TheMightyEthan

Because it's Nintendo.

Yeah, I didn't properly prepare for NG+ because I just needed to start it to run and get the last legendary armament, so I'll probably regret that if/when DLC comes out. It was nice to wreck the starting area boss though.

If it makes you feel better I save-scummed the three ending achievements so I didn't have to beat it three times, just once.

I did it!

And of course I'm learning all this after I did everything except get the last few legendary items...

lol, I didn't even get that much out of it. I'm sitting behind her during the end like "Oh, yeah, Age of Stars, huh? Sounds good, sounds good... so what does that mean?"

Yeah, no kidding, now that I know I can hold it down it devours my mana pool, though I'm already almost to the first Mind soft cap.

I hadn't really been following this game, but that gameplay looks so fucking good. They really nailed the "what you remember 16-bit looking like" aesthetic.

lol, now I'm really glad I did that fight the night before the patch.

The MJ sections in Spider-Man didn't bother me much. It would have been better if they weren't there, but they weren't hard. It's when there's mandatory stealth, and it's badly done, and you keep failing over and over that it gets really bad.

I never knew being a watch nerd was a thing.

Yeah, unless your game is designed entirely around stealth then don't force stealth sections.

The Medium I was liking this game fine enough, nothing amazing, but fine, but I was mildly interested in the spooky ghost stuff. Then I got to this stupid mandatory stealth boss thing, and after failing several times in a row I decided I wasn't liking the rest of the game enough to put up with this shit. I will say the character designs and setting, an old abandoned Soviet Worker's Resort, were great. Not something I see all the time, and really well done. Grade: C-

WHY DIDN'T YOU GUYS TELL ME THAT IF YOU HOLD DOWN THE BUTTON ON AZUR COMET IT KEEPS GOING?!

lol, except I beat it using fly swarm, which got nerfed. I'll take it though.

Spell casting speed has been buffed too.

Quick resume kept fucking up for me, it could never reconnect to the servers afterwards, even if I quit out to the menu first. I took to saving and quitting and then manually closing the game through the guide every time I finished playing.

Elden Ring This game is great. I still think its 97 metacritic is inflated, and still think that's likely because outlets gave it to their resident From fan for reviews, but it is a great game and I don't want to take away from that. Combat feels good to do, and rarely did I find an encounter frustrating. I also really like the layers of strategy, both with your resource management while moving between sites of grace, and your time management within each fight. The fact that you can't interrupt your attack animations to dodge sounds like it would be aggravating, but once you get used to it it just means you need to be careful and pick your moments instead of just spamming the attack button. It's very satisfying. I do wish there was some kind of in-game quest tracking, the current system encourages just using guides too much, but I've already talked about that on here. I also wish there was a little more story presentation in the actual game, instead of making you dig through item descriptions and stuff to find it. Like, I got the Age of Stars ending, and I don't actually know what happened. It was like a 30 second cutscene and that was it. All in all though, this is a really good game, and I recommend anyone who is interested give it a try, even if you haven't liked other From games. I'd previously tried Dark Souls 1, 2, Bloodborne, and Sekiro, and I didn't make it past the first boss in any of them, but Elden Ring hooked me. Grade: A-

Pro tip that took me forever to figure out and I think will especially benefit you with kids: you don't have to get to a site of grace to save and quit, you can do it anywhere as long as you're not in combat.

I'm trying and failing to come up with some kind of worm/spice pun, so I'll just say those are fucking badass.

I agree 100%, and that certainly seems to be the philosophy among Sony's first party studios at least. Only Naughty Dog seems to have missed the memo.

Yeah, and even that one doesn't require you to scan every variant, just every "type".

Ooh, pretty.

I suggest coming back to it after you've taken a break for a while, I walked away from that game for a few months and when I came back it was like night and day how much fun I had with it.

Also, with the bird rune grinding spot it doesn't really matter how much they cost.