From Software 'n such

[Necronopticous]

I believe attacks do all types of damage at once and are subject to all types of defense of the enemy. Similar to having a weapon in Dark Souls that does physical, fire, and lightning damage, for example.

[Blinge]

The fact that those controls persisted into the 4th game on PS2 is less excusable, of course.
At least, I got ahold of circle strafing pretty fast, but I don't think I'll ever get used to looking up and down using shoulder buttons.

Glad you're enjoying it mate!
KF4 blesses the right analog with a Y axis iirc. but i don't think you can strafe with it.

Thanks for the Evergrace review, Necron..
..I can't wait to suffer too

[Sumez]

Got to the point in KF (US1/JP2) where I could finally get more than the single crystal flask I'd been carrying around. Funny, at the point I'd amassed like 18 crystals, and there was a new flask in the area just after there, so now I have a ton of potions at all times, which makes the game a lot easier. Having found almost a complete set of armor at this point was also a game changer.

Anyone got some tips for what I should be selling? I really want the keys I am missing. So far I've been sticking to everything except excess weapons - a lot of items I still have no idea what do, and others I just keep in case they might come in handy. But there's a lot of stuff that seems to be worth a lot of money, which is kind of cool. It feels like if you know the game well, you can use the knowledge of what you really need to get some OP items from the merchants early in the game. For example, even the map sells for enough to get a sweet sword or the gold key. That's not what I'm looking to do though, I just want to make a little bit of money.

I feel like the blood stones might be useless for me, if the green potions I am able to get now can do the same thing?
Also the crystal shards - do they serve any purpose? I thought I'd be able to combine them into full crystals, but I still haven't come across this opportunity, so I'm just sticking to the ones I have.
I also have my doubt about the phantom rods. I have 3 or so now, and I had to read up on them to figure out what they do, and it seems kind of pointless to me. If you are in a room where you suspect there are secrets anyway, just go looking for them.

[Necronopticous]

Yeah, you can sell all that stuff you mentioned. Crystal shards have absolutely no use, and you are spot-on about the others.

[Blinge]

Eh? I thought someone can craft them shards into flasks.

[Necronopticous]

Full crystals can be crafted 2:1 into flasks. Crystal shards have no use aside from selling for currency.

[Sumez]

Thanks a lot! Any other items I should expect to be selling in the future?

Btw, I made the same mistake as you and accidentally inserted the dragon crystal into the green stream instead of the one that I (correctly, it seems) assumed gives me MP recovery. I don't know why I didn't think of saving the game before doing it, because it was really to be expected.

[Necronopticous]

Depends on how much you care about collection. The Pirate Map serves little purpose after you get your hands on better maps (or just learn your way around) and is quite valuable as you mentioned. I made a lot of money off of the Figures of Seath, but make sure you always keep at least one since it is used for a couple of triggers in the game. I sold most of my consumable items, especially after finishing Seath’s fountain, since Gold Potions do everything you really need. You can find most pieces of equipment in the game if you are thorough so you never really need to buy equipment directly, and much of what is found can be sold since there is no durability in the game and you really only need keep the best loadout currently available to you. I couldn’t bring myself to sell much other than consumables, though, because I’m a slave to collection in games.

[Necronopticous]

The Adventures of Cookie & Cream

I had no intention of actually playing The Adventures of Cookie & Cream. I could tell by the cover art alone that it was a bizarre one-off project that didn’t represent the core progression of Fromsoft’s non-mecha oeuvre that I have been exploring. However, one late night while searching eBay for deals on rarer, more expensive titles like Echo Night and Shadow Tower I happened to see a listing for this game that was only $16 and pulled the trigger. I figured, at the very least, the ability to flash this game in front of my friends and announce it as “the true spiritual predecessor of Souls” was worth $16.



It wasn’t until the next morning when it occurred to me that I actually had no idea what The Adventures of Cookie & Cream actually was, and since it was soon to be in my possession I decided it would probably be worth looking into that. From the cover I guess I expected this to be some kind of ridiculous attempt to cash in on the 3D platformer craze of the late 90s (Super Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie, Spyro, etc) but it’s actually much weirder than that. The reality is that it’s a completely original concept designed from the ground up as a local co-op puzzle game with light platforming elements that has more in common with something like Gyromite. Oh, and it’s great!

I played through most of the game with a friend over the last weekend and was just flabbergasted by it. It’s not a particularly long game, but it’s overflowing with cleverness and charm. Every one of the individual worlds has its own ridiculous theme and bizarre mechanics to figure out, and there’s very little bleed over between them. All of the boss battles are completely different and require their own unique type of coordination. It’s just an all-around great co-op experience with a good sense of humor to boot. As far as I can tell it has precisely zero connective tissue to any other project From Software has worked on before or after. I have absolutely no idea why they decided to make this game, but I’m glad that they did!

[BIL]

I assumed you knew about AoC&C. I can imagine the surprise - yeah, it's a gem! Agetec were so good at getting this stuff out back in the day.

[Sumez]

Always had a good eye for Cookie and Cream - it really sucks it was never released over here. Does anyone know how the DS version holds up?

EDIT: Turns out it's because it's called Kuri Kuri Mix here :O I've seen that game so many times and never realised what it was.

[Sumez]

I couldn’t bring myself to sell much other than consumables, though, because I’m a slave to collection in games.

I am too... what about Verdite though? Seems to be worth a ton, but not sure how much a tiny increase to my magic stat is worth in the long run?

[Necronopticous]

I used every verdite I came across right away, myself.

[Blinge]

Yeah. getting a magic up is no joke imo. Even if you mostly slashy slashy.

[Blinge]

Soz late reply.

I tried that strategy on Freide, and what always inevitably happened is she either blasted me with a spell through Ariandel or she just did her dash attack invisibly straight through him, since her attacks totally ignore collision with him (which is stupid and cheap as hell).

Hm. Dash as in her command grab attack?

When I say let Father Ariendel charge you down, I mean from almost the width of the huge room. Freide's attacks do have a limit on their range, You can survive the frostbite with the ring on also. She's so slow to chase you that you can get them separated really quite easily. I've beaten them solo a couple of times but studied their moves a LOT while farming sunlight medals on this battle/ helping numpties beat them.

As for her rushing through him to hit me? This has never happened. She might clip say, under his arm while he's swinging, but never straight through his centre or model. So to me she's rushing past rather than through.

It's not like when Ornstein's bloody spear will poke straight through Smough's gut and catch you.

Definitely seems like the way to manage this fight in my experience.

I know about staying on the platform for Ruin Sentinels but that fight... ruins... me anyways. The first one is no problem, but then I have to deal with two of them on that tiny little platform, and if I make a mistake, I end up having to fight on the floor with their expanded movesets (seriously, UGH at their spin2win), which goes really badly for me.

Holy hell, I wouldn't dream of fighting two sentinels at once up on that platform. I've never even tried.
I'd definitely recommend staying down where you have space to move around and can actually register what they're doing.

[Necronopticous]

I know about staying on the platform for Ruin Sentinels but that fight... ruins... me anyways. The first one is no problem, but then I have to deal with two of them on that tiny little platform, and if I make a mistake, I end up having to fight on the floor with their expanded movesets (seriously, UGH at their spin2win), which goes really badly for me.

Holy hell, I wouldn't dream of fighting two sentinels at once up on that platform. I've never even tried.
I'd definitely recommend staying down where you have space to move around and can actually register what they're doing.

Yeah, normal Ruin Sentinels strategy would be doing as much work as you can on the starting platform until you find yourself in a 2v1 situation and then immediately jumping down and finishing the job in the open. I had a hell of a time with this fight until I figured this out, but it's never been a big deal since. I don't even remember having a particularly hard time with them on my SL1 playthrough.

[BrianC]

Always had a good eye for Cookie and Cream - it really sucks it was never released over here. Does anyone know how the DS version holds up?

EDIT: Turns out it's because it's called Kuri Kuri Mix here :O I've seen that game so many times and never realised what it was.

I'm not too sure on the DS version. I haven't played it, but it looks like it has a lot of forced touch screen stuff.

[Sumez]

Made a ton of progress today in just a few hours. Decided to go back into the cave where I had my ass handed to me by skeletons earlier to see if I could open the locked chest there. This eventually resulted in finding the second dragon stone and activating the gold fountain, which really opened up the game.
Covered most, if not all of the eastern part of the island and started tackling the mine where I found a couple of new keys I had no idea I was missing, one allowing me access to a castle I couldn't get into earlier. I think I'm getting closer to the end, but in general the game is much, much bigger than I imagined it could possibly be.
In general I managed to follow up on a ton of loose ends. Ended up trading 6(!) of my crystal flasks to that one guy, which resulted in some super useful items, the flute and a third map, which is helping me a lot. I really love how most of this is essentially optional though, including most of the places you can go. Even then, exploration is extremely rewarding, with a lot of exciting places and items to discover. Really feeling the "Souls" atmosphere from this, and it's easy to see why people call this a "spiritual prequel" - From got a lot of these aspects incredibly right even back in 1995.

I used every verdite I came across right away, myself.

Yeah. getting a magic up is no joke imo. Even if you mostly slashy slashy.

I suddenly got a ton of them. Enemies even started dropping them... maybe I should use them then Got all the keys from the keymaker anyway (found the magician's one, bought the others).

[Necronopticous]

Good stuff man! I somehow feel nostalgic reading through your experience even though it was only a month & a half ago for me. Such a great game. What weapon are you rocking now? Also, did you ever go back and kill the Kraken?

[Sumez]

Yup, did that since I was in the waterfall cave anyway. Damn that thing took a lot of hits despite losing its shell in just a few. This is exactly the kind of thing I love about the game. See a huge enemy early in the game that wipes the floor with you? Go back later, kill its ass, and find interesting stuff in the cave it was guarding. I have two of those shrine keys now, and still haven't found the place to use them.

I'm rocking the long halberd thing. Nice reach, "fast" recharge, and good damage. I got the samurai sword too, but it seems excessively slow and not as versatile.

EDIT: Almost forgot. I had a horrible scare yesterday when I went to save and both my existing saves were gone (I make an occasional backup). I have no idea how it happened, but I suspect the memory card rather than the game. So I quickly reset the console and plugged in another memory card to copy my saves over.
If I lose my KF save, that's probably a game I have no intention of starting over any time soon >_>

[Necronopticous]

I think I used the mace for the majority of the game. You get some killer weapons in the final stretch, of course, but I liked the balance of the mace until that point. Glad you didn't lose your save, but restarting ain't so bad! I actually played through twice in a row since I was excited to go back through it with my spatial knowledge of the island.

@8BA are you still playing?

[Sumez]

I wouldn't mind going for a second minimal run after I'm done, but I'd hate to lose out on every bit of exploration I've done.
Yeah, the mace was my best weapon for a long while. I just got the fire sword, ice sword, and seath's sword all straight in a row. And got Leon working on a sword from the dark crystal.

[Necronopticous]

Looks like you're closing in on the end now! Were you able to figure out the shrine puzzle on your own, or did you have to look it up?

[Sumez]

I had to search for it - found a guide saying "remember the picture of the warriors?" and I knew immediately what to do. That definitely wasn't obvious though.

Found and beat Guyra just a moment ago. Took me a while to figure it out. Final area was terribly crappy, but wins a few points for going weird in the 11th hour.
I must have missed one light crystal, because I never got the "Flash" spell. Do you know at what point the doors (I found 3?) with seath equipment behind them open? I just went back to them when I came across what looked like a final boss, and they were all open, though it's not clear what triggered it.

[Necronopticous]

I had to search for it - found a guide saying "remember the picture of the warriors?" and I knew immediately what to do. That definitely wasn't obvious though.

Hah, yeah. There's not really anything else like that in the game so I'm not sure I would have ever made the connection there. I tried brute forcing the combination for a little while, but the walk back is just too annoying so I caved in and looked it up myself.

Do you know at what point the doors (I found 3?) with seath equipment behind them open? I just went back to them when I came across what looked like a final boss, and they were all open, though it's not clear what triggered it.

Having the Dark Slayer in your possession opens those.

Congrats on completing the game! Did you get the Sword of Moonlight?!

[Sumez]

Yeah, about that... I was watching a speedrun of the game after completing it, just being curious about what that would look like for a game like this. As expected, you can go pretty much straight to the final boss without much hubbub (guy picked up a bunch of magic crystals and dragon figure to sell for 99 herbs and moon stones though). It's not too interesting though, as it's mainly just hacking away at the few required boss fights for ages - ie. the ice cave guy, and the five in the collisseum, before abusing a safe spot on the final boss, allowing him to stand on its back.

However, he manages to run past the boss to pick up the moonlight sword and equip it! Is this what you are talking about? I'm not sure if that's an intended easter egg, as the way he got past the boss seemed pretty glitchy. Otherwise, the ending of course has you getting the moonlight sword either way, I don't suppose there are any other endings?

It does mention the two swords, which has me thinking what happens if you don't pick up the darkslayer sword? As far as I can tell, it's not required to kill Guyra.

Hah, yeah. There's not really anything else like that in the game so I'm not sure I would have ever made the connection there. I tried brute forcing the combination for a little while, but the walk back is just too annoying so I caved in and looked it up myself.

My main issue here was that I wasn't sure if I were even supposed to know about the combination at this point. So I just wanted to know if I missed something, or should move on ahead without opening the doors yet.

[Necronopticous]

It is intended! It really reminded me of the tail cut mechanic that would later appear in Dark Souls. The awesome part is you can use a gate to return to a save point after grabbing the sword and actually play with it around the island.

So, what is next for you Sumez? Are you going to move on to King’s Field III?

[Sumez]

Yup just booted it up a moment ago to check it out, though I probably won't have time to play it for real today. Killed a few plants and got a key as a random(?) drop, and then got promptly killed by the obligatory newbie-killer skeleton behind an early secret door.

[Sumez]

So I actually got time to play quite a while into KF3 yesterday, and managed to find the first four spell unlocks with a little help from the internet due to some excessively obscure design I'll whine about later. I remember Blinge calling this game "the Dark Souls 2 of the King's Field series", and that's eerily on point.
However, before that, I just went through your old reports of KF2(JP) and have some comments.

And...done! Now that I have beaten the game I’ve started to look up a bit of info on stuff that I missed and boy did I miss a ton! I had no idea sword magic was even a thing, and I didn’t realize I could save Gigi’s father. I’m tempted to play through again and 100% everything but it’s hard to even find good info online and I’m not sure I have the patience to catalog everything myself.

Sword magic? Do elaborate, I don't think i've heard of this. Is it in the sequel, too?

Saving Gigi's father was weird. It got me one of those necklaces they are both wearing (which is supposedly what revived him). But it needs a figure of seath to work, so I used one on him, and the other one was traded to the guy, so I had none left. Leon says he can make more, but he can't make more than two at the time, and it seems the game still considered the other two "still in the game", so as far as I can tell, you can't actually make use of the necklace if you traded the other one away? Or maybe it's a glitch, or some other thing I'm not understanding.

See if you can figure out a way to save Sandler or get that second Shrine Key without gaining any levels!

You do realise you can have the keymaker copy the shrine key, right? You only need one. I considered doing it if I found the key slots before the second key, though that never happened.

[Blinge]

I remember Blinge calling this game "the Dark Souls 2 of the King's Field series", and that's eerily on point.

Haha. did you know I'm really smart? I know, it scares most people when they find out

Sword magic? Do elaborate, I don't think i've heard of this. Is it in the sequel, too?

Yeah! I never relied on it though because it's so finnicky. I can't remember the input but it's something retarded like hitting attack and then triangle before the attack comes out, or halfway through. Sword of Moonlight is the big one for sword magic, obviously.. but various other blades have it.
However I quickly got bored of repeated attempts with something like a 10% success rate.