, a dragon. The reskin boss is a gank fight against 3 NPCs who I think appear in every Souls game. Sinh is my favourite fight here and while not as good as Midir of Dark Souls 3, it’s still a great fight. The second DLC is Crown of the Old Iron King which sends Marigold-Piper to a smelters tower filled with fire and lava. Arguably the toughest of the three DLCs, mainly due to the Fume Knight boss. This DLC is interesting as you actually start at the top of the tower and make your way to the bottom, instead of the other way round. The two unique bosses are the aforementioned Fume Knight who waits at the very bottom of the tower, and Sir Alonne, who waits at the top. There’s also a reskin of the Smelter Demon from the main game, except this one is blue. Fume Knight absolutely destroyed me on my first playthrough, so much so that I think he’s the boss that took me the most amount of tries in any Fromsoft game. I actually ran out of human effigies with which to summon help and ended up backing up my save before consuming the last one and re-downloading my save after every death to avoid farming for them. Quite pathetic really, I must have been desperate. Anyway, Marigold-Piper has no such issues! Did it without summoning as per the rules and took him down in only a few tries. I think the muscle memory of dodging his attacks has been burnt into my fingers. Was pretty chuffed after it if I’m honest as I’d been dreading the fight the whole way down the tower. The other main boss of this DLC is Sir Alonne. Pretty challenging too but not overly so. He has an absolute bullshit stab attack where you will teleport to his sword unless you dodged it frame-perfect. It’s annoying and I don’t know how it never got picked up and fixed in QA. Lastly, we have the Crown of the Ivory King. This DLC is interesting too as it has various states. When you first arrive to the snow-covered land with which the DLC takes place, it’s covered by snow storms. Certain areas and chests are blocked off due to this snowstorm and when you reach the end of the area and talk to the queen, the snow storm lifts and you can re-explore the area to find new stuff. The main boss of this area is the Burnt Ivory King. You can fight him solo, but you will die! Instead, what you’re supposed to do is free four knights imprisoned in various cells around the map and they help you when you fight the boss. I know what you’re thinking; “Uhm, aren’t you supposed to not summon any help?” Well, yeah, but I don’t think this counts as it’s not actually summoning in the traditional sense and it’s almost required to actually beat the boss as the boss summons help too. Most of the knights die before the King even turns up. Call me a cheater if you like but I’ve rationalised it to myself, so I don’t care! The other two bosses in this DLC are a big tiger and the reskin boss is the same tiger, but two of them. The two-tiger fight lies at the end of a gruelling area and possibly the worst area in any Fromsoft game to date. It’s called the Frigid Outskirts and it is a massive open space with an ongoing snowstorm so you can’t see five feet in front of you. All the while you are constantly being attacked by these tough unicorn enemies. Dark Souls 2 has a unique mechanic where if you kill an enemy enough times, I think it’s 10, then those enemies no longer spawn. It can help if you’re really struggling with an area. You best believe that these unicorn fucks de-spawned before I managed to beat the twin tiger boss. Well, that closes the book on Dark Souls 2, the black sheep of the series but one that I personally love. Let’s hop over the pond now to Yarnham where our next hero, Vanessa Von Earl, is searching for something called paleblood. - Bloodborne [2015] Here we go people, this is the steak dinner of video games in my opinion. An absolute masterclass in game design with an incredible world and story to boot. My love for Bloodborne is immense and like everyone else, I’m hoping Sony pulls their head out their arse and gives us a 60fps remaster! This playthrough was my fourth playthrough of Bloodborne and having tried out various weapons in my previous playthroughs, it was time to do something a bit different. With Vanessa I wanted to try out an Arcane build. I’d heard how fun they were whilst on the sub-Reddit and watching the various hunter tools or ‘powers’ in action certainly seemed like fun. And it was fun for the most part but honestly? A little underwhelming. A lot of the hunter tools require a heavy ARC stat investment and most of them can’t be found until the late game and the DLC. I imagine these builds are a lot more fun on NG+ when you can start fresh with all the tools at your disposal. Because I was starting on NG, it was a bit of a struggle. Because of this, most of the game was played hacking away with a saw spear that had a fire gem on it. And then I would switch to the tonitrus for Kin enemies for the lightning damage. Once I had acquired the Black Sky Eye in the DLC though, I was having an absolute blast. The Black Sky Eye essentially gives you a Cyclops style laser blast that shoots from your eyes. Pretty cool right? Exploring Yarnham is an absolute treat and never gets old. Graphical fidelity wise the Demon’s Souls remake obviously wins but for art style and direction? Bloodborne wins by a landslide. Every square inch of Yarnham is dripping with atmosphere and I just love wandering its streets, literally painting the town red with the blood of beasts. Vanessa Von Earl happens to be my favourite of the Soulrority. Mostly because we struggled together and came out the other side victorious. Not so much in the early and mid-game, but two bosses in particular in the end game and DLC gave us massive problems. With Bloodborne being my favourite and the one I’ve played the most I find I’m quite confident with it and its bosses. It wasn’t until I reached Ebretias and Kos that I really came unstuck. All the other games didn’t offer that much of a challenge as the builds were pretty OP, that is until a certain someone in Elden Ring…. But we’ll get to that. Vanessa Von Earl is somewhat of a glass cannon. She can dish out damage well but one slip up and it can all be over for her. You may notice by her picture that she has ‘resting bitch face’ and that she doesn’t give a single fuck. We decided that Vanessa was the daughter of a noble and coasted through life on her father’s wealth. But when she becomes trapped by the hunters dream, she finds that she can handle herself very well under pressure and has a thirst for blood. Therefore, when she encounters an insurmountable challenge, she never waivers and continues until the job is done. Ebretias was tricky because she hits hard, has a massive caboose which makes her charge attacks a little hard to dodge and her “A Call Beyond” spell does silly damage but ultimately, it was just a case of being aggressive and not backing down. My successful attempt ended up lasting about 2 minutes. I found when trying to play safe and taking my time, I would always eat the dirt. The Orphan of Kos though… God damn this fucker almost destroyed me. The Orphan of Kos has a nasty reputation as being one of, if not the hardest boss in all Fromsoftware’s game catalogue. And yeah, he’s tough. On my first playthrough I struggled a little but managed to beat him within an hour. Subsequent playthroughs, a little less so. Vanessa though? Several hours. I didn’t time it or anything, but it felt like a few hours at least. I had to put the controller down one night and continued the next day, I just needed a break. So why was it so tough for Vanessa? Well, with a NG Arcane build your damage mostly comes from the elements that your weapon emits or your spells. The Orphan of Kos does not give a fuck about any of that. He has no weaknesses despite being kin, who are generally weak to bolt. Spells tickle him and take too long to cast. After trying for about an hour with Vanessas core skills I realised it was futile and committed to only relying on melee damage and dodging every move and parrying when I could. It was driving me so mad that I sought outside help. I went over to YouTube and looked up a video of someone beating him on a BL4 playthrough. What’s BL4 you ask? BL4 is when you play Bloodborne with the basic starter class and you do not level up once during your entire playthrough. The basic class starts at Blood Level 4, hence BL4. You can still upgrade your weapons but that’s it. I noticed something quite horrifying when watching this BL4 video. This person was doing around the same damage to Kos per hit as I was. This means that, despite Vanessa being level 60+ her raw damage output without her elemental ARC scaling, was the same as someone that is the lowest possible level one can be in this game. Dread fell over me. I realised that to beat this boss I would have to endure the greatest challenge anyone has devised in the world of Bloodborne, bar dance mat or banana controllers. Sure, I could leave the fishing hamlet where the Orphan of Kos resides, I could grind some blood echoes, scale some other skills. I could enter the chalice dungeons and farm some incredible weapon gems to further boost my damage scaling. I could try out some of the consumable items I’d been hoarding all game long. I could simply give up. But at this stage, Vanessa and I had tunnel vision and we were unwilling to back down after having been through so much. No, it was now or never. And sure enough, after a couple of hours, he went down. I will never struggle with this boss again (famous last words) as I have learned the exact timing of every dodge and every parry window. It sure felt like torture when I was going through it but honestly that feeling when finally seeing the ‘Nightmare Slain’ message? Pure euphoria. And that’s Vanessa Von Earl’s adventure over. Whilst making her way through Yarnham she collected these strange umbilical cords and without a second thought she just fucking eats them. Absolute mad lass. Anyway, when it comes to finally freeing herself of the hunters dream, she destroys its guardian, Gherman and the god that created it, the Moon Presence. In the process, Vanessa transcends humanity itself and becomes an infant great one. That resting bitch face I mentioned earlier? It’s now evolved into something you can’t even comprehend in your tiny human mind. She is now above everyone else, just like she always thought she was anyway. Well, that was a nice little distraction. But now it’s time to head back to Lordran. It’s been thousands of years since Edwina was there and the lands are now at a breaking point, everything is turning to ash. It’s up to Tatiana, our next hero of the Soulrority, to finally put an end to it all. Unless? - Dark Souls 3 [2016] Alright, so, cards on the table; this is my least favourite of the series. Or, at least it was… But we’ll get to that. Why? Well, I think it has a case of identity crisis. And this isn’t a hot take as I’ve seen many comments online expressing the same concerns. I think Dark Souls 3 takes itself too seriously and visually, is a little too like Bloodborne. “But Jonesey, you love Bloodborne, so what’s the problem?” Well, Dark Souls 3 doesn’t have any of the things that make Bloodborne interesting. When compared to Dark Souls 1&2, it’s a bit tonally inconsistent. The bosses think they’re in Bloodborne but your character still moves like its Dark Souls 2, only with more rolling. Having said that though, I think Dark Souls 3 has the best bosses in the series, with only a few misses. And as someone that mostly plays a DEX focussed dodging madman then yeah, the gameplay suits my style. But I don’t know, every time I play this game there’s just something that feels off about it. Despite having the best bosses though, Dark Souls 3 has the worst level design. Level layouts are fine I guess but gone is the interconnected map of the original Lordran in Dark Souls 1. Instead, levels are pseudo-connected and require warping to from bonfires for the most part. Artistically, the levels are dull and grey and boring. There’s a few visual treats, mainly at the end of the game and in the DLC but mostly, Dark Souls 3 seems to have that brown shooter filter from the PS3/360 era. Story wise, we are treading the same ground as Dark Souls 1 which comes off as lazy and pandering when familiar faces and areas start showing up. However, I actually really like the overarching narrative of this one and I enjoy the ‘finality’ to it all. It’s about the world ending and how this cycle of undead warriors linking the fire and prolonging humanity can no longer exist. The DLC in particular is very interesting in how it tells its story and the final boss of the last DLC really does finish off the series nicely. One thing I will say however, is that even though Dark Souls 3 is my least favourite of the series, I still enjoy it immensely and would choose to play this game over many others. Like I said, its impressive spread of bosses make this game worth playing alone. This playthrough made me appreciate the game much more than how I felt after my last playthrough. Because of my feelings for this game, when building Tatiana, I decided to cheese the game a little and go for an OP build. It didn’t take me long to find out that doing a DEX/INT build with the Sellsword Twinblades was the way to go. I don’t regret this as the late game bosses and the DLC bosses still offer a huge challenge even with this so called ‘easy mode’ build. Still, Tatiana is just happy to be out of the house, or her coffin to be precise. Tatiana’s goal in Lordran, or ‘Lothric’ as its known now, is to take down the inconsiderate bastards that have linked the fire in the past and are thus keeping this miserable world alive. You’ll remember that Edwina chose not to link the fire and let it burn out, but it seems that some fucker came up behind her and linked the fire anyway. That’s why we’re all still here. Still, it’s nice to know that Edwina isn’t part of the problem. Marigold-Piper however, usurped the throne which seems to be the same as linking the fire. Honestly though, Dark Souls 2 is a little more abstract with its story, so that part isn’t clear. I don’t fault it for trying something new though. Tatiana’s OP build keeps her right. She has a few spells to her name but for the most part, she’s slashing away with those twinblades. Later on, she acquires the crystal weapon spell which coats both of her blades with crystal magic, which gives her some extra damage. It also looks cool. The bosses I was dreading based on my previous experiences was Pontiff Sulyvahn, Dancer of the Boreal Valley and Nameless King. All three of which weren’t too challenging for Tatiana, especially the Dancer who went down first try! Nameless King definitely took a few tries but nowhere near as long as I thought as he is easily the toughest fight of the main game. Bear in mind I’m doing all bosses without summoning! Because Dark Souls 3 does not require playing any DLC to get trophies, at this point I had never even looked at the DLC. I’d heard the reputation this DLC had for being hard so if I’m honest, I was a little worried! I decided to tackle the DLC right at the end of the main game, right before facing the main boss, The Souls of Cinder. First up is the Ashes of Ariendel, which has you venturing into the painted world from Dark Souls 1, although different due to so much time passing. Straight away you’re struck with the outstanding visuals of the snowy forest you’ve just been dropped in. Despite having PTSD flashbacks of the Frigid Outskirts in Dark Souls 2, I was blown away by how pretty this place looked. Mainly due to everything in the main game being dull. Unfortunately, I found exploring this area to be a little tedious. Mainly because of the enemies, which consist of spell casting trees, annoying as fuck wolves and super tanky Viking men who sometimes perch up high and constantly shoot high damage arrows at you. Once you make it through the snowfield though, you get to the church which is the hub of the DLC. There’s a depressing village down the hill filled with these diseased birds that are just sad to look at and ever sadder to kill. There’s also these Bloodborne ass motherfucking birds that I absolutely loathe! Died so many times to those guys! They jump around like god-damn anime characters. After going through the village you end up doing a loop and come out from underneath the church, I liked the level design here. Next up we have bosses, of which this DLC has two. Although, one can barely be considered a boss. It’s technically an NPC fight with a couple of wolves and one big Sif style wolf. Its main purpose is to unlock some item that allows some multiplayer stuff. The second boss, and arguably the best boss of this game, is Sister Friede. This boss has THREE phases. Not one. Not two. But THREE. Die on phase three? Start again. Sister Friede is rightfully considered the hardest boss of this game and that’s due to the three phases and the fact that her phase three attacks hit SUPER hard. I struggled, but mainly on phase one. Once I got her moves down on phase one, I managed to do phase two and three fairly quickly. Sister Friede is an outstanding boss and a remarkable achievement in enemy design. At no point did I think she was unfair. Any time I died it was 100% my fault. Which is a lot more that can be said for some of Elden Rings bosses. With her out of the way, we can now move on to the second DLC, The Ringed City. The Ringed City is interesting because for the first time in this series, it’s a direct continuation of the first DLC and can be accessed from Sister Friede’s boss room. You can also return to the church where Sister Friede’s boss fight takes place after finishing the second DLC to get some new dialogue which alludes to the future of the Dark Souls world. The Ringed City DLC starts in the area where the main game ends, at the dreg heap. Visually this area is still grey as everything else but breath-taking as you can see all the buildings of kingdoms past converging toward the first flame. Thematically this hits hard and makes you reflect on the series as a whole. There’s a lot of verticality to The Ringed City as you’re required to jump down many long drops that would kill you normally. It’s visually very cool but I’m not sure I like the idea of the game breaking its own rules to allow for this. There’s a rune on the ground when you land and a certain character who we will be fighting later guiding you so maybe that’s the explanation for it all. While making your way down the dreg heap, I notice a familiar sight. It’s the ruins of the Earthen Peak from Dark Souls 2! This put a massive smile on my face as it was nice seeing Dark Souls 2 get some love. Getting through this area is a pain however, as there are these flying guys that constantly shoots spells at you. When making it to the end of this area you drop down a long way yet again and face the first boss of this DLC. The Demon Prince is honestly my favourite boss of this game. It’s a 2v1 fight as there are two demons and when both are killed one resurrects, so it technically has three phases. Everything about this fight is epic. The lead up, the location, the music, the boss design. Despite being a 2v1 its also super fair which makes you wonder why Fromsoft unlearns everything from this fight when moving over to Elden Ring, but I digress. Once you beat the bosses you leave the area and can see the hole in the ground where Edwina met Frampt for the first time all the way back in Dark Souls 1. Again, I’m not the biggest fan of the pandering this game does but I’ll admit this seems appropriate given the location and it is kind of cool. Next, we make our way through a city and arrive at a church. Not before meeting a dragon though, who we will be fighting shortly. The next boss is Half-Light. An Old Monk style fight where, if available, a real person will be summoned to take his place and fight you. I take issue with this as Dark Souls 3 is several years old by now and the only people left playing are lifers with meta builds. I had to fight the same guy several times who I could never even attack because of how relentless they were. Sure, they’re better at the game than me, that’s fine. But this was blocking my progress. Surely not fighting the same player twice would be a good idea? And if there’s no one else available, just do the normal boss? Regardless of if it’s a player or Half-Light themselves, I hate this fight, its just annoying. There’s a big guy to kill before the boss even enters the room and then when he does you also deal with infinitely spawning painting guardians, who spawn two at a time. These guardians constantly run you down and chuck throwing knives at you, giving the boss and any players taking control a MASSIVE advantage. I really hate this fight! After this we can finally reach the final boss of this DLC and of Dark Souls. However, before that we’re going to go find a hidden passage and fight that dragon we saw earlier. Darkeater Midir is an incredible fight and an amazing evolution from Sinh of Dark Souls 2 and Khalameet of Dark Souls 1 before it. It has a massive health pool; massively damaging attacks and he just looks fucking cool too. I’ll be honest, I really felt like I was banging my head against a wall with this boss. I think I managed to get him to phase 2 once, but all other attempts we’re barely getting past 25% of his health bar. It was on this day, after about 2 hours of trying to beat Midir, that my wife went into labour. By 10 o’clock that night, I had become a father to a beautiful baby boy. Life really hasn’t been the same since. My mind was mush and Midir was a distant memory. However, I learned something becoming a father; newborn babies sleep quite a bit, just maybe not at the most convenient times! I had taken 3 weeks of paternity leave and by week 2 I was starting to become accustomed to the sleep deprivation and started to feel just a touch more human. It was then I was able to boot up Dark Souls 3 again with a sleeping baby on me and attempt this fucking dragon boss. I don’t know what happened, but I beat him on my third attempt. I was just one with the game and was dodging and reacting to all his attacks and punishing him perfectly. When he finally went down, I was so happy with myself and my good look charm of a child. Now it was finally time to put this world to rest and fight Slave Knight Gael. Some regard him as the hardest of the game. It tends to be between him, Friede and Midir I’ve noticed. I was still running high after Midir and was able to beat Gael on my second attempt. An incredible boss and one I look forward to fighting again. With all that done I was finally able to put Tatiana to rest and made my way to the first flame, defeating the Soul of Cinder and summoning the fire keeper to finally put an end to this age of fire that has gone on for too long. We only have one hero of the Soulrority left and that’s Astrid. Who has ventured to the lands between by the light of grace and intends to become Elden Lord. This one’s going to be a doozy. - Elden Ring [2022] Elden Ring is an absolute beast. It’s my game of the year of 2022 and I know it’s almost everyone elses too. Playing this game for the first time was pure magic. Exploring the lands between is an experience I wish on everyone. You really didn’t know what was waiting for you around every corner and the beauty of Elden Rings design is that you wanted to go and look for yourself! Instead of having some map marker telling you. Seeing one impressive vista after another and being surprised when the game just keeps going and the map keeps getting bigger after every conquest. Elden Ring truly is a masterpiece. But… I really hate this game. I’m joking of course, but the issues this game has, more so at the end of the game, are so big that they almost eclipse everything good about the game. I’ve had a funny relationship with this game since it came out, right until I made Astrid. Essentially, after playing this game on release I considered it to be one of the best games ever made and my clear GOTY for the year despite it only being February. And then, over the course of the year, having not gone back to it after getting the platinum, I slowly started to dislike this game. After playing Stray, I even stated that Stray was my GOTY. There’s nothing wrong with Stray, I like it quite a bit, but it’s mental to say the silly cat game is better than Elden Ring isn’t it? My main reasons for this change were because I started to dread ever going back to it. Knowing how massive it is and that most of the optional, open world, side content stuff leads to literally nothing. I felt that if I were to go back and play it again, I wouldn’t want to do any side stuff as its pointless and only focus on the good stuff. And that because of this I would be grossly under levelled and unable to engage with any of the main content. And so, if I really wanted to play it, I would HAVE to do a bunch of stuff I didn’t want to do to keep up with the stuff I did want to do. Obviously, this isn’t the case. You can play Elden Ring, only doing the meaty stuff and keep up just fine. But my mind just kept telling me that this wasn’t possible and the more time that passed, the more this belief held weight. I was beginning to forget all the amazing times I had in Elden Ring and was only remembering the annoying bits, for instance, pretty much all the bosses at the end of the game. I started to think that this game just isn’t replayable like the other Souls games because of its massive open world and structure. I was wrong of course. Creating Astrid and playing as her made me realise this. On this playthrough I fell in love with this game all over again. It had been 10 months since release and it was like playing the game for the first time again. I still have issues with this game, but with prior knowledge of them I was able to rush through certain areas to kind of go around these issues so to speak. Boss wise though, there’s no getting past those issues. Maliketh, Malenia, Godfrey/Hoarah Loux, Placidusax and Elden Beast are honestly some of the worst bosses this developer has ever made. All of them are visually stunning. And even mechanically some of them are fine and could even be great with some tweaks, but they are so over-tuned it’s ridiculous and they all perfectly represent everything I despise about Elden Rings design choices. I know some people have done them at level 1, without taking any damage. Honestly, you could teach me how to do the exact same thing and I would still hate these bosses. It’s here that I have to tell you that I failed my mission. After attempting to beat Maliketh for several hours I finally caved and summoned. I didn’t summon any real players or NPCs, I summoned something that is unique to this game, Spirit Ashes. Now, one could argue that this still falls within the rules. Spirit Ashes are an integral part of Elden Ring and some argue that bosses are tuned to account for their presence. I still personally feel like I failed though, and you know what? I don’t care. These bosses broke me on this playthrough. On my first playthrough I used Mimic Tear as much as possible and I didn’t mind because I wasn’t trying to follow any self-imposed challenges, I was just playing the game. When trying to solo these bosses I realised how much I hate them. All my knowledge and experience with the previous games meant nothing. Admittedly, Godfrey, Placidusax and Elden Beast aren’t really considered here. I still hate them, but they can be beat solo fine enough, but I didn’t want to anymore. Maliketh and Malenia broke me to the point of just wishing the game was over. You may notice I haven’t mentioned Radagon, and that’s because I really like this boss. It’s just a shame that it’s attached to the atrocious Elden Beast fight. So, I used the Spirit Ash ‘Black Knife Tiche’ and thankfully, they gave me the edge to beat all these bosses in a reasonable time frame, although Malenia was still tough and took some time. And that’s pretty much everything I needed to get off my chest regarding Elden Ring and this playthrough. I haven’t even talked about Astrid much. Astrid has a STR/INT build using the raptor claws with frost and bleed damage. She can do a shit tonne of damage when she gets going but as you may have guessed, that didn’t mean much when it came to the end game. As for the playthrough path, I took down all remembrance bosses and any other bosses that got in the way. I obviously wasn’t going to fight all 150+ bosses, considering most are just repeats anyway. Astrid chose to bring about an age of stars cause she’s a simp for Ranni (I mean, who isn’t?) Her story seems quite underwhelming when compared to the others but it’s just the effect Elden Ring has I’m afraid. It’s massive and sometimes too massive for its own good in my opinion. I honestly think everything after the capital could be cut with the Haligtree and Farum Azula just being optional side areas. Even then the game would still be massive but that would trim a lot of the fat I believe. Despite all that though, Elden Ring is still an incredible game and ultimately, I think it’s positives outweigh its negatives. It’s just a shame all those negatives come at the end, which ends up souring every playthrough. - Closing thoughts And there we have it. A full playthrough of every Souls game done. These games are all incredible and I’ve enjoyed my time with them immensely. I’m already planning my next playthroughs where I cosplay as the dude on the cover of each game. I’m sure I’ll be playing these games periodically well into my senior years, and I particularly look forward to introducing these games to my son. I thoroughly enjoyed breathing life into the Soulrority and fleshing out these absurd characters we created. I’ll almost certainly go into NG+ with some of them at some point. As promised earlier, I’m going to update my ranking of these games below. These playthroughs gave me new perspectives on these games and made me appreciate things I hadn’t considered before. 1. Bloodborne 2. Dark Souls 3. Demon’s Souls 4. Dark Souls 2 5. Dark Souls 3 6. Elden Ring Oh no! Elden Ring is last! This doesn’t mean it’s a bad game though. I mean, I literally just typed out “Elden Ring is still an incredible game” a few paragraphs ago. I love it and would play it over most other games, but when compared to the rest of the series, I would rather play all the others first. Dark Souls 3 was almost at the bottom again to be honest but my playthrough with Tatiana and its DLC really improved my opinion of it. Anyway, I hope this was as enjoyable to read as it was to write. Again, I never intended for this to be coherent, I just wanted to empty my brain out as I love these games so much and have so much to say about them. If you did read this then… Why? Haha… No but seriously? Anyway, from me and all the girls; Jezebel, Edwina, Marigold-Piper, Vanessa Von Earl, Tatiana and Astrid. We wish you a happy new year and hope 2023 is good to you. Thanks ? Jonesey46 - Editors note: Hey look, I started the OG Demon’s Souls while writing this. I was debating it, but I felt like I couldn’t call myself a true Souls fan if I never played the original. It’s good but my god is it ugly! (When compared to the remake of course). Edited July 27, 2023 by jonesey46 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted January 16, 2023 Author Share Posted January 16, 2023 (edited) Well... That didn't take long. Platinum #266 - Demon's Souls Introduction This is a somewhat follow up post to the behemoth post above this. When writing all my thoughts down on my recent playthroughs of the souls games I decided to put my money where my mouth was and prove myself as a true Souls fan. Up until now I had only played the remake and have replayed it a few times since, growing more fond of Demon's Souls with each playthrough. I had arbitrarily decided I didn't want to play the original, as surely the remake is all one needs? Well, maybe, but I really want to be able to say I've played every Souls game and I couldn't do that without seeing where it all truly started. I payed £18 for my copy which, considering the massive success of Elden Ring and Demon's Souls' cult-like status, I thought was pretty reasonable. Story The lands of Boletaria have been covered in a colourless fog and within it, demons feed on the souls of man. The fog is caused by The Old One, an ancient being that wakes from its slumber every few thousand years to wreak havoc on the lands. You, an unnamed warrior, have been captured by the Nexus, a place which is dedicated to driving back the fog and appeasing The Old One. Your job is to gain power by consuming great demon's souls and aiding the Nexus in lulling the Old One back to its slumber. Gameplay It's Souls gameplay down to its most basic form. Long before the days of the interconnected world of Dark Souls, the massive build variety of Dark Souls 2, the visceral and fast combat of Bloodborne, the beautifully complex bosses of Dark Souls 3, the focused sword play of Sekiro and the huge open world of Elden Ring. I covered my thoughts on the gameplay in the above post so I won't repeat myself. Instead I'll go over a few things that I found interesting when playing this when compared to the remake. Firstly, it will surprise no one that the remake did an incredible job of remaking the gameplay of this game. It plays the same for the most part. The one thing in gameplay that I noticed to be different was the dodging. When locked on to an enemy you dodge in a circle around them and so if you dodge when the enemy moves you sort of follow them and dodge in a way you maybe didn't expect. It seems the remake opted for the dodging of the newer games which I think was a good choice. The level design is almost completely the same and the remake only adds details to make the place feel more alive and realistic. It's incredible that I was playing a game that I've never played before and knew exactly what to do and where to go. The one exception to this I found was in the final level of Boletaria (1-4). Imagine my face when making it past the first barrage of the blue dragons fire breath and thinking "okay, time to open the shortcut" only to find that there is no shortcut: This makes the run back to arguably the hardest boss in the game (I actually think Man Eaters is the hardest, but still) a bigger pain in the ass but it's not that big of a deal. This kind of pissed me off and I'll tell you why; BluePoint games decided that the run back to King Allant was so bad that they felt they needed to add a shortcut to the level. They managed to fit it in naturally without sacrificing any of the original design, great job. However, they decided not to change up the design of the terrible and janky Man Eaters boss fight? Fuck out of here. One thing to note is that the servers were shut down a few years back so the online functions are no longer active. Thankfully, the online has been preserved by a custom server that is super easy to access and restores all the old online functions. But if you didn't want to bother with that the platinum is obtainable completely offline. Unfortunately, I think the visuals of Demon's Souls hasn't aged well, and will only look worse as more time passes. Where as something like Bloodborne will look incredible forever. I really enjoyed the soundtrack of this game and thought it fit the game perfectly. I'm not upset that BluePoint didn't use the original soundtrack for the remake as it wouldn't have fit as well. I knew from reviews how well preserved this game was when the remake came out but it was nice to feel that for myself. For all intents and purposes the original and remake are the same game as mechanically, they feel the same. Platinum Thoughts Looking at the list I was kind of intimidated. Both versions have almost the same amount of trophies but the original has you fully upgrading one of each weapon type where as the remake opted for more easier level specific 'tasks' in place of these. Grinding out the materials for all these upgrades is a daunting task. Thankfully though, there is a very easy duplication glitch you can do to essentially give you unlimited ores after collecting only one. Is it cheating? Yeah but upgrading all of these weapons is beyond the call of one playthrough and is a far cry from being fun. One ore though, the Pure Bladestone, is the make or break ore of any platinum run. Every other ore can be found in the world or can be dropped by enemies and are pretty common. Pure Bladestone however, has a 1/200 chance of dropping. Unless you can get someone to drop one for you, you're in for a grind. There is one enemy in level 4-2 that I killed over and over until it dropped the ore. It took me around 2-3 hours which is pretty good considering other people have had to grind for 6-8 hours. All other trophies I think appear in the remake and are relatively straight forward. Collect all unique weapons, spells and rings and defeat every boss. A guide is definitely recommended to reduce the amount of playthroughs needed but this game is short and a tonne of fun so if you want to do a normal playthrough first (which I recommend) then don't worry about it. The quest lines and world tendency stuff can trip you up if you're not aware of it beforehand. I had already played the remake extensively so I sort of knew what I was doing in this one and managed it in 2 and a bit playthroughs. It would have been 1 and a bit but I massively fucked up and so that brings us to... 🚨 STORY TIME 🚨 I fucked this platinum up so badly that I simultaneously laughed and cried. So, at the end of my first playthrough I had everything I needed and was on track for the platinum. All I needed to do was acquire one last spell for the 'all spells' trophy. To get this I needed to complete the game, get the good ending to acquire a certain soul, go into NG+, rescue an NPC in the third level and learn this spell from her. NG+ starts and I go straight into the first level. I speed run the first and second level and enter the third. I need to get halfway through the level, acquire a key, backtrack through the level, open a door with said key, acquire another key, head back into the level proper, open another gate with said key, kill an enemy to free this NPC and head back to the nexus to learn the spell. All in all, from the start of NG+ this should take 30 minutes MAXIMUM. So I do all that, get to the NPC and start attacking her kidnapper, the problem however, is the way I went about it. As I was playing a mage I'd taken quite well to the firestorm spell, which essentially coats the ground around me in fire and pretty much obliterates anything in range. It's really powerful. Being a little sleep deprived (I have a newborn) I cast this spell to dispatch the kidnapper real quick but of course my spell also damages the NPC. She turns hostile. My brain is going a mile a minute. I'm panicking. I try to quit the game but my fingers and brain aren't talking to each other and I'm pressing all the wrong buttons. Too much time has passed, the game has autosaved and its too late. I Google a way to absolve my sins and de-agro the NPC. I find out the statue in the nexus can do this but what I didn't realise was, this was for the remake and not the original. When I realise this I come to terms with the fact that I'm in for another playthrough. I need to go into NG++ to get this spell. Not a problem. This game is fun and I'm happy to do another. Its short too so won't take long. Except I'm also raging because it was such a stupid mistake. I was LITERALLY less than a minute away from the platinum and becuase of one silly mistake I added an extra 3 hours on to my runtime. I made sure to take extra care when killing the enemy on NG++. I was raging. But like I said, I also found it hilarious. You've got to laugh right? Summary The original Demon's Souls is well worth playing if you're a true Souls fan. But in all honesty, the remake does everything it does, almost exactly the same, only it's much prettier. The platinum can be grindy but a few handy glitches can cut your run time down considerably. I will almost certainly do the two region stacks at some point because I love this game a lot and will gladly re-do them another two times. Just have to source copies of them which may cost me a bit. I also decided during all of this that I will also do the PS3 versions of both Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2. Because clearly, I hate myself. If I'm just hankering for a casual Demon's Souls playthrough in the future I'll almost certainly boot up the remake over this. This still has its merits but my god the remake is just so pretty ?. Best Bit The origins of the Souls formula is still great to this day Worst Bit Graphics have aged quite badly Arbitrary Rating 8/10 --- Edit: I just noticed when editing my front page that Demon's Souls was my first platinum of 2022 and now my first of 2023. Completely unintentional but now I think I'll have to make one of those region stacks my first platinum of 2024. Edited November 8, 2023 by jonesey46 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted January 24, 2023 Author Share Posted January 24, 2023 (edited) Platinum #267 - The Gardens Between Introduction I still have PS+ Extra until the end of April and I'm trying to play all the games I'd like to play before it runs out. I don't think I'll be renewing straight away as my newborn is keeping me busy so I'm not sure if it will be worth the money. I picked this game for two reasons; my wife had already played it on her Switch and she told me it was good, and also I knew it was short and thought it would be a nice palate cleanser between finishing The Last of Us Part 1 and starting Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. I was right. This game was lovely and doesn't overstay its welcome. Story There's no dialogue in this game but the story is inferred through visuals. The two kids in the game tile are childhood friends and neighbors. Unfortunately, one of them is moving away and they are upset they won't get to see each other anymore. In their final moments together they reminisce about all the memories they've shared in this weird time altering fantasy world. Gameplay The Gardens Between is a puzzle game. The objective of each level is to carry a lantern filled with light through the diorama style levels to the end. The main hook of the game is the time alteration as pushing right on the analog stick moves you forward and pushing left on the stick moves you backwards and time moves backwards with you, undoing everything that's just happened. As you move through the levels obstacles stop you from reaching your goal and you use the time mechanics to overcome them. Flowers that steal your light, environmental/platform obstacles and in some rare instances, puzzles that require typing a code out or fiddling with a device to clear a path. It's not a particularly challenging puzzle game. Nothing like The Pedestrian which I played recently, a game which forces you to think outside of the box and uses its mechanics in very interesting ways. None of the puzzles stumped me and only a couple actually made me think. You have a very limited move set and so anytime a puzzle stops you, you only have a couple of things that you can try in order to progress, so it never takes long to figure out what you need to do. The main draw of the game is the aesthetics I think. It's a very pretty game with an interesting art style. The diorama levels are creative and moving time both forward and backward to see how it affects the level was always cool. The music also complements the game quite well although none of it stood out to me as something I'd listen to in my own time. The game clocks in at around 2 hours maximum which is perfect. The game isn't ground breaking but as its so short, all the elements are quite enjoyable with no obvious flaws as the game isn't around long enough to really show them. Platinum Thoughts A super easy platinum that just requires the completion of all levels and a few miscellaneous trophies that require specific things to be done in certain levels. Chapter select is available for anything missed and levels last no longer than a few minutes, especially if you know what you're doing. Summary A nice little puzzle game that doesn't overstay its welcome. A recommended palate cleanser between bigger games and if you've got PS+ Extra, a no brainer. Best Bit Aesthetically pleasing diorama levels Worst Bit Not very challenging Arbitrary Rating 7/10 --- This is my second platinum of the year and my second post to go with it. Could I retroactively make it my New Years resolution to review all my platinum games in this thread? We'll see how it goes. I've started playing Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and not being a big Star Wars fan, I completely ignored this game when it came out but God damn, it's pretty fun? Not a single original idea to be found but it does a lot of things well and I'm excited to play more. Edited November 8, 2023 by jonesey46 fixed the formatting error brought on by that pointless PSNprofiles update... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted January 30, 2023 Author Share Posted January 30, 2023 Platinum #268 - Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Introduction So, straight away I want to say that I am not a Star Wars guy. I watched the original and prequel trilogy when I was 12 years old as a family member really liked them and wanted me to like them too. I liked them at the time and even had the Lego Star Wars game for PS2 which I enjoyed a lot. It didn't stick though and I moved on to other things. 12 year olds are so fickle aren't they? In December just past, shortly after my son was born and whilst on paternity leave, I watched all the Star Wars films for the first time since I was 12. This time I even watched the newer sequels and both spin off films, which I hadn't seen before. I still feel indifferent towards the franchise but I'm glad I re-watched them. I didn't watch any of the shows despite people constantly telling me "yeah but The Mandalorian is really good!" to which my response is always "but I don't care though?". Which brings us to the game. I had no interest in this game when it released due to my indifference. But over the years I've heard some good things about it. Mainly that, despite being a Star Wars game, it's a really good adventure game. With a somewhat renewed interest in the franchise and it being made free to all PS+ subscribers I figured, why not? Story Cal Kestis is a Jedi in hiding. It's been 5 years since the conclusion of the worst trilogy of films ever made, uhm, I mean, "the purge". The Jedi's are all gone and when discovered by the Empire, Cal must team up with some rebels to find a hidden artefact which holds a list of 'force sensitive' children. Cal hopes to use this list in order to train the next generation of Jedi and bring hope back to the galaxy. (I'm joking btw. They're far from the worst trilogy of films ever made. I mean, they're terrible but there is a lot to love about them.) Gameplay When it comes to gameplay, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order doesn't have an original idea going for it. Every gameplay mechanic has been pilfered from another series of games. Its combat and checkpoint system emulates Dark Souls, its exploration takes from a lot of metroidvanias and it's traversal is similar to Uncharted. Even elements of its story take from one of the developers previous games, Titanfall 2. Despite all that though, Fallen Order is a fantastic game. Those elements are better done in their own respective games but Fallen Order blends those elements together well and ends up being greater than the sum of its parts. It's not particularly challenging. I was playing on the second hardest difficulty (or the third easiest, depending on how you look at things) and only the last boss gave me a bit of trouble, but still a far cry from most Dark Souls bosses. The thing is though, it didn't need to be challenging as the fun of the game lies in the exploration of the various planets. Once you get past the prologue/tutorial/introduction section, Cal gets a ship. The ship acts as your home base, there isn't much to do other than use it to fly to the various planets however. Right from the get go you can freely explore 3 of the 5 planets available and the other 2 become accessible as you progress the story. You are encouraged to go to a specific planet first though. Each world is distinct in biome and enemy variety but function the same way. You explore the levels, fighting enemies, solving puzzles and opening shortcuts. The gameplay loop works really well and the levels are fun to explore. Not to mention the game is gorgeous and has really great visual design. Combat is Dark Souls-lite. You fight with a lightsaber (obviously), you have a light attack and a heavy attack. You can block and there's a parry mechanic which is encouraged and sometimes downright necessary to defeat certain enemies. There's no levelling system but XP is rewarded for defeating enemies and XP builds up to skill points which can be used to unlock new abilities for Cal. A lot of the skills amount to increasing health, force or damage but some unlock interesting new moves which shakes up the combat system and adds some flair. You unlock force powers throughout the game and these allow you to force push or pull enemies which adds further options during combat. Fallen Order is a very straight forward game. It's combat isn't challenging, it's level design is very well laid out and never complicated, its puzzles aren't head scratchers and it's control system is intuitive. Sometimes you just need that though. I had a blast going through this game and exploring it's various worlds and never once feeling lost or stuck. I always knew where I had to go and what I had to do and I relished it. This a delightfully fun adventure game and I am deeply excited about its sequel which releases in around 2 months. Platinum Thoughts The platinum is a simple affair. Most of the trophies will unlock as you play the story and nothing is missable as there is free-roam after the credits roll. You're required to completely 100% each planet which entails uncovering the whole map and finding every chest and secret. This was a lot of fun though as the exploration in this game is top notch. You also have to unlock every ability in the skill tree and there's a bunch of combat trophies which can be farmed using the Dark Souls style infinitely respawning enemies. I had a moment of panic when I had one trophy left actually, the last trophy being to scan all enemies. At a certain point in the story, bounty hunters start randomly spawning around the world. There are three types and all have to be scanned for this trophy. I had gotten to the end of the story and noticed I still had to scan one. I figured I would come across one when cleaning up. I didn't. I came across plenty of bounty hunters but never the one I actually needed to scan. Right up until it was my last trophy. I started panicking because I was convinced they don't respawn again after killing them. Thankfully I wandered around one of the planets for a while and eventually found one and thus the platinum was mine. Summary Jedi Fallen Order is a collection of games you've already played before with a coat of Star Wars paint. However it's one that melds all those games systems together well and ends up being more than the sum of its parts. If you're a fan of the franchise then this game is a no-brainer. If you're not though, its still well worth your time and one of the best adventure games I've played in years. Best Bit Exploring the various planets Worst Bit Story is a bit inconsequential. It's also a bit janky. Arbitrary rating 8/10 --- I'm definitely looking forward to Jedi Survivor now when previously, I had no interest! I'll probably wait until its on sale though as Resident Evil 4 remake takes all priority in March! Meanwhile, I started a virtual photography Instagram, as it's something I'm interested in and I would like to get much better at it. I can't imagine the userbases of Instagram and PSNProfiles have much overlap but in case you're interested, please check it out and give me a follow; https://www.instagram.com/reissykins/ 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted February 8, 2023 Author Share Posted February 8, 2023 Platinum #269 - God of War Ragnarök Introduction God of War Ragnarök is the long awaited sequel to God of War (2018) and the finale in the Norse saga. What was once thought to be a trilogy of games has been scaled down to only two titles and despite being a masterclass in almost every avenue, Ragnarök comes off as feeling bloated and rushed as it tries to tie all the loose ends started in the previous game. God of War was my game of the year in 2018. Which made this game one of my most anticipated releases. However, after the sour disappointment I felt after finishing The Last of Us Part II, I learned to not yearn for sequels anymore and leave good things as they are. God of War Ragnarök is no where near the disappointment The Last of Us Part II was but it does suffer from some of the same issues. Namely, convenient plot devices, pointless characters and the hand of the writer showing itself to tell you how to feel on occasion, rather than letting the player decide for themselves. No one saves a zebra in this though, thank God. Much like Part II though, this game plays beautifully, it looks astounding and it's acting ranges from good to brilliant. The story is the main selling point though, which left a sour taste in my mouth. Do not get me wrong though, this game is a joy to play and an even greater joy to look at. For those reasons, it's worth the price of admission. Just don't expect a satisfying conclusion to one of gaming's best told stories. When being critical of a game like this I feel I need to preface my statements. This game cost a ridiculous amount of money to make, not to mention the hard work and dedication of hundreds of people. Production value drips from every part of this game and it's almost certainly deserving of all those 9/10's and awards its gotten. While it's story didn't live up to my expectations, I want to make this very clear, Ragnarök is a very good game and one I enjoyed playing quite a bit. Story Fimbulwinter has struck and Ragnarök looms over the nine realms. Atreus is restless and eager to find his place in the world and how his fate ties into prophecy. This causes some friction between Kratos and Atreus. Can they break the fates and forge their own path? Or are they destined to do exactly what the prophecy says and never change? Gameplay Ragnarök plays almost the exact same as the previous game. Some welcome additions have been made though, like a more reactive combat system that requires specific dodges, parries and shield strikes to take down your enemies. The minor overhaul the combat has had is one of my favourite changes made. I love reactive systems as they really push your abilities to the limits. I was playing on Give Me No Mercy, which is the second hardest difficulty (or the fourth easiest, depending on how you look at things). This difficulty really brought a challenge, especially with the optional bosses. This system works really well for the various boss battles the game has, but unfortunately, the combat does become quite monotonous when fighting regular mobs. It seems the game was a little afraid of the player not being in combat all the time and so you're constantly having trash mobs thrown at you to make sure you haven't fallen asleep. Kratos is still the main playable character but you do control Atreus at various points in the story. Because of this Atreus has been given his own combat mechanics, mainly centered around his bow. His combat is servicable but nowhere near as fun as Kratos'. Kratos has the Leviathan Axe and the Blades of Chaos from the previous game, and around halfway through the story, he gains a new weapon. Getting this weapon was probably the coolest and best moment of the whole game for me so I won't spoil it here. The move set this weapon has was so much fun and I pretty much exclusively used it from when I got it, right until the end. Like the previous game, you're unleashed on a semi-open world and can explore at your own leisure mostly. The nine realms have all been opened and you now explore each one at some point, where as the previous game only had you exploring a few. Each realm feels distinct and all are absolutely beautiful. When visiting the realms, there's always a main story path but also plenty of side content to distract yourself with and most of it does a good job of matching the quality of the main story content. A few traversal tweaks have been added, like Kratos using his blades to grapple to points on walls but for the most point, moving around is as heavy and grounded as it was in the previous game. The changes made in gameplay are very welcome, but not enough to make it feel like its own game. For all intents and purposes, Ragnarök is a direct continuation of 2018. There's nothing to tell you it isn't though and this isn't a negative point towards the game. Aside from the obvious graphical upgrades, both 2018 and Ragnarök can and should be played together as one big package. Platinum Thoughts Much like all of the recent PlayStation exclusives, the platinum of God of War Ragnarök is straight forward and easy to attain. It requires fully exploring all realms, picking up all the collectibles, completing all the little sidequests and defeating all optional bosses. No difficulty requirements and a bunch of unmissable trophies for going through the main story. If you play this game, there's almost no reason to not go for the platinum. The final two optional bosses are very challenging but mostly require practice to learn timings and appropriate reactions. Summary Ragnarök is a worthy follow up to its predecessor. Despite being disappointed by its story, I believe Ragnarök delivers in almost every other aspect and should be celebrated for it. When looking to feel those emotional story beats again though, I will almost certainly reach for 2018 over this. Best Bit Stunning visuals and a great reaction based combat system Worst Bit Unsatisfying conclusion to its biggest selling point, the story Arbitrary Rating 8/10 --- Up next will probably be The Callisto Protocol. I've started my NG+ run going for Maximum Security difficulty and all collectibles. It being a short game, it shouldn't take too long. Thanks for reading as always. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted February 14, 2023 Author Share Posted February 14, 2023 (edited) Platinum #271 - The Callisto Protocol Introduction The Callisto Protocol is the brand new, original IP made by the creative director of the original Dead Space. Expectations for this game were sky high, every trailer looked incredible and the creative director was blowing smoke up everyones arse by saying it was "redefining survival horror". Did it live up to any of those expectations? Did it fuck. Story Black Iron, a prison located on Jupiters second largest moon Callisto, is overrun by a mysterious infection that turns people into horrifying monsters. You play as Jacob, a pilot who is transporting medical supplies to Black Iron. Jacobs ship is attacked by a militia group which sends his ship crashing onto the surface of Callisto, shortly thereafter, Jacob is imprisoned by Black Irons warden (played by Sam Witwer, always good to see him) just as the infection is spreading. Once the prison is overrun, Jacobs only objective is to survive and get off Callisto. Gameplay The Callisto Protocol is a survival horror game, without the survival part and with very little (effective) horror. Instead of going with a more traditional third person shooter approach where the player is expected to manage bullets and other resources to survive, Callisto opts for a melee system. Every enemy can be killed using melee attacks only, therefore completely removing the need for resource management. When approaching an enemy it will swipe to attack you, you are required to hold the left analog stick either left or right to dodge the attack, you then need to alternate the direction of the left analog stick until the enemy finishes its attack pattern and then you can punish by swinging your weapon (what starts as a crowbar and eventually you get a stun baton) and doing this dance until the enemy goes down. Eventually you do get guns which only exist to open up some extra damage during melee combos. After a few hits a crosshair will appear and you can quickly shoot to extend your combo. Later in the game certain enemies will start to mutate and you have to shoot a specific part of their body to stop the mutation. Unfortunately, using guns on their own is practically useless and does very little damage. This combat system only works for one on one but there are times when you can be dealing with multiple enemies at once. Thankfully, the mutated zombie guys are polite and form an orderly queue to take turns attacking you. On paper, this combat system sounds terrible but if I'm being honest? I really enjoy it although it doesn't have much depth, it has a tonne of potential. When the guns and combo extenders were introduced I had hoped more complex maneuvers would be added but that's as far as it goes. I really hope the game gets a sequel, only to see this combat system fleshed out more. You do eventually get a GRP which is like a kinesis module that allows you to pull enemies to you and fling them off ledges or into spike traps but this doesn't add all that much to the core combat system and basically gives you free kills so you can avoid doing the melee combo dance with certain enemies. I really don't know why I enjoyed this system so much, I guess it gets points for being a bit different. It was something that I didn't expect actually, I genuinely thought this would be a spiritual successor to Dead Space, guns and all. Turns out it's not so much a spiritual successor, rather a complete rip off. Aside from the combat system though, which is why it took me by surprise and I ended up enjoying it so much. Outside of that, Callisto Protocol completely rips off Dead Space in every way, it's completely shameless. Can it really be ripping off if its made by the same person? It just reeks of not having any original ideas and thinking "well that was good so lets do that again". This game is utterly gorgeous. It's astoundingly beautiful and I spent a tonne of time in the photo mode (and have been uploading some of my shots to my Instagram). Certain environments and characters straight up look real you can't help but gawk at it. It's a very short game and starts to lose steam near the end. There is a boss about two thirds in which is then repeated another three times after and it gets a little tiring. You also end up retracing steps at the end through areas from the start of the game. I know the team crunched to get this out and I just can't see where the development time went. It must have all gone to making the game look as good as possible because as far as substance goes, the game has very little. Despite that though, I really like this game, but I want to like it more. It makes it so god damn hard though. The story has great potential but goes nowhere, the combat system has a great foundation but doesn't expand upon it and the world building and location design is fantastic but it doesn't do anything with it. It's a frustrating mess. It's why I'm really hoping for a sequel so that these ideas can be expanded on and we get an Uncharted 2 style follow up. Or maybe the confirmed story DLC can expand on these ideas but I'm doubtful. Platinum Thoughts A very straight forward platinum thankfully (although the DLC is muddying the waters a little). Most trophies unlock with regular play, just make sure to play on the hardest difficulty (it's not that bad) so you can pop the three difficulty related trophies and have a guide handy for the collectibles. With that you can easily get this platinum in one go. Summary A frustrating mess with massive potential that hopefully gets realised in a sequel. Also one of the best looking games I have played. I would definitely recommend it to fans of the genre although with those caveats in mind. If given the choice though, I'm sure the Dead Space remake is more worthy of your time, I just hesitate to recommend remakes over original IPs. Best Bit Stunning graphics and the bones of a good combat system. Worst Bit Derivative, short and doesn't realise it's potential. Arbitrary Rating 7/10 - I'd honestly give it more because for some reason I have a soft spot for this game but there's just too many red flags to be able to give it a higher score earnestly. DLC New Game Plus Like most AAA games these days, a NG+ was added post launch which should have been included on release. NG+ for Callisto allows you to carry over upgrades and credits into a new game and thankfully, you're not locked into the difficulty you played before, you can select from the three difficulty options when starting. Nothing else was added and you get one bronze trophy for beating the game on NG+. A pretty barebones update if I'm being honest. A hardcore mode DLC has been added too, with three bronze trophies. I haven't gotten around to it yet though so I can't say anything on it. --- This was platinum 271 and my previous post was platinum 269. This is because I auto-popped Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered (I know, I' the fucking devil) for 270. I did this and then started a new playthrough but haven't finished it yet. I plan to go through the story only and maybe the DLC stories too, then I'll come back here and do a post on it. Otherwise, my next post will be on platinum 272, Kona. A delightful surprise that I played on a whim from PS+ Extra. See you around! Edited February 14, 2023 by jonesey46 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted February 14, 2023 Author Share Posted February 14, 2023 Platinum #272 - Kona Introduction Kona is a first person adventure and mystery game. Its set in a small village to the north of Quebec, Canada. The game mainly revolves around exploring the now (mostly) abandoned village and piece together several mysteries which all tie in to eachother. I believe this was the developers first game and it was Kickstarter funded. They are also working on a sequel which is due for release this year. If I had to compare it to another title, I would say it's most similar to Firewatch, only with a little more freedom of exploration. Kona caught my eye when scrolling through the games included with PS+ Extra and on a whim I decided to try it. I'm really glad I did as I ended up really enjoying this title and am eagerly anticipating the sequel. It's worth mentioning that this game includes VR support. I do not own a VR headset and so therefore, did not try this out. Story You play as Carl Faubert, a private investigator who has been hired to investigate a vandalism case in the small town of Lake Amitapek. His client is an industrialist business man who essentially owns the whole town. When Carl arrives however, he finds that his client has been murdered! He takes it upon himself to find out what's going on and solve this mysterious case. Gameplay As mentioned before, Kona is a first person adventure game. Set in the Canadian wilderness where you wander around, searching houses and cabins for clues to solve the central mystery. There are some light survival elements such as having to stay warm by lighting campfires and stoves, managing your stress levels and some light inventory management. You have a journal to track your clues, a map to navigate the area and a camera to take pictures of items of interest. You can also carry tools which are needed for various puzzles and they can also be used to defend yourself from wolves, which are the only hostile enemies in the game. You can also get a pistol and a rifle which can be used to defend yourself too. Exploring the area can be done on foot or by vehicle. Carl has a pick up truck and there is also a snowmobile that you can use, although it needs to be repaired first. The Canadian wilderness can be harsh and it just so happens that there is a heavy snow storm when you arrive. The snow never lets up and it really adds to the atmosphere of the game. Being an indy title, Kona is not the prettiest in terms of graphical fidelity however, as far as art style and design goes, this game is gorgeous. I live in central Scotland, which only gets proper snow once every year or so. The novelty of all that snow is amazing to me so I really enjoyed the aesthetics of this game. Near the end of the game I felt like a massive idiot though and here's why; the game doesn't really make everything clear to you, a few times I stumbled upon mechanics that I had no idea existed because the game expects you to figure it out, this is fine for a mystery game but I felt it was a little obtuse. The game has a stress meter, it doesn't tell you its stress though, its indicated by a brain symbol, so as a gamer, I thought this was a sanity meter, a la Amnesia. One of the main mysteries of the game is finding out what happened to these people that are completely frozen in ice. If you get close to them your screen starts to blur and your stress meter goes down. I thought that because it was sanity going down, that I should avoid this but no, you have to stare at them for an extended period to activate a memory. There are four of these and you need to see all of them to progress to the ending of the game. I got a little stuck because of this and sadly, had to Google it to find out what I was supposed to do. I felt like a huge idiot, but also a little hard done by as the game hid this from me. The mystery really hooked me though and I really enjoyed exploring the map at my own pace, finding little clues, reading the journal and piecing it all together. I will say though, I was a little disappointed with the ending as it felt a little rushed and while everything pertaining to the central mystery was resolved, the final act came out of nowhere and then the game ended. I was still confused as to what the fate of the village was and what happens next. Maybe the sequel will go into it but I think its a completely separate story. Platinum Thoughts Kona has a good variety of trophies I felt and it's a list that you'll need to be concious of as you play. However, the game is very short and so my honest recommendation is to play it blind at first, reload your autosave from before the ending, clean up all your collectibles and miscellaneous stuff and then do another "speedrun" style playthrough to get the ones you missed. This is exactly what I did and it didn't take long at all. Piecing together the mystery is the best part of this game so don't ruin it with a walkthrough or a guide. You need to collect all documents, and solve all the mysteries in the journal. There are a few misc. trophies which can be done quickly if you don't get them naturally and then there's a few playthrough specific trophies. Completing the game without using vehicles, without smoking or drinking and without firing a gun. I stacked all these on a speedrun playthrough and it took me no longer than 2 hours. Summary A nice mystery game which reminded me of Firewatch. I would definitely recommend this to people who enjoyed that game. And with it being on PS+ Extra, it's a no brainer. Now I'm excited for the sequel so the devs will get some money out of me at some point at least. Best Bit Atmosphere and the hook of the mystery Worst Bit The game can be a little obtuse in that it hides certain mechanics until you just happen to figure them out for yourself. Arbitrary Rating 8/10 --- Incidentally, does anyone have any recommendations for games like this and Firewatch? I really enjoyed this and I'm craving some more. Thanks! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted February 27, 2023 Author Share Posted February 27, 2023 Platinum #270 - Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered Introduction Marvel's Spider-Man launched on PS4 in 2018 and the remastered edition launched as part of Miles Morales' deluxe edition when the PS5 launched in 2020. I have a little rant to get through before we start the post proper... Getting your hands on this version of the game is a nightmare and honestly, completely unacceptable. To this day, the remastered edition of this game is only purchasable through Miles Morales. It is nowhere to be found on the Playstation store which means two things; it never goes on sale AND the version available for download for subscribers of Sony's PREMIUM subscription service is the INFERIOR version of the game. If you want to purchase this game you need to install Miles Morales, boot it up and then purchase the upgrade and install Spider-Man Remastered through Miles Morales' main menu. It's ridiculous that you have to jump through so many hoops to play this game. Luckily, once purchased, you can download this game from your library without having to go through Miles Morales. I actually didn't even purchase this game and instead downloaded it from my brother-in-laws account, which saved me £25. Right, that's the rant over. Marvel's Spider-Man remastered comes with all the graphical upgrades you'd expect from a PS5 version including ray tracing and 60FPS (although not at the same time) and the game looks absolutely gorgeous. I spent a lot of time in photo mode when playing through this game. It also comes with a few new suits, including all the movie suits right up to No Way Home and a couple of extra trophies. It has the good graces to have a save upload system allowing you to auto-pop all the trophies you acquired on the PS4 version of the game, including the new trophies, providing you met the requirements on the uploaded save. I like this game a lot but didn't fancy doing all the side stuff to reacquire the platinum normally, so I happily used the auto-pop system to save me the trouble. I then proceeded to do a story only playthrough including the three DLC stories. I even did another playthrough of Miles Morales straight after so now I am fully ready for the launch of Spider-Man 2 later this year! The save upload system isn't all roses though! You have to install and launch the PS4 version of the game, upload your save through the game menu itself and then download that save on the PS5 version. Usually you can just download your backed up save from PS+ but nope! Spidey has to be awkward! Even more awkward for me cause my PS4 saves didn't transfer when I got my PS5 so I had to actually dig out my PS4 Pro and hook it up just to get these saves. A lot of people on here hate auto-pops cause they think its lazy but trust me, I had to work for this platinum! Story Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man has finally taken down the King Pin, but putting Fisk behind bars has created a power vaccum in New York and a mysterious gang known as the Demons are making their play. The story of this game is actually really great and has some fantastic emotional beats. It introduces a villain that many people aren't familiar with which keeps it fresh but also uses some of the best villains from Spidey's rogues gallery. It also does a great job of setting up future plot beats that are realised in its spin-off Miles Morales and hopefully, its upcoming sequel. Revisiting this story was an absolute treat and while overall I do prefer Miles Morales, the story of this game really hits hard. Gameplay You know the drill, it's Spider-Man, you swing around an open world New York and beat up bad guys. The game can essentially be split into two parts; traversal of the open world and combat. Traversal is the best its been since Spider-Man 2 on PS2. Swinging around New York is incredible and always feels good. It also looks great and is wonderfully cinematic. Combat is similar to the Batman Arkham games where Spidey can 'snap' to enemies as you fight them by using the left analog stick to direct him. Most of the time you'll be mashing square to punch people and circle to dodge but theres also gadgets to use, combos, aerial combat and of course your webs which you can use to jam up enemies or even stick them to walls. There's stealth elements too and some combat scenarios can be entirely beaten in stealth. There's a handful of boss fights in the game but none of them are particularly interesting. I really hope Spidey 2 improves on its boss fights and makes them more challenging. As fun as this game can be it does suffer from your regular open-world misery. Towers to unlock the map, dozens of types of collectibles, icons littering the map etc. The game is a lot of fun and traversal never gets boring so it's not too big of a deal but I still hate to see it and hope Spidey 2 cuts back on a lot of these elements and delivers a more unique experience. There are some awfully boring sections in the game where you control Mary-Jane and Miles Morales (pre-powers). They are essentially stealth sections but with none of the fun traversal that Spidey has. They are dreadfully boring and really drag the pacing of the game down. This is something the developers definitely learned as Miles Morales' own game has none of these sections and only a handful of 'walk and talk' sections which are nowhere near as egregious as they don't have fail states. I'm hoping Spidey 2 takes this one further and really limits the amount of time you're not jumping around and being a super-hero cause guess what? That's what people want and why they bought your damn game! Platinum Thoughts The platinum for this game is famously easy but still requires 100% completion. This is all fun though as swinging around New York never gets boring. The only roadblock I can remember is waiting for the radiant crimes to spawn but still, this never took an excessive amount of time. As mentioned before, I auto-popped this platinum for ease but I remember having a good time unlocking all these trophies back in 2018. Summary A nice graphical update for one of Playstation's best exclusives, it looks great and the ray tracing adds a lot to the world. It's a nightmare to get your hands on though and remains locked away behind another games deluxe edition which is unacceptable. Best Bit Great traversal, the game looks great and it has a great story. Worst Bit Forced stealth sections with non Spider-Man characters. Egregious open world nonsense. The difficulty of actually getting and playing the Remastered version. Arbitrary Rating 8/10 DLC New Game+ Standard affair for modern AAA games. Not too bad to go through as you can just focus on the story and not have to bother with the side stuff. It's likely you'll be max level anyway if you're continuing from a platinum playthrough. This DLC also requires beating the game on Ultimate difficulty which is the hardest difficulty the game has to offer. It's not too bad if I remember correctly you just need to be extra considerate during combat and make sure to use all the tools at your disposal. The Heist The first of three story DLCs sees the return of Black Cat who was come to New York to steal from the Maggia crime family. Spidey gets tangled up in trying to help her. I've always liked Black Cat as a character and this version of her is spectacular. I hope she returns for the sequel. This DLC adds a bunch of new missions and some new side stuff too including a new type of crime. Like the base game, this DLC and the two proceeding it require 100% completion to get all the trophies. Turf Wars Following Black Cats theft of valuable Maggia info, Hammerhead is making a play against all the dons of the Maggia crime family to own the entire crime syndicate. This DLC has Spidey dealing with Hammerheads goons fighting over turf around New York. It also ends with one the worst boss fights in gaming. My mantra with boss fights is this; If you have to put regular enemies in your boss fight, it isn't a boss, you fucked up, go back and try again. Silver Lining The almost jarringly short final DLC has Spidey teaming up with Silver Sable to finally take down Hammerhead. Who by the way, has turned himself into a cyborg. This shit is ridiculously bad, its literally his head on a robot body and it comes out of nowhere. This DLC definitely felt like it was rushed. It follows the same format as the previous two DLCs so you know exactly what to expect with it. Remastered Trophies 5 new trophies exclusive to the remastered edition of the game has you fully upgrading your gear and abilities, completing a challenge with an Ultimate ranking, getting a 100 hit combo and completing an enemy base without taking damage. Two of these auto-popped for me so I must have met those requirements without knowing it on the PS4 version and the other three took a few minutes to unlock on my completed save. Pretty simple stuff. --- And there we have it! Who else is excited for Spider-Man 2 this year? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HelixNebula_x Posted February 27, 2023 Share Posted February 27, 2023 2 hours ago, jonesey46 said: And there we have it! Who else is excited for Spider-Man 2 this year? Can't wait for Spider-Man 2 this year. Very likely to be my GOTY with only Hogwarts looking like it's going to come close. I've got the 4 platinums from this series so far, and I've honestly been looking to go back and plat some of the PS3 Spidey games just to get my fix before the sequel comes out. I didn't autopop this version when I played it, as it hadn't played it since release, but you better believe I autopopped the NG+ trophies. Too many games to play and not enough time! Congrats on the plat! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted March 1, 2023 Author Share Posted March 1, 2023 On 2/27/2023 at 1:25 PM, HelixNebula_x said: Can't wait for Spider-Man 2 this year. Very likely to be my GOTY with only Hogwarts looking like it's going to come close. I've got the 4 platinums from this series so far, and I've honestly been looking to go back and plat some of the PS3 Spidey games just to get my fix before the sequel comes out. I didn't autopop this version when I played it, as it hadn't played it since release, but you better believe I autopopped the NG+ trophies. Too many games to play and not enough time! Congrats on the plat! I've platinum'd both Amazing Spider-Man movie games which are pretty good but nowhere near as good as the Insomniac games. They're kind of easy platinums too except the second one glitched out on me HARD, so bad that I had to reformat my PS3 and start from scratch to complete it. This glitch must be rare though as I couldn't find any instances of it happening to anyone else online. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted March 3, 2023 Author Share Posted March 3, 2023 Platinum #273 - The Forgotten City Introduction The Forgotten City is a game that people will most likely recommend to fans of Outer Wilds. The reason being is that its a time loop game and has a central mystery that can only be experienced once. Unfortunately, as clever as The Forgotten City is, it never comes close to the genius of Outer Wilds. That's not a slight towards this game by the way, Outer Wilds is one of the greatest games ever made and I say that completely earnestly without a hint of hyperbole. It's easy to compare the two titles but I think it's unfair, while they do share similar elements they are completely different experiences. It's my recommendation to never even mention Outer Wilds when recommending this game to someone. They may draw their own comparisons sure, but filling some ones head with the heights of Outer Wilds when booting up this game is only going to cause disappointment. I say this because this is exactly what happened to me. I enjoyed my time with The Forgotten City but it's not a title that will stick with me. It has some very clever moments and a very interesting premise but it ends up feeling underwhelming by the end. Considering this game started life as a Skyrim mod, it's most impressive. Even if it does come with that Gamebryo/Creation Engine jank we've all come to know and love, or loathe. This had been in my wishlist for a while and then it ended up being included with PS+ Extra recently so I wasted no time and played it as soon as I could. I would recommend this game to any fans of puzzle/mystery games and maybe the experience would be much better if you haven't already played Outer Wilds. But, if you haven't played Outer Wilds then what are you doing reading this? Go and play it immediately. Story You stumble upon an ancient and forgotten city buried in a hidden cave system and whilst exploring you find a portal that transports you 2000 years in the past to a time when the city was fully populated. You discover that the city lives under something known as the golden rule, which states that if any of the citizens commit a sin, everyone will be killed and turned into golden statues. It seems that someone in the city is expected to break the rule soon and it's your job to investigate and find out who it is. Gameplay The Forgotten City is a first person adventure game. Once you make it to the city gameplay consists of exploring said city and talking with its inhabitants. There are also some very light combat mechanics that are used sparingly. When talking to people you have dialogue trees that can lead to gaining more information, unlocking new side quests or straight up offending them so that they no longer speak to you on that loop. Days seem to last forever until you or someone else breaks the golden rule, causing everyone to be turned into golden statues. When this happens you need to make your way back to the portal that got you here and it restarts the day. No one remembers what happened on the previous loop which means you can exploit this to solve puzzles and gain more info. There are multiple mysteries ongoing in the city such as missing persons, mysterious sightings in various locations, or people that are being abused/coerced by a certain person and all these can be solved at your own leisure, but the central mystery of stopping the golden rule is your main objective. There were multiple instances of where the game took me by complete surprise by opening up in ways I had not expected. The story also has multiple twists and interesting implications that also took me by surprise. These were the games best moments and its why I recommend playing this game with no prior knowledge of it and certainly without a guide on your first playthrough. The game can be stunning in places, namely the environments and the lighting but the character models are jarringly bad which holds the game back somewhat. The voice acting leaves a lot to be desired also and can ruin the immersion. With a bigger budget this game could have been something truly incredible. Maybe a remake down the line can fully realise the vision. Trophy Thoughts A relatively easy platinum provided you take to the games mystery and explore every avenue before moving on to the ending. There is an extensive autosave feature which keeps quite a few of your previous saves so its always possible to revert back if you make a mistake. There are 4 endings for this game and you are required to see all of them to get the platinum. Outside of that you're required to complete all the side mysteries and to complete the game having fulfilled a few specific tasks. There is a handy exploit if necessary which allows you to access noclip mode. This allows you to get past locked doors. This helped me a couple of times when cleaning up trophies and preventing me from doing another almost 100% playthrough. Keep this in mind. Also, if you do plan on playing this game blind first, make sure to pick the 'Covert Mission' option at the start. It gives an extra item which is needed for a couple of trophies and there's no reason to pick any of the other options. It might save you some time. Summary A delightful mystery game which is somewhat held back by its character models/animations and voice acting. For a game where talking to people is so important, these limitations hold the game back from being something truly immersive and great. Still, the world building and central mystery are very well thought out. The game is actually quite short so it's an easy recommendation as a quick mystery to knock out over a weekend. Best Bit Interesting premise and central mystery. Several twists and turns that took me by surprise. Worst Bit Sub-par character models, animations and voice acting hold the game back. Arbitrary Rating 7/10 --- It seems nothing will ever live up to Outer Wilds and while that's upsetting to realise, its something that I'm okay with ultimately, because it truly is one of the best games ever made. I just wish I could erase my memory of it and play it again for the first time. It's a game I can't wait to introduce to my son when he's old enough, although I think I'm going to have to keep it from him until he's an adult to make sure he gets the full experience and can understand the existentialist nature of it. Does anyone have any games they can think of that match the experience of Outer Wilds? And if you played The Forgotten City, what did you think of it? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonesey46 Posted March 24, 2023 Author Share Posted March 24, 2023 (edited) Platinum #274 - The Last of Us Part I Introduction I have talked about The Last of Us quite extensively here on this thread and on various other threads in this forum. I talked about it on this post when I was describing the struggles I had getting the Grounded DLC for the PS3 version and again on this post when I had actually finished the Grounded DLC and got 100%. I also briefly talked about it and how important it is to me on my (probably infamous) The Last of Us Part II post. Because of this I don't want to do a full extensive review of this remake because I'd be repeating myself quite a bit. So I plan to just word vomit my thoughts on this well made but ultimately pointless remake. General Thoughts The Last of Us Part I is a remake of beloved 2013 title The Last of Us, not to be mistaken with The Last of Us Remastered. It exists for, as far as I can tell, two reasons; the first being as a marketing tool for the HBO adaptation TV series (which worked wonderfully by the way) and the second being to bring the first game more in line with Part II. By that I mean, updating face models and graphical fidelity, in gameplay and cutscenes, to be more consistent with what's shown in Part II. I'm actually surprised they didn't release a native PS5 version of Part II to coincide with this release as it's a PS5 exclusive. This is, for all intents and purposes, a 1 to 1 remake. Very little changes have been made. Troy Baker and Ashey Johnson's incredible performances as Joel and Ellie have been preserved, as well as all the other characters. So it plays out and sounds exactly like you remember it. Face models have been updated to look more realistic and in the case of some characters, look exactly like they do in Part II. Facial animations have been updated but as the original game didn't have facial motion capture the newer animations end up in a weird limbo between pretty bad and uncanny valley. They serve their purpose no doubt but if you play Part II straight after (which I did, more on that later) you will notice a BIG difference in animation quality. Leaving aside the inconsistent facial animations though, this game is utterly gorgeous. Environments have had the PS5™ treatment, every single area is densely packed with details giving it a sense of realism the original could only dream of. Weather and particle effects are incredible also. To say this game looks good, would be a massive understatement. Every gorgeous game needs a good photo mode and thankfully this game delivers. It's exactly the same as the photo mode for Part II but with a few extra features which I imagine are only possible due to the PS5's hardware. These being simulated lights (up to three!) and a move frame forward button which allows you to forward the game by one frame at a time in order to find the perfect shot! I utilised this photo mode quite a bit and uploaded my best shots to my virtual photography Instagram account which you can find HERE (I will never stop plugging this ?). One of the major changes made with this remake is the inclusion of Part II's incredible accessibility features. This means both parts of this epic story are playable by almost anyone and I think it's pretty much the only reason that justifies this remakes existence. The game is great obviously but aside from the accessibility its essentially pointless. Sure, it looks great but it's the same game as it was in 2013. Some other changes I think are worth mentioning are the inclusion of the stalker type enemy from Part II, some minor clothing changes and a change to how clickers work, or at least I think so! You'll have to settle this for me. The stalker enemies being added makes no sense to me, nothing about the level design has been changed so therefore, the levels weren't designed with these enemies in mind. Also, Joel or Ellie (can't remember who) makes a comment in the university building before they see the monkeys about how "clickers don't hide". Well, they didn't in 2013, but now they fucking do! The clothing changes are very minor and the only one I think is worth mentioning is Joel's shirt in Salt Lake City. In the original it was grey but now it's blue, this is to match the MASSIVE continuity error made in Part II's intro flashback sequence that shows Joel's shirt being blue. They also changed the hospital room at the end to be blue instead of green to match Part II yet again. I was being sarcastic about the continuity error being massive by the way, in case that didn't come across, please don't send me death threats. The change with the clickers I mentioned before is how they "see". I'm sure that in the original, you could be crouched right in front of them and as along as you didn't move quickly, they wouldn't see you. Now, if you are in front of them and they do their clicking thing, they see you even if you don't move. Am I crazy? I'm sure it wasn't like that before. It makes way more sense! But it threw me during some stealth sequences that I'm used to breezing through and ended up getting stuck on for a while. I was playing on Survivor difficulty by the way. And there we have it! The Last of Us remade for the PS5. For huge fans of this game it's a no brainer. It's a game you love, looking better than ever. For new players, it makes the most sense and its a new shiny thing to play on your very expensive hardware. For everyone in-between, maybe stick with the PS4 version or even the PS3 version if you're an OG fan. Trophy Thoughts The remake totally revamps the trophy list and makes it much more manageable and much less tedious than the original. First of all, there's no multiplayer obviously so all those trophies are gone. Left Behind, originally DLC, is baked into the core game and the trophies for this are a part of the main list. There are no difficulty trophies this time and no NG+ requirements. You do have to acquire every collectible though. A nice and easy list if you ask me. Naughty Dog have definitely improved with their trophy lists over the years. Summary I had a great time with this remake and it'll probably be my go-to in the future whenever I fancy replaying this masterpiece again. This was actually the first time I'd played the first game since before Part II released. I was slightly bitter about how the story had gone in Part II and never really fancied revisiting these characters. That might sound petty and it probably is but it wasn't like I was refusing to play it, I was busy playing lots of new experiences and never really thought about it. I'm glad this remake got me to play it again though as I remembered just how much I love this game. As I mentioned earlier, I did end up doing a playthrough of Part II straight after this on Grounded mode to finally get 100% for it. My opinion hasn't really changed all that much, although I am more positive on it these days. Mostly due to how good the game is to actually play. The story and characters still bug me though and although it has a few moments that I like, ultimately I think the whole thing is a gigantic waste of time. I'm still very much excited for Part III (3) however and in all honesty, I cannot wait to see how they handle Part II's story in season 2 of the HBO show. I look forward to seeing Pedro Pascal getting his head caved in. I'm joking, mostly I'm excited for Bella Ramsey to really show us her acting chops with the dark and gritty nature of post-Joel Ellie. I'm not going to do any of the rating stuff I usually do here, the game is fantastic and I'd obviously give it a 10. But it's a 10 because the original is a 10. The remake does nothing to add or subtract from that score. I actually feel bad for having it as my current #1 in my 2023 ranking list on GG. That's subject to change obviously, but it feels silly having, essentially, a game from 2013 that I've played countless times topping the charts of games I've played in 2023. It's still technically accurate though so there it will probably stay. Thanks for reading as always. See you around! Edited March 24, 2023 by jonesey46 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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