I played quite a bit of Nightreign (FromSoft) today. First, I played a few rounds with rando. That was not great. I mentioned in yesterday’s post how it can work well or terribly, depending upon how cohesive the other two players were. On the first day, I got really lucky that most of my rando teammates were quite good. In one magical run, they were beasts–utter beasts. They kept together and one of them would ping places for me to show me where to go. They (the one person) waited for me now and again, and they saved my bacon several times.
The two of them knew where to go, and I felt like I was getting the guided tour. They went field-boss heavy, which allowed us to level up several times. By the time we reached the boss (first time I reached it), we were as pumped up as we were going to be.
Much to my surprise, it was a fairly easy fight. Again, testament to my rock star teammates, and I got the last hit! I was not a liability, thankfully, and that’s all I cared about at that point in time. Once you klil the Night Lord for the first time, six of the other seven bosses unlock (as I said yesterday), and I spent the first half playing with randos. This time, they were not coordinating at all. They each went their own way, and I had to decide which one to follow.
Here’s something that is a me problem. I have a terrible sense of direction, and my reflexes are slow. This means that no matter how hard I try to keep an eye on one of my teammates, I will inevitably lose sight of them. I tried to do the second boss, and I did not even get to see it. There was no harmony with any of these teams, so I felt like the runs were wasted. I think I did three? With different teams.
Then, one of the RKG PC peeps said she was in the lobby, waiting. I joined her (after much fuss because From doesn’t make anything easy). Fix yoour shit, Frm! It was cute back in the day when multiplayer co-op was an agterthought (no, it really wasn’t), but it’s inexcusable to be this difficult in a game that is specifically a multiplayer co-op game.
We got a (rando) third, but they immediately dropped out. Connectivity issues, I’m sure. A few seconds later, they joined again. Turns out if your connectivity breaks, you can rejoin. Which is cool! The third, let’s call them Nuit, seemed to know what they were doing, so we followed him.
Then, the third RKG PC person was available to play, and we squadded up. The third person took charge, which was fine by me. He pinged on the map where we should go, and he had an agenda. Our first match was a warm-up, and we died before reaching the Night Lord. It was a good warm-up, and we decided to do one more.
It felt much more coherent, and we moved like a unit. It really helped to have chat, even though I could not talk. I ordered a headset with a mike that should be here Sunday. hopefully. It will be nice to be able to talk and not to just listen.
The problem with this run is that we did not get any smithing stones, so we could not upgrade our shit. We got plenty of levels, which was nice, but it’s pretty important to level up weapons. I found several different seals and wands, which was nice. Each staff/seal has two different spells/incantations. (staff for the former and seal for the latter).
This is weird to me, I’ll be honest with you. I am used to having a wide array of spells/incantations available to me. Having two per staff/seal feels limiting. I understand why they did it this way, but I’m not happy about it. I found a Godslayer Seal that had a Black Flame on the RB and Pest Threads on RT. That’s my comfort zone, so I used that for rest of the run. I did switch to the Glintstone Pebbles at some point, but then quickly switched back.
My biggest complaint about the Recluse is that if you run out of FP, you’re done. There are ways to get it back, but it’s not easy, and it’s another thing to stress about.I wish she would start with a melee weapon as well, but I usually find one during the run. In this game, I keep the melee weapon in my left hand, which is something I never do. I try to get a shield, too, but those don’t seem to be as plentiful.
I want to talk about the revival mechanic. I think it’s interesting that if your teammate goes down, you have to hit them to revive them. The first time, there is one bar of purple you have to deplete. Second time, two. Third time and more, three. Each bar is a third of a circle. If you are interrupted as you’re hitting your teammate, the bars slowly fill up again. During a boss fight, this is so fucking frustrating. I think if one of the bars is depleted, it should remain that way.
Also, the ring of fire moves too quickly and does way too much damage. And the color of the spirit springs are too similar to the color of the fire. It took me embarrassingly long to figure out that the former existed.
I have unlocked Remembrances in the Roundtable Hold. These are personal quests for the characters, and they’re given to you by an NPC called Iron Menial. He’s a marionette-enemy type, but he’s an NPC in this game. And the quest he gave me for the Recluse is maddeningly obtuse. Yes, that’s FromSoft’s thing, but it doesn’t really work well with this game. I have to find evidence of those who fight in the night (or something like that). I assume it’s going to be evident when I see it, but I’m not sure. Also, only one person per expedition can do a Remembrance Quest, which will make for some interesting adventures.
I did not find this out during my play session. I went back to look for something else hours later, and I just happened to stumble over it. Which, fine, but they could make it a little less obtuse.
Look. I’m all about the esoteric methods of delivering lore and such, but in this game, it just doesn’t fit. Everything is fast-paced and as straightforward to the point of stripping it down to the bare essentials. Such as leveling up. You don’t get to choose what to level up–the game does it for you.
I guess they want to keep some of their patented obscureness, which, fine. It’s just simply not needed in this game.
Also, there are two characters you have to unlock. The first is fairly easy to do, but the second? No idea. Or rather, I thought I knew because i had glanced at it online, but that doesn’t seem to be correct. I could just look it up, but I’m not sure I want to do that.
It’s a bummer, though, because it’s the character I’m most interested in. She’s different than the rest and has no equivalent in any of the games. She was revealed late, and apparently, the embargo included her ultimate. Which is weird.
If I don’t unlock her naturally in a few runs, I’m going to look it up. I want to play at her, and I think it’s ridiculous to have her unlockable be behind some nebulous win situation. Sigh.
I have a hunch that I won’t get anywhere near finishing this game. (Apparently, there is a credits roll point). We’ll see.