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[Telgin]

I beat the Final Horizon free DLC for Sonic Frontiers, effectively meaning I merely beat the game and got the true ending.

Spoiler: Rant (click to show/hide)

But... man, what an unbelievably aggravating experience.  It feels like the developers got butt hurt about people complaining that Sonic Frontiers was too easy, so everything in the free update was way overtuned and too difficult.  I actively avoided the miniboss fights because they were incredibly frustrating and weren't necessary.  I spent many minutes chipping away health on a Silver Hammer boss, only for it to just kill me.  It feels like they seriously reduced the mercy invulnerability in this game, presumably because you don't always lose all of your rings when hit.  So... smack.  Lost my rings.  Before I could get control back, smack.  Dead.

Anyway, the real frustration was the Master King Koco trial.  You have to do a boss rush with the three main bosses of the game, with 400 rings and no way to get more.  On top of that, you now have to use Perfect Parries to block attacks.  Up until now, you could just hold the parry buttons and Sonic would automatically parry stuff.  Now you have to time it.

It's abundantly clear that the bosses weren't designed with this in mind.  Their attacks have no obvious cues on when to parry because they didn't need it until now.  You have like a 1/2 second window of timing, and their attacks are fast.  Didn't guess right?  Sucks to be you.  Get good, loser.  What's worse is that for the second of the three bosses you have to get three of these perfect parries right in a row just to damage it in its second phase.  If you get any of the three wrong, you reset the cycle and waste like 15-20 rings.

What's worse than that is that every boss has a pre-fight segment that's unskippable, and also unskippable mini cutscenes during phase transitions.  That second boss I mentioned has a 90 second segment of you running on a track to get to it, which you have to do every single time you fail.  Each attempt can take up to 10 minutes or so overall.

In total, it took me about 5 hours over the course of 3 days to beat the trial, but I got it on the first try today.  I don't even care that the achievement here was just beating it.  I beat it and I never have to do it again!  What a relief!

I'm scared by the fact that this was evidently after they made it easier because it was even harder at one point.

The final battle afterward was trivial by comparison, though I did get spoiled on having to hit a specific part of it to damage it.  That apparently really annoyed a lot of people.  The game does not go out of its way to explain things to you.  Also, much jank.  I can't count how many times I hit a button to combo something and it just didn't work.  Or something else went bizarrely wrong, like Sonic flying through grind rails or catapulting off in seemingly random directions because I bumped the the control stick during a choreographed bounce pad / ring segment.

I like a lot of ideas in this game, but man, it's rougher than sandpaper.  It needed so much more polish.

[nenjin]

Semi-related, I'm over parrying mechanics. Feels like every game has them now, and when whole bosses are built off of parrying, it feels like it's missed the point of the mechanic. Parries are supposed to be high-risk, high-reward. Not "you must do this or you lose." I just watched some indie game showcase where parrying was a core mechanic. Like, you get a shield to parry with before you even get a permanent weapon, and parrying does damage to the enemy. It instantly killed my interest in the game.

[TurboDwarf]

parrying existing is the reason why I play wizards in souls games. I can't hit parries, i always do them too early. Sometimes i dip my toes into melee play and get humbled though lol.

[Egan_BW]

Parries basically aren't necessary in any souls game, especially because there's a ton of attacks you just can't parry at all. Enemy has to be a humanoid attacking you with a weapon in melee, which doesn't actually happen that often. Not all that many bosses apply, and the little human guys who you can parry, you can also just... stunlock em and kill em.

I much prefer the parry mechanic in Sekiro. If you do it too early you just get a normal block. In that game you probably can't beat it without learning how to deflect, but there's also room for not being perfect at it.

[nenjin]

Yeah, Sekiro getting away from the whole concept of "critical attacks" and just moving to posture, and changing parrying to go along with that, is probably the best iteration of the system to date.

[TurboDwarf]

I've been meaning to play Sekiro for a long time, but have never got around to it. I just don't have a ton of free time anymore, sadly.

[lemon10]

parrying existing is the reason why I play wizards in souls games. I can't hit parries, i always do them too early. Sometimes i dip my toes into melee play and get humbled though lol.

As the others have said parries are very much not needed for melee runs in any of the soulslikes aside from Sekiro. Honestly parrying is kind of a trap since you need to get the timing perfect compared to blocking (no timing window) or dodging (much more generous timing window).
As someone that also sucks at parrying I have beaten all the games with melee chars, dodging/blocking is more than enough.
As someone who has also beaten all the soulslikes with magic (sans blood-borne) melee is generally substantially easier than magic.

I've been meaning to play Sekiro for a long time, but have never got around to it. I just don't have a ton of free time anymore, sadly.

The game is a masterpiece. If you like soulslikes its certainly worth a try when you have some time for games.

[Akura]

Completed an imaginary scenario, "Imperial attack on rebel Clone holdout". After many attempts across several days.

That's me, wearing full Stormtrooper armor, wielding an E-11 blaster, and a pack of thermal detonators. Plus a vanilla basic knife, which I always have on me. Magic was forbidden, obviously, I'm not a Jedi(that run* was in fact just as hard). Outpost map was set to Clone Troops to spawn.

This one is especially hard because the E-11 is basically the worst blaster ever. Poor accuracy, poor damage, and poor fire rate. The Clones' pistol is a better weapon.

Nearly lost at the midpoint room, which happened to be the Farm/Smithy area. Immediately on my left was a Shield Trooper(carries a big riot shield). Whiffed multiple attempts at stabbing his throat. Finally got him, but two of his buddies, Clone Troopers with rifles, were approaching me from behind. I tried to grab the shield, but couldn't reach it, so I ran at one of the troopers, grabbing his gun and shot him in the face with mine. I didn't have time(nor inclination) to try to get my hand on the trigger of the rifle, so I used it as a shield while firing my E-11... which worked far better than it had any right to(like, better than a lightsaber). The last guy was camping in the smithy, so I kicked him into the spot below the mill-hammer, and dropped a thermal detonator. Almost died because the door jammed when I tried to leave.

Got to the finale, which was the one with one exit. That battle was me staying up at the top of the wall, dropping grenades below and ambushing anyone who made it up the stairs. At the end of it, I grabbed a fallen riot shield, charged down and finished all the remaining Clone Troopers.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Blade & Sorcery, Outer Rim mod.

[pisskop]

I miss precision games like 3d ninja guidan.  You could get away with not know exactly how to perfect parry every time on normal, by chugging down all your healing, but the game expected you to learn the bosses and play well

Thats probably a lot of nostalgia goggles, but before games expected you to parry everything, there were games that were built on having a finely tuned sense for the game.

[nenjin]

My last memory of Ninja Gaiden 3d was it autosaving me in the middle of a boss fight with zero heals left.

[Akura]

First time I played this game, Marcy kicked my ass. Several times. This time though, she got hit in the face with several fireballs(her weakness). She tried to heal, but that was undone and then some by a magic wand being teleported into her intestines. She ganked Guile right after, but another couple of hits finished her right after.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Chrono Cross: Radical Dreamers release. Dumb trivia: the first three possible recruits are all girls, and all three are optional. The first non-optional character besides Serge is a mutually exclusive choice of three, all of whom are men. Between all the possible recruits, none have a Green innate; one White, one Red, one Yellow, one Black, and the rest are Blue. The first Green character is part of the second mutually exclusive choice, though neither is the first recruit resulting from that choice.

[Frumple]

Got the "That's How It's Played" cheevo in Theseus Protocol.

... for reference, TP is a slay the spire style deck builder. You get the cheevo when you win a run without playing any cards :V

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The easiest way to do this is apparently a heavily blue spec'd antiope with selfless (autoattack with your weapon if you don't play anything) that purges everything from their deck that's not parry cards, which don't count as being used when they're, well, used.

By the final boss (which in base difficulty has 3 forms with 300 hp each) my end turn button dealt >200 damage and I was blocking for more than it was dealing damage. Silly stuff. It's honestly kinda' odd the achievement only has a .8% rate considering how little thought it involves to nab, hah

[Akura]

Got jumped by a mob of about half a dozen angry peasants. In a game where engaging more than 1v1 makes a fight significantly harder. Pulled out my pentarch and started cracking skulls. I've gotten skilled and equipped to the point where getting swarmed by filthy peasants is more practice than challenge. Maces are even my worst weapon skill.

I'll give the peasants credit though, each of them stood and fought, unlike the bandits I dealt with before, or the Cumans before the bandits.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

[AlStar]

After 133 deaths, a combination of luck, skill, and wandcrafting brought me victory.

What really secured the run was finding a wand that had the spell modifier "Projectile Area Teleport", which causes whatever spell it's connected with to teleport directly on top of enemies within a small range. I combined that with a (fairly piddly, but fast moving and accurate) bolt that casts two spells when it hits something, and linked it with two casts of "Death Cross", which is, as the game describes it "a deadly energy cross that explodes after a short time."

Combine that with my wizard's own perk of Minor Homing, and projectiles from this wand would arc towards the nearest enemy, and once they got anywhere near it, teleport straight into their guts with a dual energy cross... which, if that didn't instantly kill them, exploded for additional damage.

I still had to be careful - especially since I'd never even seen two of the lower levels of the game, so I didn't know what to expect from the monsters there - but luckily I'd also picked up the perk All-Seeing Eye, which let me see all around me, so I could snipe around corners, and, due to the teleporting projectiles, even through thin walls.

In the end, I only got the most basic victory - I didn't venture into the overworld or kill any of the optional bosses - but, hey, it's a win!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Noita

[Akura]

Unlocked Fire magic in story mode. Even at the first tier of the spell, the unlockable abilities that are available look very fun, some of which weren't there before release. Bouncing fireballs off terrain(they home in on a nearby enemy if they can), causing fiery weapons to spray fire when swung, causing people on fire to spread that fire to others. Oh yes.

Did a round on Canyon, partly because I also unlocked T2 gear in the shop and needed money. Second to last kill of the match, an archer tried taking at me from the opposite side, imbuing fire in his arrow. I threw a fireball, and guided it directly into his face, his arrow loosed upon death harmlessly into the canyon. The last guy, I bounced fireballs off the ground into his chest before TK-slamming a vase into his ass.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Blade & Sorcery. The release update is awesome.