Your wise counsel is appreciated as always, Shumps Friends™
Oof!
Talkin out me arse re: BB respawn/new area load times. They're nearly all ten seconds, not twenty (five seconds per message). A couple of lamps take fifteen, or two and a half messages (Central Yharnam and Old Yharnam) - but then they load an absolute fuckton of gloriously-detailed real estate. Hoonter's Dream is five seconds, or one message.
Probably explains why I found them surprisingly tolerable.
Still, the thought of halving 'em is most enticing.
Air Master Burst wrote:BIL wrote:Improbably bullseye-perfect action-to-acreage balance, painterly aesthetic, and stacks upon stacks of weapons and gear to experiment with.
Dead Cells might be what you're looking for, it has the best weapon selection of any game I've ever seen. Handles fucking smooth, too. The only real downside is the procedurally generated levels don't have nearly the charm of a Castlevania map, but that's a minor complaint when everything else is so well done.
I've had this recommended to me by other estimable peeps, too - one of my infernally long-off rainy day picks for sure.
Blinge wrote:Imagine recommending a game like KF fucking 4 to Birru.
Remember though, I'm a man of many Hard Gayming perversions!
I'll go to war for Legacy of the Wizard's silly Bubble Bobble Lite action (and
fathomless FC death dungeon ), just like I will NG1 when some potato-handed noob complains about "backward jumps" and "cheap bats."
You can't help what makes you Hard Gayme, that's what I always say!
Stevens wrote:I mean I know you're going to play it at some point, but imo Elden Ring is a pass. Sekiro shits all over it.
Haaa, I know
I suspect BB is my sweet spot for "open world gaming." Obviously, it's not a true open world, geographically (nor would I want one!
SPOOKY MISTY TOWNZ 4 LIFE) - but in terms of possibilities for high-finesse, high-stakes carnage, as well as the sheer persistence of its combat (wherever you go, someone's looking to throw down!), it's my GTA.
(I used to spend hours chilling out with my brothers watching them play San Andreas, some of my fondest gaming memories actually. Played maybe 15 minutes one day while I was bored. Stepped out of CJ's house, accidentally shot a woman in the face while looking for the "talk to" button (I swear!
), stole an ice cream truck and lost the cops - then turned off the PS2, and that was the end of my GTA story.
Still enjoy watching bros play the new stuff when we get together.
)
So "OPEN WORLD SOULZ" doesn't really grab me at all, while Sekiro's more disciplined action game grabs me like a
MUHFUCKA. I love Miyazaki's overall sensibilities, so I'm looking forward to one last DS with him at the helm, but Sekiro's by far my biggest draw.
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I can always tell I've hit saturation point with a game when it pops up in my dreams. Had an ill dream last night that if you never tell me nan of a safe location, then return to her house during Blood Moon, it'll be so misty you can't see shit, and all the formerly-caged dogs will be surrounding the place frothing at the mouth and ignoring you. I guiltily whacked 'em all, then heard a voice mockingly asking if I was there to help, before
BOOM! Some godawful thing exploded out of the house and killed me. I dunno if it was me nan, or the person she mistakes you for once she loses her marbles. I was actually pretty scurred though!
I've always wished Central held just a couple more creepy sights during Blood Moon, though what occurs outside Gaz's house is plenty. I actually said
"What the fuck?" out loud the first time, when that perfectly-timed aside from the person inside popped up in the subtitles. And then coming back and, yeah, double WTF.
OTOH, the dead silence from that formerly raucous whorehouse, and the house full of wailing men, classic Weird Fiction mood. I recalled on this latest NG that the old lady in the Forbidden Woods is one of those rare NPCs who'll still respond during Blood Moon, albeit with inhuman howling. The only one I know who talks is mah boi LAST SURVIVOR down in Lower Cathedral, who's having a blast all night.
Annoyingly, the dissenting resident of the brothel (
"Heavens! The depths of depravity...") seems to attempt Blood Moon dialogue, but cuts off after a split-second of the telltale subtitle bar. I wonder if that was a cut line. I notice, browsing BB's deleted lines, there's a very consistent pattern of them saying just a couple lines too much. G-Man's parting line, for example.
"The night, and the dream... were long..." Sounds like a formidably leal servant, exhausted beyond belief (as we can hear in his rare garden sleep-talks, pleading to Lawrence and the pointedly-titled "Master" Willem), guiltily succumbing to the rest he's denied himself for aeons. "I'm sorry. God help you."
The deleted lines have him continue, heartily thanking the player for the respite, and imo ruining the character and the moment alike. Some very sharp editing, from what I gather extending to the JP script as well; I wonder how the process went, EN then JP, or JP-directed all along?
Man I love this game. I want a "BB2," but not called "BB2," naw mean. No direct continuance, and sure as shit no "answers," just another unforgettably oneiric snapshot of a place devoured by its lurking dark side. Even at its most ostensibly mundane, I don't know if "Yharnam" as we see it is anything but a nightmare kept in unknowable stasis by unknowable powers, and I prefer it that way.
"It is a fearful thing, to fall into the hands of the living God!”