What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Sumez]

Granted, I've generally avoided "open world" games, so I don't have any perspective on how it compares there. Personally I find it weird how often I see people say something to the effect of "normally I don't like these open-world games but BotW was different" but all their complaints about "those other open-world games" just sound like BotW to me. Maybe these games I've been avoiding are even more miserable than I assumed.

I have a laundry list of complaints with the game, but the big problems that stands out to me after having finished the game is that a lot of the real-estate doesn't seem to serve much purpose, and there's not much sense of "progression". I guess it's a consequence of their commitment to such an absurd level of non-linearity; other than some "extreme weather protection", you're never really required to do or have something before you can go somewhere or do something. When combined with the Bill-Rizer/Spider-Man universal climbing and the paraglider, I would argue against Sumez and say that you definitely can just freely beeline to wherever; to the point that I think it gives the game world something of a silly "sandbox" feel in the most "child's playground" sense of the term.
Part of that might also be because of the general lack of "interior areas", such as caves. This leaves most of everything just kinda laying out more or less in plain sight.

Essentially yeah, I think your assumption was correct. Those things that you point out are basically much worse in any other popular open world game. The real estate in BOTW is used up much more effeciently. With the exception of the snowy mountains in the north west area of the map (which I fortunately didn't stumble upon until very very late into the game anyway) there's almost always something new to find everywhere. If you're playing Witcher 3, Skyrim, Ghost of Tsushima, Red Dead Redemption, Horizon Zero Dawn, etc. what you'd get instead is endlessly repeated mixups of the same elements you've already seen innumerable times. And having to climb/paraglide/actually navigate your way to most locations in BOTW is a pretty huge difference from those other games that just lets you walk/ride in a straight line until you get to your destination.
It's not a Dark Souls style interconnected level design of course, and it's also no way as gated off as Dragon's Dogma, but that is also clearly intentional. At the end of the day, BOTW is a sandbox game, which is a pretty massive shift from the tightly designed mechanics of earlier Zelda games.
But what I think really makes the map design feel like a huge step forward compared to all other contemporary open world games, is how it's designed to make sure every individual area is uniquely identifiable, and there are always multiple distinct landmarks visible from any location, theoretically making navigating the game without a map entirely feasible.

I agree though the game could have used more interior areas, that would have been a massive bonus to the sense of exploration.

I also agree that if you aim to completely 100% the game it's unavoidable that you will run into a lot of repeated content, making that less satisfying. But I think that is an expected tradeoff for a game of this sort, and kind of necessary if you want to be able to let the player just run around on their own accord and still get a complete experience out of playing maybe 40% of it. How long it takes until such an open world game starts feeling repetitive is really what sets them apart, and I still think BOTW manages to last a lot longer than the other games I mentioned. Outside of combat, which like I said does grow stale quite early on.
It might have been fun with more areas like Eventide Isle, acting kind of like its own little microcosm of the the game's core survival mechanics.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

It's growing on me more; weapon breakage is indeed a lot more manageable once you're able to expand inventory slots, and grabbing hearts and armor upgrades to improve your survival makes a big impact. It appears to be a chump move to upgrade stamina early on - being at 3 hearts leaves you as a one shot to most enemies, whereas 4 or 5 will just barely let you survive hits from scary stuff. I'm getting a better feel for what the game's expectations are.

It is a bit unfortunate that dungeons are not terribly stressful and are almost entirely focused on being physics puzzlers (I did find one combat shrine so far but haven't attempted it, ran into it whilst wandering and feeling fairly low on resources). The dungeons have a Portal vibe inside them and not at all like the tense exploration of classic Zelda dungeons that are truly lethal. I understand this makes sense from a plot point though (they're there as a test rather than enemy territory).

There is a fun element to going off the beaten path to explore early on where you're probably better off not going. Rather than fighting everything, you have to figure out how to sneak your way past encounters. Discovering the leaves you can use to push enemies away are infinitely durable if you only hit with the gust was nice; I'm getting a lot of kills simply by knocking enemies off ledges.

It's not bad. I've heavily adjusted the options to my tastes (much prefer Dash on X, jump on B so I can easily grab items while running) and it's clicking a lot better. If I had two major complaints about the design, it's that there's no way to quickly drop weapons when in the weapon selector, you have to pause and go into the full inventory to do it. Also, I keep "latching" on to elements when running. If I'm running at full tilt from something and I accidentally hit a tree I'd like to not grab on unless I explicitly jump at it. This is nice for low terrain like small boulders or such but not tall trees or whatnot. Otherwise it's pretty good, I've finally amassed a huge stock of arrows which also helps tremendously.

[Rastan78]

My lazy way of dropping weapons was just equip them and toss them on the ground, or preferably at an enemy. Just hold down R then release. There's a nice damage boost for destroying a weapon that's low on durability by chucking it into the face of an oncoming enemy. I think even weapons that don't get destroyed on impact do double their normal damage when thrown.

Not to try and spoil anything but . . .

Spoiler

The shrines arent the only major "dungeons" in the game.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I discovered that pretty quickly that tossing weapons is a good way to rapidly dispose of excess ones, but you can't do this with bows or shields, forcing you into the inventory screen whenever you want to quickly put down a few items. It's not a big deal, it just seems like a missed opportunity not to have a quick drop function in the quick selector.

The problem with throwing melee weapons is sometimes I just wanna briefly put down weapons somewhere so I can snag any weapons I get via disarming (to deny them a weapon), and throwing them affects durability. Ah well, just killing them off quickly once they're disarmed works too.

[Mischief Maker]

Shadow of the Colossus on a struggling PS2 looked way cooler than the HD remakes.

[null1024]

Been having a moderate amount of fun with Pokemon Legends: Arceus. It's basically an "open world" game with Pokemon battles.
It's a bit barren by industry standards, but there's a ton of stuff to do by Pokemon standards with sidequesting.
Really needs more towns and trainers and the lot to really be good. The battle system was a semi-pleasant surprise, since it has a lot of major mechanical changes, but it's also just miserable having only one Pokemon out and then the two Pokemon attacking you get four turns total before you can hit back. Damage is really high in the game, so it really hurts.
It's kind of really ugly as a game, but it also has a bunch of little touches that are neat [being able to walk around in the middle of a battle was cooler than it had any right to be].
Sneaking around and catching everything is honestly pretty fun, too.

contrast when I was playing Brilliant Diamond, and I was bored to tears and had to actively try to not just kill everything before it could do anything resembling damage to my team and I was massively overleveled despite doing basically no grinding

[BareKnuckleRoo]

BotW:

Spoiler

Ran around doing some more upgrading. I've found one fairy fountain so far, still need to find the Korok Forest wherever it is. I'm pretty well stockpiled on weapons now, up to 6 hearts base and +2 stamina.

I tried tackling Eventide Isle again. I'd stumbled on it previously and run off like a coward, but I figured it was time to take a serious look at clearing it. It was a lot of fun, like a miniature "you're stranded on a desert island that has almost constant lightning storms". It was pretty fun, I had to scrounge up arrows and healing. Bombs are super helpful for cheesing through most encounters. You can climb up somewhere high and the AI doesn't react well to them necessarily (I've heard of "no runes" runs where people deliberately don't use the runes and I can see why, it'd add a bit of challenge).

The Hinox was tricky, but crafting a high tier attack buff food item was really handy. I still needed to nail my shots.

I've discovered swords and spears can instantly go into a charge after a slash, so slash -> 1/2 charge has been a handy go-to for combat.

Finally remembered to upgrade my Sheika Slate (after running through a field full of broken down Guardians, the few turrets that activated were easy to put down fortunately by using bowshots to stun in between melee), and I'm convinced Stasis+ is a near game breaker. It's not terribly handy in group encounters, but it outright trivializes most 1v1 fights now, including bosses where you can use it to get easy weakpoint shots. There's no reason to fish for Flurry Rush opportunities or learn what to sidestep and what to backstep when you can just stun them and pound away to stagger. It's clear the game is designed to allow you the freedom to utterly break the combat if you please. As long as you approach it from the standpoint that it's more of a puzzle/exploration game rather than a combat focused game, it's enjoyable. Something like Sekiro is obviously far better in terms of an actual combat system, where there's far more limited game breakers present and even getting them takes serious work.

Made it to the Zora kingdom, it was fun navigating the roads and avoiding the fairly scary encounters shooting shock arrows at me. I ran into a serious bug at the divine beast though, and apparently I'm not alone. I found like a dozen other people complaining about the same thing. The weak spots you're supposed to shoot to gain entry didn't spawn. I was very confused, tried looking at the quest description for help, saw nothing on its back to shoot at and tried shooting everything I could think of that was glowing, tried shooting into the black space where the water was coming from, etc, burned 25 shock arrows to no avail. It's nice that dropping into the water at 0 stamina doesn't drown you here as your friend saves you (since the air aiming thing is VERY stamina hungry).

Ran out of arrows, gave up, scrounged like 5 arrows by stealthing around the scary centaur boyo, tried again, OH LOOK, glowing spots. Leaving the area and returning seemed to be the trick to make the weak spots spawn correctly. Easily nailed all of them without missed shots, in we go. Note that this wasn't a rendering glitch; I shot several arrows in the spots where the weak points eventually appeared upon my return, so the game simply did not load the weak points correctly. :'( The dungeon was fun, if rather short and non-threatening. Again, the combat in the game is minimal; as long as you accept that combat is secondary (or tertiary to item crafting and exploration) it's fine. The whole vertical dungeon aspect was cute and the puzzles were engaging enough without feeling too maddening.

Waterblight Ganon was a joke and barely dealt any damage with upgraded metal armor. I had over 100 arrows and basically used Stasis+ followed by liberal arrow peppering. I wasn't sure what he could do at close range so when the room flooded I didn't even bother trying to run close when the game wanted me to do so, just sat back and shot him down which worked nicely.

The trident the game gives you is handy, and re-craftable. It's better than the Guardian Spears I've had, woo.

The Yiga Clan encounters have been amusing and brief. Once you land a solid hit on them with a bomb or something you can run up for damage and pound on them. And that's before Stasis+, hahah. They don't have the style or the terror that other assassins have (although in his case it's the crappy camera in this indoors area that's THE ULTIMATE ENEMY you're fightin').

[guigui]

So it looks you enjoy your time with BotW BKR ?

I was kind of hooked during a certain amount of time, then moved to something else for no reason apparently, or weirdly, the reason was that I spoiled myself to find the

Spoiler

sword that does not break

?

[Rastan78]

Agreed about the combat in BotW, Roo. It's really a game about enjoying the exploration of the environment and just playing around with the systems. The economy is the same as the combat in that if you want to maximize your money in a small amount of time and don't mind doing a certain thing over and over, it's more or less game breaking. At the same time if hoarding arrows to go on hunting trips for wild boar is fun, then do that. It's the kind of game where the "optimal" way to play is whatever you find fun at the time, whether that's trying to maximize every system and absolutely steam roll the game (which isn't too hard) or just dicking around fishing for bass with bombs.

Kind of a welcome complement or even a respite from the pure gameyness (is that a word?) of an action game like Bayonetta. Which btw Bayo 1 is a very solid port on the Switch. One of the best ways to play it, especially if you want to use the Nintendo only costumes and favor that over the higher resolutions of the PC port. You only get 720p on Switch which is fine with me as I'll take the improved stable 60fps any day. The art still looks great at 720p IMO. It's much more stable than the original 360 game, doesn't have screen tearing and that sort of black crushed gamma curve a lot of 360 games had. I like using the Link costume on Bayonetta which lets you parry from the start. And having all the rings become green rupees, along with the SNES Zelda coin pickup sound is just such a cool touch. I'm kind of a sucker for little franchise crossovers like that.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Yeah, if I had to make a comparison, I'd say BotW is what you'd get if someone wanted to make "casual Souls/Sekiro" where the focus is on the exploration over the combat. Which isn't a bad thing, it's just important to approach it with that mindset. The combat can be utterly broken and you can eventually neglect stuff that demands effort like timing dodges to get Flurry Rush.

I've also discovered I can just cook 5 durian fruits together and literally get 4 times the max health I currently have whenever I feel like it. Eat your fruit and veg, lads. >w>

I'd still say Sekiro is the better game in an absolute sense; the maps are just as fun to explore and are more "dense" with better thought out layouts, combat is far better and still has the same robustness and freedom to play with the tools you have (or just run up and duke it out with the sword). The music and atmosphere in Sekiro are also much better, the music in BotW is very sparse in open environments, and hasn't felt as memorable in combat. It's not bad, but I'm not blown away by the music, either. BotW is definitely a very good came for a more relaxed open world environment style game though; I would not recommend Souls or Sekiro for someone who isn't prepared for more demanding timing and mechanics!

Which btw Bayo 1 is a very solid port on the Switch. One of the best ways to play it

PC's still the better way, despite the lack of the extra content (costumes namely, the Link costume is very noteworthy though for providing parrying in non accessory form which shoulda been a shop buyable skill IMO). Specifically, you can setup JoyToKey to allow button mashing, which spares your fingers from some of the dumber sections (Route 666, Isla Del Sol, the cannon). You can also remap the lockon button to the left trigger using Steam's interface which is far, far better in my opinion. Though, to the Switch version's credit, I think Bayo 2 defaults to this and adds an option to Bayo 1 to remap the lock button? I still don't like Platinum's refusal to provide robust remapping options.

I recently picked up Bayo 2 for the switch. It omits my fave character annoyingly, and has numerous mechanical changes I've been warned about that are meant to have more casual friendly audience appeal, but I figure it should be a decent game at least.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Oh man, I remember in Bayonetta trying to best one of those bonus adversaries whose condition was to hit it like 100 times within the time limit. I kept failing by like five hits, so I kept trying, and trying, and trying.

I couldn't play anything for a week, my wrist was so sore. And I don't think I ever beat him, either...

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I'm trying to think of what you're referring to; the early Use Witch Time challenge is tricky to stumble upon, and the easy Time Limit challenge is basically a standard fight with a generous time limit so it's unlikely to be that (and it's hidden decently). Maybe you're thinking of the Limited Punches/Kicks one that shows up early on against a single big guy? That one throws off beginners if they're not in the habit of using Charge Modifiers.

edit: beat BotW:

Spoiler

The first two divine beasts I did happened to give out autorevive and superjumping, woohoo, discovered some Lynels and farmed the dickens out of them for loot, crafted a good 50 Ancient Arrows or so, then marched into Ganon's castle. I didn't even have enough red hearts for the Master Sword yet (or apparently I just barely did and chickened out before reaching the threshold, oops). Decided to try taking out Ganon as I felt pretty darn loaded out, and wondered what'd happen if I just skipped two beasts.

Hyrule Castle is by far the most interestingly laid out area in the game. It's clear they spent a TON of time in designing it, and it's a lot of fun to both march in the front gate blasting everything down as it is trying alternate ways to get in such as the moat that leads to the cave. The music is also genuinely good here, best in the game I think. I was actually underwhelmed with the music in general, it's too understated except perhaps when a Guardian spots you. Hyrule Castle's music is legitimately great though.

The second gatehouse Lynel is rude, not sure how to avoid the AOE blast attack (is it perfect parryable? do you just accept it eating a shield?) but it's highly amusing just smashing it with an Ancient Arrow instantly, or scurrying out the window. Discovered the game forces you to fight any of the Divine Beast bosses you've skipped, fire boy went down to headshots as usual, but thunder boyo was a pain in the ass since his shield wouldn't take any damage from my bomb arrow barrages. Eventually discovered blocking and waiting for an opening was the way to go.

Calamity Ganon's fun, though quite easy. Has very big Flurry Rush openings. His second phase with the shield's a slight nuisance until you realize you can fire off shots just before his cannon blast comes out to hit him (or if you're good with reflecting just parry the beams).

The final fight is entirely cinematic and no challenge, alas. The horse is entirely unnecessary, especially if you just eat a tier 3 speed buff meal.

I wish there were more sprawling, indoor dungeon areas with this kind of detail. The Divine Beasts are supposed to be cool because you're jumping into an enormous mecha... but they feel rather empty in the sense that they're not terribly threatening physics puzzles, much like the shrines. Hyrule Castle and its surrounding areas are far more menacing. The only other areas I've encountered that have a similar feel are the tower area around Akkala, and the labyrinth at the top right of the map. Its secret underground area was very cool to stumble upon.

Ultimately the game's not bad, I certainly didn't dislike it. There's a lot of small interface elements I'd have liked to see improved, the combat eventually boils down to shooting everything in the face with 3x Shot or 5x Shot bows as the best means of murderin' by far, but it's an amusing process working up towards the point where you're ready to tackle the castle. Making an early, risky foray into the castle to try and snag its loot is fun too, I've tried remaking a new save file and the early game where you're scrounging up resources is definitely a good part of the game. By the end of the game I had 2 star upgraded armor and it felt like the only things that could threaten me were the Silver Lynels. You're pretty tough to kill with armor upgrades.

This makes me want to go back and replay the NES originals. I don't think I've ever cleared the second quest in the first game (I've done the first quest without dying then got distracted) but I'd also like to play Link's Adventure, I've never revisited that one as I found it way too hard as a kid.

Is Master Mode worth it if I want a bigger challenge? Is it generally considered good, the DLC? The added fluff items I don't care that much about (screw the amiibo content, ugh), but the harder difficulty mode might be fun.

[Rastan78]

I only played Master Mode on my first play through with the map and extra HUD elements turned off. I can't really speak to the comparison between that and default settings, but it is a fun way to experience the game. Don't know if it would justify a 2nd run just on its own.

Didn't finish the DLC, but I think you would like the Master Trials. It gives back that sense of struggle with limited resources from Eventide Island. If you're looking for a tough challenge in BotW, that's where to find it. IIRC the DLC bosses I did face had a pretty solid challenge in master mode.

It's funny BotW made me a but nostalgic for the NES original as well. I think they did a good job capturing what the vibe of the original Zelda could have been had the designers not been constrained by hardware of the time. So many modern games either retread classic game design or moved in a direction so far from classic 8 bit stuff there's not much relevance to it. BotW felt to me like I was playing the vision of Zelda only found in concept art back in the day.

Oddly enough Dark Souls 1 captures this feeling to me as well without even being part of an old 8 bit franchise. It did this better than most actual franchises did in their own next gen attempts ie Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The limited customization options are a bit annoying though. There's not even music/sound slider options! You can't remap the controls fully (though the Switch natively supports this in its config at least). I prefer having attack on B and pickup on Y, allows me to run while grabbing objects more easily than A to collect and B to run (there's an in-game option to make X run, and B jump, but this forces you to move off the right stick further when running).

I'd like to also disable the temperature and sound meters without disabling the minimap the Pro HUD option does. I find them a bit unnecessary, the sound meter in particular. Having an onscreen compass is really nice though and saves having to open up the map repeatedly to figure out which direction is North. I'm replaying it with the HUD off though, and I think it's a bit of a better experience.

[Rastan78]

Yeah that is a bit annoying. Seems to be a common theme with Nintendo. It's like their mindset is to decide the best way to play a game for players ahead of time according to their own ideals. A bit more customization would be better, especially with controller configs.

At least they give you camera speed adjustment. Think I had to max it out completely to get something approaching playable.

[m.sniffles.esq]

one that shows up early on against a single big guy?

Yeah, single big guy. In that 'white and heavenly' sub-area that various bonus challenges take place (sorry it's been awhile).

I remember using the whip (since that was quickest but did lowest dmg) but still always being like three hits shy when the buzzer hit. Probably something I should of looked at a guide (or skipped entirely) rather then torturing myself.

PS Congrats on BotW!

[Blinge]

Man, I've been playing Hotline Miami, finally.

The way everyone raved about that game.. I was expecting something good. I don't get it, at all.
the styling is fun, but other than that..

[BulletMagnet]

Finished up Hollow Knight (minus the usual items I either never figured out or just gave up on); there really is a lot to recommend here, but the whole way through I never thought the game felt quite right, somehow. It's difficult to pin down any particular element that made things feel just slightly "off" to me, and whatever it was certainly didn't make it not worth playing; heck, maybe it was just all the hype that messed with my expectations a bit, but all in all while I enjoyed myself I'd still put it a notch or two below Blasphemous in my personal reckoning. Interested to see how Silksong turns out.

To cleanse the proverbial palate I'm finally going to make a run through Hatoful Boyfriend and cross off one more "been in my backlog forever" entry. Gonna have to see what I feel like after that...

[guigui]

It's difficult to pin down any particular element that made things feel just slightly "off" to me, and whatever it was certainly didn't make it not worth playing; heck, maybe it was just all the hype that messed with my expectations a bit, but all in all while I enjoyed myself I'd still put it a notch or two below Blasphemous in my personal reckoning.

I also had a great time with Hollow Knight, has those definite souls vibe in it and lots of references to this series. But same : I felt it was not perfectly right.
Maybe because of some too long platforming section ; and more certainly because I could kill bosses without having to put too much strategy there, just good equipment, resistance, mash and pray for boss to die before I did.

I did not try Blasphemous yet, though I'm tempted too. On reviews, videos, scope, it seemed to me like it was far from being as good as Hollow Knight, but what you say has me intrigued. Can you develop why you'd prefer Blasphemous ?

[BulletMagnet]

Hmm...some of it certainly just comes down to personal taste, i.e. while I liked Hollow Knight's presentation I felt that it "clashed" a bit, combining clean, cartoonish elements with hazy, dark ones in a way that didn't quite completely mesh in my opinion, while Blasphemous' more consistent gothic sprite style (albeit perhaps a bit over-violent in parts) tended to agree with me more, as did its striking Spanish/Catholic-inspired setting (though Hollow Knight's bug world was also memorably unique to be sure).

If I attempt to get into slightly more quantifiable territory, I would also give Blasphemous an edge in terms of 1) Being just a bit more forgiving than Hollow Knight, it can certainly be mean (for one thing, unlike Hollow Knight it has insta-kills) but (mostly) feels less like it's outright bullying you than Hollow Knight sometimes can, and 2) A bit more "consistent" as well, for lack of a better term. Your moveset doesn't change as much in Blasphemous as in Hollow Knight, but it also feels tighter to me, and the enhancements you do get feel like a good thing getting better, as opposed to the "why didn't I already have this?" feeling Hollow Knight sometimes gave me.

About the best single anecdote I can give is in regards to Blasphemous' post-game: in terms of raw "bang for your buck" Hollow Knight easily has the advantage, as it's a considerably bigger game, but after one trip through I can't even imagine attempting "steel soul" mode. Blasphemous, on the other hand, offers a handful of "new game plus" variations that tweak the challenge in several ways, and the one I played, at least, still felt good while forcing me to change my approach in some areas. I honestly feel that relatively few games hold up well enough mechanics-wise to be worth another go with the dials cranked up, but Blasphemous, for me at least, managed to make the cut (for the record I never quite finished the ng+ playthrough, thanks to some rather tragic PC shenanigans).

No idea if the game would appeal to you as much as it did me, but hopefully you'll get the chance to try it and find out at some point: I have seen it pretty deeply discounted more than once, so if you're not sure it's worth full price you can probably just wait a bit. Hope something in there made sense!

[Blinge]

how does hollow knight bully you?
like what sections?

and as the Grimm Troupe + other add-ons were free, have you played them all?

[Sumez]

Man, I've been playing Hotline Miami, finally.

The way everyone raved about that game.. I was expecting something good. I don't get it, at all.
the styling is fun, but other than that..

I felt the same way every time I tried playing it, and at this point I'm pretty sure the hype is just undeserved. I don't think I'm gonna go back to it again.

[BulletMagnet]

how does hollow knight bully you?
like what sections?

There were a couple of boss fights that I found a tad unreasonable, i.e. they had so many different hard-to-avoid attacks they could throw at you very quickly that I had trouble reacting accordingly to them (and I guess that's just a case of git gud on my part that I wasn't willing to bother with), but for me the bigger overall issue was a recurring sense of "there's no way you'll clear this your first time" - certain parts toss rather specific types of challenges at you, which is nice for variety, but they also tend to require a particular equipment setup to stand much of a chance at (at least for me), so at varying points I'd end up running face-first into a wall a couple of times before finally stumbling upon the right loadout to see me through to the other side (after being forced to hunt down my ghost and refill my soul first, naturally). Again, it wasn't enough to kill the game for me by any means, but it's not my favorite "brand" of challenge, for lack of a better word.

and as the Grimm Troupe + other add-ons were free, have you played them all?

I did try to do as much as I could, though as I said I didn't finish everything; IIRC my completion percentage was at exactly 100 when I quit, though I think "actually" completing the game puts you at somewhere around 120, so I did about as much here as in most similar games I've played. As I mentioned earlier I'll definitely be picking up Silksong whenever that comes out, so we'll see how that one goes for me.

[Blinge]

You gotta beat Nightmare King Grimm man. his second fight

It's... one of the best fights in the game. and it'll kick your ass
and there's no way you'll beat it first time, and good!

You know I never really changed my loadout all that much. as long as I had trinkets that:

-stop me getting knocked back when I attack
-let me attack twice as fast
- increase my range.

I'm good!
For reference.... the Pantheon's basically a boss rush of various clumps of bosses
or a final pantheon which is a total bossrush of everything. Look how fast I'm attacking:
https://youtu.be/BEQLA5_uDdU?t=636

spoilers later tho

[BulletMagnet]

You gotta beat Nightmare King Grimm man. his second fight

Heh, had a couple of whacks at him, eventually said "not gonna happen".

Only watched a little bit of the video you linked, but one thing that caught my eye was the fight with the bouncy caterpillar guy; at one point he hits you into the spikes and you respawn right under him, then attempt to head away from the spike wall...when he just so happens to decide to come right down on your head as you go, so you take a near-unavoidable hit. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about when I say Hollow Knight sometimes felt "off" to me, and takes it down a peg or two in my personal reckoning. And when that "off-ness" rears its head in the nastier fights...yeah, I'll just leave those to the professionals, heh.

[Gamer707b]

Just got Huntdown on Switch. Love the look. Blade Runner of a R n Gun. Gameplay wise, so far I'm liking the weapon system and also the bosses. Bosses are over the top and are fun to figure out. Other than that, don't know how much I'll want to replay it when I'm done. But a very well done gone ay the very least.

Also been playing a bit of Tormented Souls on PS4. I'm really liking it a lot except for the map. I don't know about anyone else that has been playing this, but the map sucks.

[Sima Tuna]

Just got Huntdown on Switch. Love the look. Blade Runner of a R n Gun. Gameplay wise, so far I'm liking the weapon system and also the bosses. Bosses are over the top and are fun to figure out. Other than that, don't know how much I'll want to replay it when I'm done. But a very well done gone ay the very least.

Also been playing a bit of Tormented Souls on PS4. I'm really liking it a lot except for the map. I don't know about anyone else that has been playing this, but the map sucks.

Definitely try out the arcade mode if you haven't been. I think it's the definitive way to play Huntdown once you've done each level once in Story.

[XoPachi]

So Yugioh Master Duel has pets that just sit on the field and root for you...or do nothing if you pick the fucking soccer balls and shit.
I cannot believe Vic Viper, Big Core, or Ducker Mobile Cannon are not in this game as pets. Wild.
One of the first decks you face against is a bot named "Gradius" using cards you can guess. But not a single Gradius cosmetic yet.

[Mischief Maker]

If you have the slightest fond memories of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, you owe it to yourself to try Hero's Hour. It's my first serious 2022 GOTY contender.

[guigui]

If you have the slightest fond memories of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, you owe it to yourself to try Hero's Hour. It's my first serious 2022 GOTY contender.

Sounds appealing to me, had the best times Heroes 3 back in late 2000's. Switch version of Hero's Hour ?