From Software 'n such

[guigui]

Bloodborne. I'm endgame now, had a blast with it and want to try the NG+, so I'm looking for a good weapon to max before going, can you help me ?

I already have Saw Cleaver and Saw Spear at +10, my stats are :
VIT 40
END 40
STR 20
SKL 30
Bloodtinge/Arcane untouched.

I love how the Spear and Cleaver are fast and can still stun most enemies, though do not mind a slower harder hitting weapon ; I had the best time with the Great Club in DS.. I can now invest in STR to get scaling if necessary. So, which weapon would you experts advise ?

[Sumez]

Check the bestiary. Every enemy gives you points in at least one stat, and it tells you exactly which they are.

... for some reason I thought that was the monster's stats :S
That monster book is really really cool, and helps a lot with the world building of the game. Mostly in games that have those things (like the later Castlevania games) I almost never bother with it, but in this one it feels like the entire game revolves around it.

[Necronopticous]

I feel that I'm getting quite close to the end of King's Field IV. I put in quite a few hours over the last week, many of which I spent leveling up spells & weapons. What a game!

@Sumez

One other thing: did you figure out the hidden menu screen that shows % completion of the various worlds? I only learned of it after I had completely beaten the game. I believe you have to press triangle or square after entering the menu.

[Immryr]

Bloodborne. I'm endgame now, had a blast with it and want to try the NG+, so I'm looking for a good weapon to max before going, can you help me ?

I already have Saw Cleaver and Saw Spear at +10, my stats are :
VIT 40
END 40
STR 20
SKL 30
Bloodtinge/Arcane untouched.

I love how the Spear and Cleaver are fast and can still stun most enemies, though do not mind a slower harder hitting weapon ; I had the best time with the Great Club in DS.. I can now invest in STR to get scaling if necessary. So, which weapon would you experts advise ?

Basically all of the weapons are good. Just try them out and find one you like the move set of.

[Sumez]

One other thing: did you figure out the hidden menu screen that shows % completion of the various worlds? I only learned of it after I had completely beaten the game. I believe you have to press triangle or square after entering the menu.

Wow no I didn't realise it. I wonder if I should make use of it, I feel that's a bit spoilery...

Does the pitcher of whatevs have any effect on the progression of the game? I accidentally proceeded without getting it (I can probably get back later, but there's no telling when). But when I loaded an old save to try getting it, it seemed all it did was giving me access to a free healing spot.

All this acid is horrible. Seems the only solid way to deal with it is just to unequip everything you care about!

[guigui]

Bloodborne. I'm endgame now, had a blast with it and want to try the NG+, so I'm looking for a good weapon to max before going, can you help me ?

I already have Saw Cleaver and Saw Spear at +10, my stats are :
VIT 40
END 40
STR 20
SKL 30
Bloodtinge/Arcane untouched.

I love how the Spear and Cleaver are fast and can still stun most enemies, though do not mind a slower harder hitting weapon ; I had the best time with the Great Club in DS.. I can now invest in STR to get scaling if necessary. So, which weapon would you experts advise ?

Basically all of the weapons are good. Just try them out and find one you like the move set of.

For sure I can do that, but this will not tell me which one has a scaling better fitted with my stats. Do not want to spend all my shard/chunk/rock only to find that I'm lacking power.

[Immryr]

well.... you can test weapons then just look up the ones you like on the wiki and see what they scale with.

or failing that, the rakuyo is a pretty awesome skill weapon. beast hunter saif is nice too.

[guigui]

Alright, I'll try those out.

What about Simon's Bowblade ? Looks nice on the paper, but I cannot equip it yet because lack of Bloodtinge. Not sure it is worth investing.

[Necronopticous]

Does the pitcher of whatevs have any effect on the progression of the game? I accidentally proceeded without getting it (I can probably get back later, but there's no telling when). But when I loaded an old save to try getting it, it seemed all it did was giving me access to a free healing spot.

That's all it does, but...that's huge in a game where HP is also your main currency for repairs! It was an absolute game-changer for me. The crazy thing is once you understand the layout of the game you can rush down and activate the healing fountain early on and always have a source of free healing/free repairs. At the very least, it's definitely worth doing before taking a single step into Fire World.

All this acid is horrible. Seems the only solid way to deal with it is just to unequip everything you care about!

Water World is insane. Go nuts with your vaccines as it is really the only time you will need them. Also: I could be wrong, but I thought it was only your boots that are degraded by walking through acid on the floor. My approach was to save, map the area out in full without a care in the world, then reload and clear it out as efficiently as possible knowing where everything is in advance. I actually employed that strategy in many areas of Shadow Tower, but it felt most crucial in that particular world.

[Sumez]

That's all it does, but...that's huge in a game where HP is also your main currency for repairs! It was an absolute game-changer for me. The crazy thing is once you understand the layout of the game you can rush down and activate the healing fountain early on and always have a source of free healing/free repairs. At the very least, it's definitely worth doing before taking a single step into Fire World.

Sounds like a ton of tedious backtracking to me. Fortunately HP potions are plentiful. I keep reminding myself that they are finite though, so even though I'm usually carrying around 20 at this point, I'm trying really hard to conserve them.
I think I used 6 or 7 to fully repair all my stuff after the fire world.

My approach was to save, map the area out in full without a care in the world, then reload and clear it out as efficiently as possible knowing where everything is in advance. I actually employed that strategy in many areas of Shadow Tower, but it felt most crucial in that particular world.

Yeah, I've dabbed in that strategy slightly previously (was helpful for the poison floor, too), but for that acid cavern I already did exactly that, to completion.
I actually took it further to check out every area ahead of me, if I decided to drop down through the tower and made it all the way to the end, and that door which I'm guessing leads to the end, and is dependant on killing every other boss in the game (no spoilerz plz). Creepy shit!

[Sumez]

Turns out there was nothing to go for in most of the waterworld, since you can skip directly to the boss from the warp at the entrance to the world of illusion. Especially the cave with the acid floor seems completely superfluous, but of course you still want to go there to kill all the enemies.
Turns out that it was true, as long as only the floor is acid, only the boots are damaged, so I just went barefoot through that place.

The illusionary world was really, really cool (aside from that juggling jester in the boss rush). This is where the creativity of From Software that we know from their latest games really starts to shine through.
The elf that sits in a room behind a wall playing a flute or a violin to tear away at your HP as you try to fight the dancing dolls.
The feeling of desperation as you suddenly get all kinds of annoying status effects with no obvious cause, until you find a small creepy ball/pot type monster hiding on top of a doorway.
The apparently empty room where you can still hear some monster noises, and you look up to find a poisonous fairy demon sitting tight in the top corner of the room, hoping you won't notice it. Stuff like that also keeps reminding me that this is a 3D game despite its often still quite 2 dimensional design. The Y vertical axis feels much more well utilized than in KF2.

Is there any reason to save my cunes for anything aside from the beast key that I already bought (which I'm assuming I need somewhere in monster world)? I'm finding a ton of them, and so far I've been spending the majority on HP potions.

[Necronopticous]

I bought the Keenest Bastard Sword as my first purchase and saved for the Beast Key after that. The Fortune Great Helm is also an excellent purchase. I ended up buying all of the gear available from the cunes shop eventually, and only spent cunes on potions afterward, near the game’s end.

[Marc]

So when I started Remastered, my 8 year old decided he wanted to start. He'd previously messed around on the 360 version with a cheat file, but playing properly I fully expected him to hit a wall pretty early on, get bored and move on, particularly as I'm not on PSN so it's all solo. Gave him the tip about the Drake Sword at the beginning, and explained levelling up / weapon levelling to him, but haven't physically laid a hand on the pad for him myself. He''s got the Lord Vessel, done Smough and Ornstein, cleared the Demon Ruins, found Vamos (something that took me I don't know how long to remember), and currently making his way through the Duke's Archives. Go kid!

[Sumez]

Wow, I don't think I even heard of Vamos before. I had to look that up.

[Necronopticous]

King’s Field IV

I fell off the island 3 times within the first 10 seconds of gameplay, and got whacked by the kraken in maybe 30 seconds of gameplay on my fourth attempt. It took me nearly 2 hours of wrestling with the controls to find the first healing pond & save point.

I’ve come a long way since my first clumsy steps on the shore of Melanat island. Indeed, before I left that labyrinthine place I had laid it low and bared all its secrets, even as a lowly prince of a meager fifty hit points. I felt then that I commanded considerable dominance over the core mechanics of King’s Field. I swelled with that confidence when I began my first foray into Quist field and somehow still found myself drowned in the river, impaled by hidden spears, consumed by carnivorous flora, cut down by skeletons, and separately poisoned by giant fungus & a trapped treasure chest all before my memory card even knew that I was playing the next game. I should have learned my lesson, but when I set out to return the cursed idol to the Ancient City of King’s Field IV, I was feeling as cocky as ever. I promptly died four times by strafing slightly to the right before even comprehending what was killing me. On my fifth death I noticed that the discolored ground mere inches from the starting position was collapsing, giving way to these instant deaths via molten lava. Then, upon understanding this, I managed to die a sixth time in exactly the same way.

From Software has always had a unique talent for immediately humbling even accomplished players of their games in hilarious fashion. The crumbling floor lava gag in the first hallway of King’s Field IV would enjoy its status as the quintessential example for well over a decade. (It would later be dethroned by Dark Souls II which ingeniously goads the player into getting themselves killed before they’ve even created their character.) It’s worth saying that this is the single cruelest moment in the game. Mercifully, you’ve got nothing yet to lose, and the introduction movie is skippable, so you can laugh off the cruelty and silently pray that it won’t suddenly return after an hour of unsaved exploration. It won’t. King’s Field IV will never betray you.

There is little else that could be considered cruel in the intricate design of King’s Field IV, by my measure. It could easily be considered the most challenging game in the series: equipment degrades without possibility of repair until quite late, most enemies cannot trivially be circled, and crystal flasks are rarer than ever. Still, I lost little progress to unexpected death, and any exemplary increase in difficulty felt proportionally accompanied by design confidence and purpose.

Speaking of NPCs, I was pleasantly surprised to see what is essentially the first incarnation of the crestfallen knight in the Barracks. This guy ended up being my favorite character in the game. I liked all of his dialogue a lot, and thought it did a really good job of setting a dour tone early on.

The archetypical “crestfallen knight” returns in King’s Field IV, and is the first character you’re likely to meet: here, a disgraced coward who has feigned illness to escape duty. He does what he does best, leaving you with just the right amount of despondent pessimism for the journey ahead, and a weapon that is actually worse than nothing. (You’re better off punching things.) It’s a good setup for the first couple of proper quests which both involve pilfering items from the corpses of dead husbands. Owing much to Tsukasa Saitoh’s incredible soundtrack, the dour mood established in these early sequences carries on unrelentingly to the end.

Some of the strongest moments, though, come when the game dips into horror territory. One particularly memorable bit occurs just before unlocking the long-awaited ability to teleport in the King’s Mausoleum. Like most of the interior areas in the game, the King’s Mausoleum is ill-lit, but discernible. However, while exploring the deeper reaches, you come upon one particular door which opens into absolute darkness. Inside, visibility drops to near zero, and though there is a second door just ahead at the opposite end of a short hall, it is imperceptible until immediately in front of you. This next door gives way to a larger chamber that is equally shrouded. Naturally, you’re expecting a fight, but you won’t find one. You’re left alone to feel out the size and shape of the room by hugging the walls as to not lose sight of them. There are no other exits to be found, hidden or otherwise, so attention finally turns inward. In the center of the room is a single unlit brazier. As you approach it, you begin to hear something: an overlapping ensemble of disembodied voices, chanting seemingly in reverse--especially haunting and off-kilter since there are no normal voices in the game to begin with. Upon being lit, the stone lamp slowly illuminates the room, revealing a ghastly array of previously unseen figures hanging down from the ceiling all around you. They look like human effigies, hanged by the feet. Their bodies are short and formless, making their horrifically detailed faces stand out in silent scream, like frozen gasping expressions of suffocated men. It’s a chilling moment that hearkens back to the fantastic Illusion World of Shadow Tower. Unlike that game, though, there’s no silly gnoll merchant around the corner to dispel the mood. No, it’s one of many bleak and unsettling set pieces that texture the game’s length with a consistency previously unachieved in From Software’s repertoire.

For my cunes, King’s Field IV is the finest entry in the series. It has been nearly 17 years since its release, during which the Souls series became an unheralded worldwide success. At this point, a new King’s Field seems unlikely (though, I’d have said the same for Echo Night prior to E3). In recent years, Miyazaki has claimed such a thing would be strictly contingent on Naotoshi Zin re-taking the helm as director. I’m not sure how likely that is to happen, but it’s worth mentioning that King’s Field IV was the only installment not directed by Zin, himself. What are Rintaro Yamada and Satoru Yanagi up to these days? Well, I won’t press it. Should this game be the last, it will stand as a shining example of how to end an era in style.

tl;dr It's like Dark Souls.

[Sumez]

Gonna save that post for when I actually get into KF4 myself! I've played it before, but I want my next meeting with the game to be completely fresh.

Shadow Tower 1 went down yesterday. Amazing game that just got better the further I delved into it, until it kind of fell short towards the end.
Monster World only had two small areas, and in Death World the areas got even smaller. What was even the purpose of the lingering curse area? Some guy comes up to say some stuff about knowledge and death, and then I never see him again. Only three rooms had enemies in it, and there was nothing to find. And what ever happened to that demon lady? I thought I would have to fight her eventually.
So I go through the gate at the bottom of the tower that has been teasing me since I was first able to go there, expecting a fittingly epic ending, but

Spoiler

it's just some knight in a plain corridor. I did enjoy the Demon's Souls-like final boss,

but overall the end feels weirdly underwhelming, compared to how the game's insane creativity had only been building up throughout the game.

I'm having a hard time finding the link between the KF and ST games, and the Souls ones, but as far as I can tell it seems to be Naotoshi Zin himself we have to thank for the creepy horror and insane lore and creature designs that litter these games? Shadow Tower is definitely the next big step in this aspect, and at times it makes even the Souls game seem unimaginative in comparison. Some of the monsters are seriously unsettling, and the fact that you can barely turn a corner without running into a new one is commendable.
It's easy to imagine a lot of people playing only the first few areas of repetitive corridors and skeletons, and rejecting the game based on that impression. And the fact that combat is such a big focus, while still being first person and clunky, definitely makes it more of an acquired taste. But for a game taking place entirely within (or rather, around) one tower, Shadow Tower has an incredible amount of variation in both map layout, themes, and monsters. It was simply impossible for me to put down.

I only found 144 of the creatures, so I don't know if I'll bother with another trek down the tower on the clear-save to find the remaining ones. Does the game itself do anything to recognise it? Are there any huge secrets I might have overlooked?

[Immryr]

god damn i want to play KFIV.


-edit- following on from the talk about version differences between pal and na KFIV viewtopic.php?p=1330354#p1330354

from what's written on wikipedia about the localisation of the game, it sounds like the NA release is the one that is total bollocks. the lack of 60hz on the pal release is still heartbreaking though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Field_IV

-double edit- thinking about it i dunno if this means the whole translation is bad or if they just gave the characters dumb names.

[Sumez]

The game could be timed independently from the video refresh rate. It's a 3D game after all, so there is no strict reason it should be limited by it.
However, I wouldn't bet on it. It doesn't seem like From Software.

There's one slight advantage to 50hz when it comes to speed though. If the game suffers a lot from slowdown, it takes more for the game to go into slow frames, as it has 20% more CPU time for every frame being drawn.
I considered getting the European version of KF1/2 just to compare with the US one to see which one is essentially faster. The slowdown is so excessive though, that I doubt 20% extra frame time is gonna help it much.

-double edit- thinking about it i dunno if this means the whole translation is bad or if they just gave the characters dumb names.

I think it's just dumb names. But the earlier ASCII/Agetec KF releases did the same thing.
It's really hard to figure out which translation is the worst without playing both versions, though. I think it's easy to be biased towards whichever you played first.

[Immryr]

what we need is someone who speaks japanese to play all 3 versions and write us a report

[Sumez]

Essentially yes.

[Immryr]

yeah after actually reading more about it the pal translation seems like total crap. how can you give two different characters the same name?

[Sumez]

How do we know it's actually two different characters in the Japanese version though? Also, does it matter much to the overall game? I'm afraid of looking too much into this stuff out of spoilers.
At the end of the day I'm imagining both translations are pretty subpar (Shadow Tower is terrible, and I still loved it), but I'd love to know if anything in the PAL version is a direct dealbreaker. "Forest babes" might be...

[Immryr]

babes is a poor choice of word but it seems pretty obvious they meant the word in it's "children" definition. so i read that as children of the forest, rather than "hot forest chicks". but yeah, not a great choice of words.

[Sumez]

Man. I was hoping the game would have hot forest chicks

[Necronopticous]

There is one hot forest chick! King’s Field IV has it all.

[Necronopticous]

Monster World only had two small areas, and in Death World the areas got even smaller. What was even the purpose of the lingering curse area? Some guy comes up to say some stuff about knowledge and death, and then I never see him again. Only three rooms had enemies in it, and there was nothing to find.

Yeah. What can you do? The invisible enemy idea in Monster World was kind of neat, but after Illusion World the game does peter out a bit. It's hard to complain, though...Fromsoft still seems to struggle with this (hi Izalith). It sounds to me like you may have missed the hidden section of Death World (the door directly in front of the teleporter at the bottom of Shadow Tower, across a gap).

And what ever happened to that demon lady? I thought I would have to fight her eventually.

You missed her! She's hidden near the end of Monster World, and serves a similar role to Priscilla in the first Dark Souls. I didn't have the heart to fight her, but I hear she's quite tough.

I only found 144 of the creatures, so I don't know if I'll bother with another trek down the tower on the clear-save to find the remaining ones.

I can't remember what our exact numbers were, but we were pretty thorough. I liked Shadow Tower enough that I can easily foresee myself returning to attempt a 100% run later on.

Are you going to jump straight into King's Field IV? If you plan to play Eternal Ring do it now. It's not that great of a game, but it's short, and the smoothness alone is enough to hold your attention for most of the run time if you play it right after the PS1 series. The magic system is quite cool (look up the crafting mechanics in advance) and it's pretty interesting to see them take a stab at a King's Field style experience where melee combat takes the back seat. Choose wisely: you will not want to return to it after King's Field IV.

[Sumez]

I already started on Eternal Ring. Like, jumped in to see the first area and that is. It looks better than I expected. It's another game I've had lying around for ages.

It sounds to me like you may have missed the hidden section of Death World (the door directly in front of the teleporter at the bottom of Shadow Tower, across a gap).

You mean the lingering curse area? I was talking about that one specifically Didn't know it was supposed to be hidden - I actually expected a major boss there.

You missed her! She's hidden near the end of Monster World, and serves a similar role to Priscilla in the first Dark Souls. I didn't have the heart to fight her, but I hear she's quite tough.

Where, and how? I did meet her i Monster World (where she said I should fight her), but she just warped out. I met her again later in Death World (in a hidden area), but in there she just gives me a massive SP boost and some advice.

[Necronopticous]

You mean the lingering curse area? I was talking about that one specifically Didn't know it was supposed to be hidden - I actually expected a major boss there.

Ah, yes. I guess they were banking on the horrifying giant adult baby head enemies to suffice! No boss, sadly.

Where, and how? I did meet her i Monster World (where she said I should fight her), but she just warped out. I met her again later in Death World (in a hidden area), but in there she just gives me a massive SP boost and some advice.

Sounds like you found her after all. I don't fully understand how it works, but I think maybe you just have to attack her outright in that final meeting to trigger the optional boss fight against her. It could be that after you exhaust her dialogue, she disappears for good. I plan to play around with it my next time through.

Anyway, glad you're playing Eternal Ring. I have no regrets there (Evergrace, on the other hand...) Unlike the previous games, make sure you go nuts with magic at the earliest moment possible. The game doesn't tell you, so it took me a little while to notice, but the game is built such that every enemy you kill restores some of your MP. Also, it's a ways off, but make sure you do all of the optional stuff that becomes available later on. It requires backtracking, but you move around pretty quickly so it's not so bad. The best fun that I had in that game was a direct result of that content, as I mentioned in my writeup.

[Immryr]

kuri kuri mix also does not have a 60hz option -_-

[Sumez]

I'll say as much, I'm playing Eternal Ring (which doesn't have a 60hz option either), and it feels pretty fast. Maybe the From Software games don't need it after all? Would be nice with an NTSC copy to compare them directly...