- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmit.online
TL;DW: Journalists played Elden Ring on Switch 2 on gamescom. They weren’t allowed to record gameplay but performance is really bad. Tons of stuttering and reportedly dips to <20FPS in cases.
Yeah. ER’s overworld is really not one you are meant to explore*. It is a lot closer to the Ubisoft design philosophy where the idea is you are going from point A to point B and find POIs (caves, mines, etc) along the way. So it is more that you should always more or less be walking in the direction of the grace sparkles and just do caves as you find them.
Outside of the good shit that you read about online to get more bell bearings or special weapons.
That said: I will always argue that Nioh 2 is the true best Souls. And that is a lot closer to Demon Souls in that there is no interconnected metroidvania world and it is all discrete (often repeated) levels. But the combat is without parallel and, after the initial horrible bosses (fuck Hino Enma. Although she is more Nioh 1), they are REAL good. Reminiscent of Dark Souls 2 in that it often feels like a duel between two knights (well, samurai) but actually done well.
Staying vague since they are one of the big bads but: Nioh 2 has a recurring enemy. Eventually you fight them when they are truly at the peak of their power and it is a BRUTAL fight. But it works so well because you have mastered the game by then so you are constantly rushing forward to counter their perilous attacks, getting in quick swipes, dodging all of their attacks, etc. And the narrative build up is SO good. It honestly feels like a Yakuza/LAD boss in that “In a different world we could be friends. In this world you have slaughtered countless innocents. But I like your vibes and that attack you just did is so fucking sick”. Yes, Team Ninja actually made Pursuer/Forlorn/Aldea WORK.
*: Until the DLC… where exploring too soon breaks every single NPC quest the moment you cross a bridge
I have bounced off Nioh 2 like a dozen times, the combat system utterly overwhelms me every time I jump in. I have beaten every Souls game outside of Sekiro, but the stances and absorbtion mechanic thing around parrying (forget the exact details) just does me head in.
And every time I bounce off I am sad, cus otherwise it looks amazing. I want to get to the end game and grind out stuff, but getting off the ground is a slog.
You can basically ignore stances (Rise of the Ronin was TN experimenting with making that not an option). Just pick the stance you like (usually medium) and MAYBE swap to heavy against oni if you feel like you need to. Conceptually it is basically one handing or two handing (or… half handing?) a weapon in a Souls game. You aren’t swapping mid fight and are more deciding as you approach an encounter. That said… Nioh 3 by all indications is gonna make that integral.
Burst counters are all about figuring out what moveset you want. I personally love yellow (?) yokai because I rush forward. Which is baller as fuck but ALSO means that even if I parry too soon I have good odds of intercepting the attack and getting the punish. Whereas other people prefer blue for blocking or red for attacking.
But yeah. The Niohs are HORRIBLE for tutorialization even beyond the boss design. TN have gotten a lot better with integrating tutorials into gameplay (especially in Stranger of Paradise and Rise of the Ronin) but they ALSO still insist on having a mandatory void mission that then just dumps all that info and more into you and mostly undoes the “Hey, that guy hasn’t seen you. Sneak up on him” training.
It took me up until the penultimate core boss in Nioh 1 to realize that I was an idiot for not using the special attacks. What went from hit and run with a katana became just holding r1+square to melt enemy HP with dual swords or doing massive ki damage with a katana or flying across the room with the kunai wit chain and so forth.
But once you figure out what parts of the game you can ignore and what matters? Oh there is nothing like that.