Ever since coming home from the hospital, I’ve been relying on old games to bring me comfort. I still dip into Cozy Grove (Spry Fox) on the daily, but there’s not much to do. I really appreciate that they add new content every season and a season-appropriate festival every quarter. I’m eager to see what they do for Christmas, which should be in a week or two. Other than that, though, there really isn’t much to do. Yes, I can capture the new insects and fish, but that’s not really an incentive to play more of the game. I’m not mad about it, to be clear. I’ve been playing the game for eight months, which is good value! And it’s so cute, I don’t mind that there isn’t much to do any longer. I love that there are new outfits for each festival, which gives me one reason to visit during the fests.
Another game that is a comfort to me is Dark Souls III. It’s my favorite game of all time and I’ve played it dozens of times (I’m counting each NG plus cycle as another time playing it). It’s the first game I thought of trying to play once I was conscious again. I was nervous booting it up because I didn’t know what I would do if I couldn’t play it any longer. I think it was a week or so after returning home? Maybe two? Time is fuzzy at this point. This was the first game I tried after coming home from the hospital. To my relief, it was just as instinctual as it had been before. I kept it easy–killing scrubs outside Firelink Shrine–and I actually had tears in my eyes because it feltso good.
Now, I’m up to NG++ and about halfway through the game When I did the second DLC in NG+, there were summons for three of the four bosses. For the first boss, I used the two NPC summons and rocked it fairly easily. Which was funny because I had dragged my feet before doing this boss. I really hate this particular boss because there are two phases and the second phase is a whole different boss. It’s just long and tedious, much like all the fights of this DLC. Except the Halflight, Spear of the Church, which is the boss fight in which the boss can be a human player. This is my least-favorite boss in the whole series because I suck at PVP. The fact that it’s not optional makes it even worse.
I got summons for Midir, Halflight, and Gael. Once I’ve beaten a boss solo, I have no compunction about summoning to beat the boss. I’ve killed all the bosses in all the Souls games (except the co-op bosses in the DLCs of Dark Souls II, which is utter bullshit–and they’re all repeat bosses, anyway), which means I can summon as much as I want. I have not killed three of five bosses solo in the DLC of Bloodborne and of course I’ve beaten all the bosses solo in Sekiro because you can’t summon for it. Damn. That means I only have the three bosses in the BB DLC. Well, shit. Ludwig, Laurence, and the Orphan of Kos. I was actually surprised to be able to find summons so easily because I played the game years after it was released, but that’s the FromSoft games for you. They engender a passion from people that has them–us–playing the games repeatedly.
Another fun thing I do once I’ve played the games several times is cheese the bosses. For example, I just fought Wolnir and normally, you trigger the boss, wake him up, and hack away at the bracelets on his wrists. He summons skeletons to pester you and a big fuck-off sword that can explode. And the darkness can engulf and curse you. It’s not a hard fight and it’s never taken me more than a few tries to beat him. I read that the cheese is to use Pestilent Mist on him without even procking him and he doesn’t move during the whole fight as the Pestilent Mist eats away at him. Is it an exciting way to fight the boss? Hell no! Is it fun and funny? Hell yes! In fact, I used Pestilent Mist on the Curse-Rotted Greatwood and the random stray fire demon under Wolnir. It’s also good on Midir. And I’ve done it on the Two Princes before in the second phase paired with the invisibility spell.
This game is so meaningful to me, I was quoting from an ’80s trailer of it to Ian after I woke up. The taigline for that video was, “When you pick a fight with the devil, you better be stronger than hell.” OK, the actual tagline is Stronger Than Hell, but I like the whole quote better. I said it several times to Ian, adding that I had beaten the devil twice. Later, I apologized for jabbering at him for half an hour and for repeating that line over and over again. He said that it was only like five minutes and he was just so happy to hear my voice, he didn’t care what I was saying.
I’ve also been playing Dorfromantik by Toukana Interactiveon the daily as well. It’s a relaxed chill game that can be played while listening to a podcast or listening to a video I’ve watched several times already. These are the three games I keep returning to after trying other games.
I tried the Tunic (by Andrew Shouldice) demo, which is a souls-zelda-like but supposedly super-hard. The protagonist is a super-cute and cuddly animated fox who just makes me want to hug them in delight. It’s really hard, though, and I think it veers into unfair territory. There are these octopus-like enemies who spin frantically and there’s a place where there are three of them. Oh, they explode when they die. If you time it right, the first one exploding will kill the other two. If you don’t time it exactly right, however, they surround you and whirl you to death. And as someone with bad reflexes, it’s frustrating to be killed in this manner.
I’ve said over and over again that the line between difficult-but-fair and too difficult is razor-thin. I felt as if this game crossed over the line sometimes and left me frustrated. I finished the demo and I have concerns about the game. I’ll still buy it, of course, but I’m not as enthused about it as I was before trying the demo.
I bought two games that could be considered cozy in the last few weeks. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (Snoozy Kazoo) and Wytchwood (Alientrap). I’ll write more about them in a future post.