So. I’ve been trouncing my way through Lothric again, this time on the PS4. I’m doing it so I can help Krupa on his DS III plat run for the very first time ever! Usually, I’m the ‘well, actually’ gal in the chat, asking him if he has a moment to talk about our lord and savior, Vamos. He was a blacksmith in the original game, and he was the one who turned your weapons into fire and chaos. So, we pyros decided he was our god. After the last stream, I decided to try to tone it down a bit because it can be too much. In addition, in an aborted session, he mentioned that this run was mostly just to finish NG. He said if he was about to miss something important to tell him, but not something that can be had on a subsequent run. I think it’s because we were all shouting at him about the Sage Ring last time, but it’s really good for a caster.
But, yeah, I’m marching merrily through the game, and I’m up to the Duke’s, er, Grand Archives–right before the Twin Princes and my beloved Lorian’s Greatsword. I have the stats to wield it, and I have all the base stats I want. Well, maybe I could throw a few more into Dex so I can use Black Knight weapons in the DLCs, if I do the DLCs. I don’t need to do them to help Krupes, but I don’t like skipping. Plus, it’s a good way to beef up my stats.
Krupa is up to the Cleansing Chapel and promises an extra-long session on the Fourth of July. I find it amusing that he’s doing it on America’s Independence Day, but that’s a Brit for you. I was ready to go last time (for the aborted session), but I wasn’t feeling great about it because my character is so damn fragile in the beginning. I have to get 12 levels of Attunement for my spells to start. Then, to use my favorite pyromancy, I need 6 in Intelligence. One in Faith for Tears of Denial, but if I want to–wait. I’ll get to that in a minute. I like to use the longbow for many things, and that’s 5 in Dex. My base for Vigor and Endurance is 20, and I start with 11 and 10 respectively. My Vitality starts at 8, and I drag it up to 10 to begin with. Ideally, I like it at 15.
Let’s get even more specific. Strength-wise, I need 19 for my beloved Executioner’s Greatsword. By the way, shout-out to an overlooked weapon. It has low necessary requirements for a greatsword, and you get mana back with each kill. Focus Points, yeah, yeah, yeah. My even more beloved Lorian’s Greatsword takes 26 in Strength, and I have that. I was behind in Faith, however, because my favorite chime, Crystal Chime, takes 18 points of Faith. When I found it in the Grand Archives, I eagerly went back to upgrade it and realized to my dismay that I was one point short. I was able to level up one more time, and I’m set.
Here’s the thing. From now on out, I can level whatever I want. This is the point where I finally feel as if I’m swinging in my weight class. To be clear, I haven’t had much trouble with the game. I mean, I’ve played it so much that I can do it in my sleep. Oh! I will say, though, that with the help of a message, I found a chest I’d never known was there before. Or if I had, then I’d forgotten and hadn’t opened it in the last dozen or so times I played the game. That’s one thing I adore about FromSoft games–there are so many secrets, you can go for years without knowing them all.
I’m back to loving the game after my month-long hiatus. The not-plat run nearly broke me, so I’m overjoyed that I can play the game again and with pleasure. Still don’t love the PS4, but I’ve gotten used to it. I still can’t play for more than an hour or so, but that’s because of my outdated TV.
I’ve been trying out games that have caught my eye for one reason or the other. Summer Steam sale is a go, and I’ve been picking up things with abandon.
First up is Torchlight III, which was not a summer sale buy. I bought it because Torchlight was the first ‘hardcore’ game I played, and it has a very special place in my heart. Torchlight II was good, though I preferred the original. When Echtra Games announced they were going the more traditional route for the third game rather than freemium as initially planned, I was stoked. My first impression was that it was cute, but the character designs were, um, not great. Whatever. I brushed it aside and chose Dusk Mage because that’s how I roll. Second disappointment was that there were no cats as pets. I knew I could find more pets later, but still. I chose the Chocolate Alpaca and went onwards.
Gameplay is similar to the original. It’s a hack-n-slash, and there ain’t nothing wrong with that. Except that the loot is too much with the inventory too small. This has always been the case with Torchlight games, but it feels even more egregious here. I’m not sure why, but it does. Maybe I just have way less tolerance for it because I felt the same in Borderlands 3 as well. It doesn’t matter how much cool loot there is if you can only carry five items at a time. I exaggerate, but it’s not far from true. It’s better in TL III than in BL 3 because your pet can carry loot for you and bring it into town to sell. In both games, however, I tend to sigh and roll my eyes when I see new loot because I know that it’s mostly crap and I don’t have much space. In addition, in TL III, much of the loot is so similar except for maybe it’s fire instead of electricity! I figure out which shit to sell by looking at prices. When the prices are the same, then I just sell all of them if they’re the lowest.
The game is still in Early Access (maybe? I haven’t played in a few weeks), and I bought it the day it was placed in EA. For that reason, I’ve been more chill about the technical issues, but it’s still frustrating to be kicked off the server, stuck in town, and just not able to play the game generally. In one quest, I had to get three….neckbones of a certain creature. I don’t remember the name of the creature. Abomination, maybe? It’s a random drop from the special creatures, and by the end of the quest, I only had two. I went out and went back in to respawn the enemies, but that didn’t work. I shut down the game and started again, but no enemies. I left it until the next day, and then I was able to respawn the enemies. The most annoying glitch, though, was when I beat a boss and then the game froze and wouldn’t allow me to do the thing it was telling me to do. I tried everything I could think of in-game, and then I did a hard shutdown because the game was truly frozen. When I returned, I had to fight the boss again, which I did with little problem.
Honestly, I’m pretty forgiving of all the technical glitches because it’s EA. My bigger problem, however, is that the game just isn’t really that much fun to play. The first time I tried, the Dusk Mage felt very under-whelming. I play these kinds of games to be a goddess, and it wasn’t doing it for me. In addition, Echtra went down the ‘throw a shit-ton of mob enemies at you at the same time’, which is my least-favorite way to make a game difficult. Me constantly backing up and shooting magic out of my hands while worrying about dying was not it. In addition, the healing potions were sparse, and I died more than once to mob enemies.
This should not be happening in this kind of game. It should not take ten hits to kill a basic skellie. Echtra must have gotten a ton of feedback because the next time I played which was the day after (and they did a patch/update), the Dusk Mage was much stronger. Still. The hordes were no fun, nor were the frequent legendary enemies (or whatever they’re called). I did like the idea of the forts that you could customize, but the forts didn’t work more often than not.
I have more to say, but I’m tired so I’ll end it here and pick it up in the next post.