 |
|
Feb 28th, 2020 at 08:01:01 - Assassin's Creed Origins (PS4) |
I'm done with the main game. All side quests are completed, I've killed 3/4 war elephants, explored every tomb I could find, completed about half of the treasure hunt riddles, found every view point I could, found every constellation I could, and spent a long time just admiring the scenery. It took right around 50 hours. The game is bloated, and I hear Odyssey is even worse. Side quests and "stuff" to do could have been halved and it would still be a lot. But, I'm going to plunge ahead into Origins's DLC soon, and I'll get in to Odyssey at some point because I am impressed with the slightly new direction of Assassin's Creed, despite its liberal borrowing from The Witcher 3 and Dark Souls. It still retains its own identity, and for all the questions I had about the game, the end resolves many of them.
So, here are some thoughts on how the series has changed and how I ruined my playthrough.
1. Change - As I noted previously, Origins borrows from The Witcher 3. Geralt, the titular Witcher, solves monster-related mysteries. Our new assassin, Bayek, solves assassin-related mysteries in exactly the same way. You enter an "exploration area" and pixel hunt for an little icon (never figured out what it was) or look for something out of the ordinary. I am surprised at how similar this feels!
These genre shifts are part of why Origins often doesn't feel like an Assassin's Creed game. The setting is right, but the gameplay is more generic. I noticed that there are no "crowd assassinations," and really no assassinations at all! Yes, you can assassinate people according to the UI, but this refers to stealth kills. There are no true assassinations of politicians, generals, and so on, built up in the main story. Yes, you kill big baddies, but these more often take the form of melee boss fights. Rampaging through forts is easier than sneaking around. In fact, the crowd mechanics built up across previous AC games are not here. You don't trail enemies, you don't learn their paths, you don't eavesdrop on conversations. I cannot emphasize how the lack of these unique systems makes the game feel generic and (gameplay-wise) bland at times.
There is, oddly enough, a compelling narrative reason for this, which is revealed at the very end of the game. (The hint is in the title.) I loved how the story concluded, but making me play as a half-ass(assin) for 50 hours first was a little overkill. I fully expect the DLCs, and especially Odyssey, to bring back more of the older AC games. I want to feel like an assassin.
2. How I Ruined My Playthrough (Almost) - Origins is a ridiculously easy game. I played a lot after work because it was so chill. Why? Welllll...I might have realized halfway through that I wasn't supposed to have all legendary equipment from the start. I purchased a complete edition and it came with all sorts of fancy items. I didn't think it odd and assumed that the nice things I started with were normal to start with--a couple legendary swords, shields, and mounts. I never buy special editions so I don't know these things!
You can upgrade your equipment in Origins, so if you really like the stats, you can keep boosting it to your character level. So The Fang (fast sword, huge critical hit bonus damage, poison on hit) just kept getting better with age! I contend it is the best weapon in the game except the one I just found (which apparently is a Final Fantasy XV tie-in--weird). Its stats may not be objectively better, but I used The Fang for the entire game and this FFXV sword sparkles. I upgraded my equipment every 10 levels or so to offset using legendary items, which means I was constantly underpowered. Still, I rarely died.
I previously predicted that given the Dark Souls controls and new combat style, the challenge would ramp up; it never did until the last boss that Bayek fights. All of a sudden, the game introduces the supernatural. He was the only boss that felt like a boss, with the exception of the optional war elephants. Here's how much the game's ease lulled me into successfully spamming R1 for its duration: after attempting the boss a few times, I remembered that...I could use my shield to block. How novel! Yeah, I never used my shield the whole game! I beat him on the first try after that, but after I beat him, I realized that there were extra arrows in the room to restock during the fight. There are two phases where arrows are really useful, and I kept running out then. But I had never run out of arrows in the entire game before; therefore, I had never needed to pay attention to extra quivers laying around!
The game throws another difficulty spike your way in the very last segment, but I won't spoil that here. Just get ready for some tedium and frustration before it's all over because the game forces you into a different play style with different weapon types than you might have been playing with. Also, speaking of tedium, the ship battles get old real fast. If I never have to sail another ship in this game, I'll be happy. Black Flag, this is not.
The narrative is slow, but worth it, especially if you've played a bunch of these games. I really enjoyed the main characters. Bayek and Aya are more complex than I originally thought. There is some good foreshadowing (Bayek losing his ring finger is symbolic for different reasons that I initially thought!). You even learn where the Assassins symbol comes from! The Egyptian setting is phenomenal, and it's cool how it transitions to Roman toward the end of the game. I really felt like I was experiencing political and cultural change over the course of the game. There are a billion things to do. Side quests in particular add a lot of time to the game. They are never worth it for rewards, but I enjoyed the little stories. They do get repetitive in their objectives (rescue this person, eradicate this base, steal this thing), which is my argument for just reducing their number by half. The side quests are immeasurably better than side quests in previous Assassin's Creed games, but they don't touch The Witcher's. Hopefully Odyssey's will improve further.
All in all, I'm glad I played this to see how the series is changing. I'll continue with the DLC because the first moves this story along and the second I have read is excellent for other reasons. I hope that Odyssey essentially picks up where Origins leaves off. But since it's even longer than this one, I am dreading the time sink. I suppose I could just...not play it...or just play the main quest. I would sort of like to wait until another entry comes out that gets overwhelmingly positive reviews before committing, but I do always enjoy these games, even for their faults.
add a comment  - read this GameLog  |
|
Feb 5th, 2020 at 08:10:45 - Assassin's Creed Origins (PS4) |
Whoa, new Assassin's Creed! It's been a few years. I thoroughly enjoyed Black Flag (4), the last one I played. I miss my crew and the sea shanties and firing cannonballs at other ships. But my how the series has changed. My, how it looks and feels more like The Witcher 3 and Soulsborne games! Someone's aping trends.
What's Witcher about it? Well, it's got the old Ubisoft map bloat with a million icons on it, but I notice question marks all over the place now. These points of interest encourage exploration, and when you arrive you will find a beast den, a stargazing area, a guarded fort, a treasure hunt, and so on, with little objectives (kill this, steal that) to complete for a small amount of XP and some treasure. Cool, but already those question marks feel like bloat. I remember the question marks in The Witcher revealing lots of really cool things, possibly because of the fantasy setting you never knew what kind of awesome thing you'd discover. Here, trekking across the map to shoot a ram with a bow-and-arrow just doesn't seem as appealing. My favorite are the constellation ones where you get some mythology and play with stars. I've pretty much started ignoring the question marks though. There are also more refined skill trees, and the gadgets tree feels very much like the Witcher's potions tree. Side quests are more fleshed out, which is certainly an improvement over previous AC games.
What's Soulsborne about it? After just finishing Bloodborne, I was surprised that the controls and combat were so similar, as AC's combat before felt unique (even though it could sometimes be frustrating). R3 locks on to enemies, just like Soulsbornes. R1 is light attack, R2 is heavy attack, hold R2 for charged heavy attack. Press circle to dodge. I suspect that some later fights may be more challenging like in Bloodborne. So far, I'm kind of shocked at how much melee combat there is (this was always a weak point in AC games), though I did just get the hidden blade, so more stealth and assassinating is in my future.
I'm certainly enjoying the game. Egypt is stunning, and thanks to my new PS4 Pro, I am playing a game for the first time in 4K. I see a future where I just walk around in a video game to marvel at the environments to relax after work. Sometimes when I climb up to a view point, I'll sit up there for 5 minutes just looking out over the landscape below. I mean, it's utterly beautiful. I would love to watch an Egyptologist play the game. I'm sure there's a YouTube video for that with a clickbait title.
My only real gripe is the intrusion of Ubisoft into what I wish was a single-player experience. I mean, thanks for the amazing recreation of ancient Egypt, but would you just let me enjoy it in peace? The game constantly reminds me to check out the store, it forces other players' screenshots onto my minimap which clutters it even further, and it thinks I give a shit about avenging VapeMan69's death at the hands of a hyena. Look, I don't know VapeMan69 and I don't care what he was doing or why he was killed by a hyena, but can you kindly STOP CLUTTERING THE MINIMAP UBISOFT or give me more refined filters please and thank you.
I look forward to playing more and continuing with the story, which has me oddly intrigued as far as AC goes (even the Abstergo part is neat!). I look forward to uncomfortably watching Bayek and Aya make out and have sex in weird places, and I'm already sad because there's no way they would show this much making out and steamy romance if they weren't going to kill Aya. Bayek has already lost his son and he lost is ring finger (symbolic for severing of the marriage??) and he's going to need some more motivation to keep assassinating for 30 more hours. WHAT IF the twist is that Bayek gets killed and you switch to playing as Aya?! That would be awesome.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Jan 31st, 2020 at 22:24:46 - Bloodborne (PS4) |
I actually beat this. I can't believe it. Take that, FromSoftware.
Bloodborne is definitely one of the most difficult games I've ever played and one that punishes you harshly for mistakes. I learned patience, lots of patience.
Here are some other things I learned that I didn't mention (or had incomplete knowledge of) in my other post:
1. If you find a good route of enemies that give lots of blood echoes (especially after you get runes that increase blood echoes), just plow through that route a handful of times and boost your level. I found a great run near the end that also supplies health potions, and I thought, "Great! I can farm health potions here if I need to!" And I did that run probably 5 or 6 times because there was a sad, weeping mother with blood on her white dress in a boss-ish looking area who I didn't want to go near. I was getting over 2 levels worth of blood echoes for that run, so I just kept doing it.
2. You might have to farm blood echoes later in the game. It's okay, very easy to do. Go back to Central Yharnam and crush all the enemies around there. You'll rack up 20+ potions and it takes like 5-10 minutes. I did it like 5 times while I was on the phone with my mom and never had to do it again.
3. If you think you might be coming up on a boss (big, open arena? check. big, double doors that you have to push open? check), don't be afraid to go back to the Dream and spend your blood echoes. It'll be relatively easy to get back to the boss and you won't lose all your experience.
4. Tired of running out of health potions on bosses? Don't use them until you can knock a chunk of the boss's life off without using one. Learn its moves. Then when you're smarter and more confident, commit to using potions and finishing the rest of the battle.
5. Learn how to do a visceral attack. I didn't know this existed until I got a run that enhanced my visceral attack. The game doesn't teach you so...I don't know how you're supposed to know. I looked it up when I saw that rune. You can do some major damage and get some rune effects.
6. Don't be afraid to use help from the summoning portal things. You can use insight to summon another hunter (NPC offline, human online). You can use the bell to summon players any time I think. I never did this. But I gather that you have to be careful because they might kill you.
7. Stat scaling on weapons is useful to pay attention to and can determine how you can best level up. I realized at some point that the sword I was favoring scaled with skill and I should quit putting points into strength.
8. Frenzy is a pain in the ass. I didn't understand how this worked until very, very late in the game in the Nightmare of Mensis. I didn't understand until then because every time I got frenzied until then I died. My resistance was super low or I just didn't get it or something. Again, no explanation for this in-game!
9. The special altars or whatever they are called are unnecessary. I went into one toward the end of the game just to see what it was. Looks like randomized or procedurally generated dungeons crawling. Probably special items in there or something. Extra content for those who love the combat I suppose.
10. Before the last boss, which has that great experience and potion run I mentioned earlier, if you don't plan on New Game Plus or anything, just sell all your shit that you don't use and level up as much as possible. I squeezed like 5 levels out of selling things and using the rest of those blood gems. I think in doing that run 5 or 6 times and selling everything, I gained about 20 levels. Perhaps that's why the last boss only took 5 or so tries.
11. The story is...hard to parse. It's told sparingly, largely through environmental means. You have to work to piece it together. I read wikis.
That's gotta be about it. I don't think I'm going to go back and play the Souls games, but I will look forward to Sekiro when the price drops. There's no way I can play too many of these kinds of games. My nerves.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Dec 30th, 2019 at 18:14:34 - Bloodborne (PS4) |
Okay, this is it. This is the one. I tried Dark Souls [checks notes] 3.5 years ago and found myself lacking. It was too hard. It has haunted me ever since. I've completed plenty of brutally difficult games. Why was Dark Souls different? My best guess is that it doesn't just punish you with time invested, but it really saps your potential progression. By that I mean, when you die, you drop all of your souls. If you die again before reaching the spot where you died to retrieve your souls, you lose them forever. Therefore, when you die, you lose the potential you had accrued to level up, and for all intents and purposes are demoted. Even though you hadn't actually spent the souls to level up, you HAD them. It's like you went to cash a check and you lost the check. You had the money, but you hadn't converted it into something usable, and it hurts just as much to lose.
SO, the PS4 I bought a few weeks ago came with a few games, Bloodborne being my most desired. I wanted to take another stab at a FromSoftware title and show them who's boss (me!). My ambition didn't go so well at first. I installed it, played an hour or two, and had flashbacks to Dark Souls. I couldn't get past the first area. I died over and over and over. It was so sad. Fuck that! I quit and picked up Nioh, another "soulsborne" game that had (gasp!) a tutorial that made me feel competent. After I went through the whole tutorial and played some of the first bit of Nioh, I had work for a week and when I came back to the PS4, decided I was not, in fact, done with Bloodborne. In fact, Nioh had prepared me (somehow) to be better at Bloodborne. Nioh had prepared me (somehow) to learn the lessons of FromSoftware games.
I booted up Bloodborne again, determined to figure out how to approach it. Fast forward a couple weeks and here I am, being successful (I think)! I've learned to deploy all my patience and all my caution. If you are slow, careful, methodical, and observant, you can tackle Bloodborne. I've written about a few extended examples, but I'm not sure what to sum up, so I'll make some notes, a couple quick stories, and elaborate later.
1. Learn enemy attack patterns. What are their tells? How far away do you need to stay? Every enemy can kill you, so don't take your chances. Wait for their tells and strike appropriately. It's not a race.
2. Don't be afraid to go back to The Hunter's Dream. In this safe zone, you can spend your blood echoes to level up, purchase items, and upgrade your weapons. Yeah, all the enemies will respawn, and that can be annoying, but you'll also learn that ...
3. You don't have to kill everything. You'll open ingenious shortcuts and learn what you can run past (often based on what probably won't drop good items anyway!), so respawning enemies are not always a big deal. Plus, you're getting better at the game, so you can dispatch them more easily.
4. Upgrade your main weapon. Yeah, there are lots of weapons, but the beginning Hunter's Axe has been working for me just fine. I bought everything else, but I've upgraded that axe as much as it'll go for now (level 6; how many levels of upgrades are there? A: At least 9.). Experiment with the weapons to see what suits you. And don't forget that you can hit L1 to alternate between two forms of your melee weapons.
5. You'll get past that first area and that first boss, the something-something-Cleric. The big bird thing. Terrifying. On the bridge. After being mauled by werewolves (explore and find the other way around). Once you get past that first boss, the game becomes easier. You won't have to farm health potions again (yet, anyway). This first area of the game is like a hazing ritual.
6. If you need help, summon someone. I'm playing offline, so I can't summon other players, but on the third boss, there was a summoning place there and I got an NPC. She tanked the boss (the one in the Grand Cathedral) and I chipped away at its health from behind. Victory. If you can't summon someone, refer to #1.
7. I'm so impressed by the interconnectedness of each area. Navigating can be disorienting, but keep wandering and you'll connect seemingly disparate locations. The other day, I wandered into an area with an enemy I couldn't kill, another area with some hazy demon that killed me, another area where I got killed by some sort of void energy that said "frenzy" on the screen, I wandered into a totally different zone (Forbidden Woods?), and through all this learned many different paths.
8. If you're not sure if you're supposed to be somewhere or not, you might need to die a few times to figure it out. Enemies crushing you? Maybe there's somewhere else to go first where you can gain some levels. It seems like wandering around and seeing everything is sufficient for being strong enough to tackle enemies and bosses.
More later. But I am LOVING this game now that I'm over the initial hump (seriously, through the first boss is just brutal). I can't wait to play more.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
