MetalCaveman

Elden Ring Nightreign Edit: First time I got a character ending, did another solo run and got the normal ending, now it's easily a 10/10. Wasn't sure how I'd feel about this, I love Elden Ring, but I'm not a huge fan of rogue-lites/likes/adjacent games or multiplayer stuff, not to mention that online has never been FromSoftware's strong suit lol, but I ended up pleasantly surprised, and I think I get the appeal of these games now, though it does have some serious issues. In terms of gameplay, it's really fun, and it's likely to have the same effect on Elden Ring as ER had on older Soulsborne games, I struggled to go back to Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 3 after playing Elden Ring, specially with the lack of jump and QoL stuff like the stakes of Marika, Nightreign introduces: climbing, super sprint, infinite arrows, and most importantly, NO FALL DAMAGE, all of these will be missed when/if I go back to Elden Ring lol. It's also way faster, you're not taking your time to explore, find secrets and farm for stuff, you're running from one place to another, mark it on the map, run there, grab the item or defeat the boss then immediately run to the next spot, repeat until the day is over or your party gets wiped out. The way you level up has been changed to keep up with this, instead of allocating points, you just spend runes to gain a level, points are automatically allocated based on what class you're playing. One thing to consider, being a rogue-style game, you're not going to be winning every run, or clearing every camp, there are places you should try to clear before everything else and there are times where RNG will simply decide to kill your run early, I feel like a lot of the friction that caused negative responses came from people expecting a more linear progression, like "OK, clear the whole map, then beat the boss, then go after the next main boss", kind of thing, and while it can be annoying when RNG decides to mess with you, once you accept this is part of the game, it's not an issue. I had runs where nothing went right, all the drops were pretty bad, and still managed to reach the Nightlord, there were also runs where everything went right, had legendary gear, max healing flasks, and then we still got stomped. The story is pretty decent, not the main thing which is simple, but good enough, I'm talking about the character remembrance stories, each character has their own story, some of them overlapping with the main Nightlord stuff, some independent, though I haven't completed them all, the ones I have have been pretty good, with the best so far being Raider's, some also have a unique ending when you defeat the last boss. However, there are some issues, some which devs have already said will be addressed. The revive mechanic is pretty fun, when a teammate goes down, you just beat the crap out of them to bring them back lol, each time you die you get another tick added to the revive timer, making it take more hits to bring you back, this resets with every boss/site of grace. The biggest problem is the rate at which each tick refills compared to how fast you can deal enough "damage", it's very easy to run out of stamina before being able to clear all ticks, and before you have enough stamina for another attack, the revive timer is back to full. Hitboxes are also super wonky, making it easy to miss with heavy weapons, bows and poking weapons are the best at reviving with heavier weapons being more prone to missing the target entirely. The randomization is also lacking, there's only one map, field and night bosses are pulled from fixed pools based on which Nightlord you pick, and even though there are map altering events, there's only four of them and, as far as I've seen, once they're gone they're gone, though this might be a bug. Relics are underwhelming, relics are items that change your stats or give you buffs or equipment, these are a sort of fixed progression, you get them from completing expeditions and from the murk store (murk being a currency you get from expeditions), their effects are mostly "tiny increase to HP" or "start with some item", I haven't played many other games in this genre, but I do remember Taboo Trial and Duel Princess having some pretty ridiculous items and units, Nightreign needs some stuff like that, the devs played it way too safe with their effects IMO. Many relics also end up feeling useless with the way they combine effects, you can get a relic with three buffs, one might be super useful for Wylder, but the other two end up being completely useless, so that relic ends up never being used because no class can actually benefit from it. Then there's the remembrance skins, remembrance skins are unlocked after completing a character's remembrance and they're by far, the worst of all the available skins, except for Raider, for everyone else it ends up being a game of Spot the Difference lol. The other available skins are pretty cool though. There's other issues, but I don't know if I should count it against the game or if they're just part of the genre, bosses are weak to specific elements and sometimes you'll get a map without a single drop of that element, so you just have to rely on whatever else might be effective, except for the last boss which is immune to most effects. Some bosses are also extremely challenging for certain characters, but again, this might just be a case of "alright, now you know what class to pick next time". Overall, I liked it a lot, but I do hope to see more maps, bosses and skins, in fact, given the more experimental nature of Nightreign, could be fun if they had some more extreme stuff, like an Armored Core themed skin for Wylder or a Sekiro map, fun stuff like that. TL;DR: If you're looking for more Elden Ring, this isn't for you, if you want From's take on the rogue-like genre and are willing to put up with some issues, then it's worth it, specially for $40. Grade: S

From GameFreak, looks cool. October 21st. \m/ \m/ Looks like it could be good, but I've also seen some people mention it has Callisto Protocol vibes, and that's definitively not a good thing. A North Korean soldier and a K-Pop star work together to save the world.

First one was a fun soulslike, with some issues, this one looks way more actiony, also, great music choice \m/ \m/ HELL YEAH!! Hoping the zweihander is as OP as it was in the first one lol Available today, base game is on sale too. A new mainline game, with a character related to Outbreak lol. On the fence about this one, parts of it look really cool, def looks more horrory than Village

Some highlights from the last State of Play: This was a weird trailer lol. There's also a demo that's available until June 18. No doubt IOI can handle the stealth stuff, but I'm curious about how they'll handle the more actiony stuff.

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Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge This was the improved version?! Looking at it, it does come from that era of Armored Core V, and Ace Combat Assault Horizon, and it follows them in that, more "western" style, more cutscenes, more story, QTEs, a darker grittier look, "cinematic" slow motion shots, "cinematic" climbing, "cinematic" everything! The problem is that none of that is Ninja Gaiden, the base gameplay isn't that bad all things considered, and is the greatest improvement over vanilla 3, though that is a pretty low bar to clear lol. The Steel on Bone mechanic is neat, and it does lead to some cool moments, but it also becomes the only way to clear certain fights since all enemies are now faster and more agile, evading, blocking or parrying most of your attacks. Some of the new animations are pretty cool, the Lunar Staff in particular, has a really cool one that is the perfect example of overkill. But then there's all the other stuff, the climbing mechanic was pretty annoying, there's a stealth ability that's only used in a couple of places, QTEs are everywhere and they make boss fights more frustrating than they need to be, the lack of healing items is pure madness and I have no idea who the hell thought that was a good idea, the obsession with having several enemies with rocket launchers led to some pretty cheap feeling deaths, the last boss is one of the worst last bosses I've seen, and a more personal pet peeve, upgrades now being in a generic menu instead of the Muramasa shop was disappointing. The story is also the worst of any of these games, yes, the story in the Ninja Gaiden series was never award worthy, but it did its job, it was silly and cheesy in all the best ways and was all about being a badass Ninja saving the world, the story in this one is pretty bad, the English voice of Ryu is also the worst of the series lol, IMO 2 had the best one, Josh Keaton >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Troy Baker, for this role. The Ayane chapters weren't that bad though, I def enjoyed her gameplay and how brutal some of her attacks are. \m/ \m/ Grade: D-

There goes all interest I had in Khazan lol, Sekiro is as far as I'm willing to go in terms of this style of git-gud games.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (PC) This was way easier than I expected, don't know if it's because I recently played Sigma and Sigma Plus, or if 2 was nerfed more for the Sigma version, either way, managed to get to the last boss without much issues, the worst part were a couple of back to back boss fights, and the first phase of the last boss. I know there's a mod that's meant to bring this closer to the 360 version, might take a look at it at some point lol, for now, I wanted to see how the vanilla version played, still pretty fun, would recommend, though I had some issues where it would freeze when trying to quit the game, or return to the main menu. Also love the notes you find, most of them are either "I suck, can't even do this basic ninja technique, I'm the worst" or Grade: A+

The first one was basically anime Armored Core, interesting to see this time they're moving away from mechs and towards power armour stuff.

Still don't know how to feel about the new magnetic Joycons, release button also looks like it'd be kinda easy to accidentally press while playing. Mouse controls could be cool (specially for games like Metroid Prime), but my desk doesn't have room for it lol. Funny that after all the speculation, the C button ended up being for online chat. Console MSRP is $450 for base console, $500 for the Mario Kart bundle. Games are apparently meant to be $80-$90 which is a big yikes for me, specially once that price is adjusted to MXN, wouldn't be surprised to see them going for more than 2,000 pesos lol, that made me lose a lot of hype for it. I might still get one, eventually, but those game prices hurt. This was the biggest surprise of the direct (for me at least): New FromSoft game, close enough, welcome back Bloodborne. Except it's apparently a PvPvE multiplayer game.

Cooler Master now makes drum thrones... Still don't know where this fits in the cool-stupid scale lol. That said, if I had the money and still played drums, I'd get one.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma (PC) Tried to go back to the Vita version, loaded one of my old saves and couldn't get past the worm boss in chapter 15 lol, then I tried starting a new game and couldn't get to Murai (the first boss) without having to use all of my healing items and even a revive. At that point I was sure I wasn't made for this type of game anymore. On PC however, it was a completely different story, managed to make it to chapter 12 without dying once, so I'm blaming the Vita and how awkward it feels to play an action game like this on it. I did die a bunch in later chapters though, mainly thanks to the stupid ghost fish, worst enemy ever. Also used a guide to find all scarabs, the Dabilahro you get from collecting those is extremely useful for certain enemies and bosses so that helped a ton. I love how cool and ridiculous the story is, starts out in a ninja village, then you're in a city fighting the army, there's a boss fight against two tanks, and then a helicopter, next thing you know you're now in hell, fighting a demon made of skulls. \m/ \m/ There are some parts I remember being different, but I'm not sure if I'm mixing the Vita version with Black on the OG Xbox. Grade: A+

I had never read The Little Prince before, until Saurom announced they would release an album that was themed around it.