Tag: Capcom | A Banana Peeled

Dark Souls III for life

Posted on January 14, 2023 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

Dark Souls III is the best From game.

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk, and….

I’m just kidding. I don’t think it’s the best FromSoft game, I don’t think it’s even the second-best From game. It’s my favorite, though, which is vastly different. Elden Ring is second by a hair, and I don’t thnk that’s the best From game, either. I will say that I think it’s innovative and will redefine a genre (open world games) in a way DS III isn’t and won’t, but again, I’m talking favorites here.

It’s funny. Last night in Ian’s chat (he was playing Mon Hun Rise by CAPCOM), I mentioned that I tapped out at Iceborne, the DLC for MHW. I said that it was above my paygrade, meaning it was too hard for me. The person in the chat said that he thought MHW was too easy and Iceborne is when he really got interested. He (I’m assuming he, and I would bet money on it) said that I was the only person he knew who did not like Iceborne. Or maybe he meant Ian because Ian voiced similar feelings.

In the same chat, he said that he never finished Elden Ring because he was a squishy mage and everyone was mean to him. WHat I did not say, but could have, was exactly what he said to me. That I did not know anyone who could not finish Elden Ring (though it would not be true) and that it was easy compared to, say the DLC of DS III. I wouldn’t, of course, because that would be rude, But he thought nothing of laughing at me and saying he didn’t know anyone who didn’t like Iceborne.

I wasn’t mad at him, mind. I just marveled at how insular his thinking was. again, I know it’s human nature to use yourself as the metric of normality, but most people can nominally understand that other people may not feel theh same way they do. I will say, though, that the more you hew to the ‘norm’ (white cis het middle-class man), the less you have to think about how other people view things.

Popular culture is not for me part deux

Posted on January 25, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I was talking yesterday about how I really don’t like most of pop culture. I meandered through music, movies, and TV shows, before talking about video games. But I quickly latched onto the indie games I didn’t like instead of sticking with the more mainstream ones, even though I did touch on a few more mainstream games. but I didn’t like the fact that I focused more on indies because at least they are trying to do something different.

So. Some of the mainstream games I didn’t like. Rockstar Game’s GTA V and their Red Dead Redemption. I did not play either because neither appealed to me. The latter because I don’t like cowboy stuff and the former because I don’t like psychotic narcissists. I don’t find them amusing or entertaining, and I definitely do not want to play as one. Plus the whole sexist, racist, other ist bullshit in that game. It just did not appeal to me at all.

The same is true for games like Assassin’s Creed. Now, I have to say fuck Ubisoft. They are mired in sexual abuse accusations, which they have swept under the rug. That said, I never really cared about the AssCreed games. I didn’t try any of them until the one with the twins was free on Game Pass (or Epic Store? Or Origins? Whatever. I got it for free). I fired it up and really enjoyed playing as Evie, the female twin. Jacob, on the other hand, was a loutish buffoon. I loathed him and refused to play as him except on the quests when I couldn’t play as Evie. And for the fight club stuff. I enjoyed it for many hours, 100%ing each area until they opened a new area with a new protagonist, and I suddenly lost all interest. I tried to play AssCreed…the one in Egypt, but it would not run properly on my computer. I had a well-known bug and none of the fixes for it worked.

I don’t like multi games at all so I’m not going to talk about them. I do want to mention another indie because I really think it’s a long troll. It’s Undertale by Toby Fox and it’s a critical darling. So much gushing over it in the indie circles. I went into it not knowing much about it and was eager to see what all the fuss was about.

I HATED it from the very start. I tried to push my disdain aside because I wanted to see the charm, but after forty-five minutes, I admitted defeat. I shut it down and never touched it again. Ian also tried it and did not like it so we could commiserate over our mutual dislike of a beloved indie game.

I think I just don’t like most pop culture in general–that includes novels, by the way. I tried to read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and could not get past the first chapter. I tried three times before finally giving up. Same with Gone Girl by….Gillian Flynn. I could not make it out of the first chapter. When I was getting my MA for Writing & Consciousness (yes, that was the program’s name), we had to read James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and I loathed it with every fiber of my body. What a whiny, sniveling, self-important asshole. When I finished reading the book, I threw it across the room and screamed in frustration. Up until that point, I made a point of finishing every book I started. After I finished that book, I immediately released myself from that because life is way too short to read a book I didn’t like at all.

Falling off Monster Hunter Rise

Posted on January 22, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I was really digging Monster Hunter Rise (Capcom), pouring hours into it as I had into Monster Hunter World, the previous iteration. i was zipping through the village quests at a speed that surprised me because in MHW, I took my time and did quests over and over again to make armor and weapons. And, of course, I had to make armors for my Palico, Shadow. (Raven was my Poogie. In this game, Raven is my Palamute. Always with me in spirit). I put over 300 hours in MHW and barely touched the Tempered Elder Dragons–and hardly played Iceborne at all. I loved the game and really got into the grind. I wanted every switch-axe and didn’t care how long it took to get them. Not even having to get THREE Vaal Hazak jaws. I think? I looked it up. It was the final form of the Anjanath switch-axe, which needs FIVE Vaal Hazak fangs. Vaal Hazak is an Elder Dragon, just in case it’s not clear.

I did all that cheerfully, buying harder-to-get materials when they became available. I did quests over and over and over again until I got all the materials I needed. I did it willingly and cheerfully, never tiring of killing or capturing the mons over and over again.

In between each hunt, I loved going around the town and talking to all the important people. The blacksmith, the one with the optional quests, visiting the captured mons, etc. I pet my Poogie every time (not a euphemism) and grew things in the garden. My loop in the town took me ten to twenty minutes and was part of the enjoyment I derived from the game.

In MHR, however, there simply isn’t as much of a reason to visit the townspeople. There’s the blacksmith, yes, and the pal blacksmith, who, by the way, is never specifically mentioned. Or if they are, it’s so fleeting, I didn’t remember. So I didn’t know how to make armor for my pals until I asked Ian about it. That was several hours into the game. I fully believe the game mentioned it at some point, but they dump so much information on the player at the beginning without distinguishing between what is important and what isn’t.

They got rid of the optional quest giver and just mooshed it into your handler. Or in this game, the village quest maiden (as opposed to her twin, the hub quest maiden). I didn’t like the handler in the last game (as did not a a lot of players, as evidenced by the introduction of a new handler in Iceborne who was much better), but at least she only had one job–to handle your main quests.

The one true (Elden) Ring to rule them all

Posted on January 19, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

So I’ve been playing a shit ton of Monster Hunter: Rise (Capcom) and it’s highly addictive. In my last post, I wrote about some of the issues I have with the game. However, over all, it’s very much a popcorn game. Meaning, I want to glut myself on it even though it has no emotional/nutritional value It’s empty calories, but very tasty ones. It has that ‘just twenty more minutes’ feel to it and I can melt away hours with it without even being aware of it.

As I said in my last post, I tend to do all the smaller quests first. In part, it’s a good way to stock up on materials and monies before tackling the big guys. The beginning quests aren’t that hard–in fact, they are downright easy. Ian thinks the one, two, and three-star quests (how far we both are) are easier than Monster Hunter: World so far. I tend to agree as I haven’t broken a sweat with any of the big mons and it seems to be taking less time than it did for the same level of quests in MHW. I never carted in the first three star levels in MHW, but killing some of the monsters took more than half an hour. In MHR, the only reason they take that long is because of the goddamn maps. I’m still getting fucked up on the verticality, especially in the forest region. I just discovered/remembered that the map shows the different levels of the biomes, which should be helpful, but somehow isn’t really.

Be very very quiet; I’m hunting mons

Posted on January 18, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

Amusing note: I called this the same thing I called my last Monster Hunter post. I thought to myself as I was typing the title, “Hm, I’ve probably used something similar before, or even the same.” I went to the last post so I could reread what I had written. Lo and behold, there was the exact same title.

I’ve put in several more hours into Monster Hunter Rise (Capcom), which is how I play games. I pick one big one at a time and then get well and truly stuck in. There are things I like. better about MHR than MHW and things I like about the same. There are very few things I like less, but that’s because the games are pretty similar. It’s hard not to compare the two as they are the only Mon Hun games I’ve played (well, I tired an earlier iteration on the 3DS for a few hours and hated it, but I don’t really count that. I put well over 300 hours into MHW and really enjoyed it until the Tempered Elder Dragons. That’s when it zoomed out of my capability zone and while I was able to kill the Tempered Eldered Dragons, I didn’t have any fun doing it and it didn’t feel like skill at all. I had a Switch-Axe that was made from Nergigante material. It greatly negated other Elder Dragons’ ultimates. Until I got to Tempered Elder Dragons and then it didn’t. At that point, I was no longer adept at dodging the ultimates and I didn’t want to relearn how to do it.

That and Iceborne killed all interest I had in that game and it made me wary in picking up MHR. Really, it was Ian’s positive response to the game that pushed me to giving it a try. As is my wont, I jumped in with both feet once I bought it. I am a weirdo in that I do all the gathering quests first and then the slaying small monsters quests before doing the hunt the big monster quests. I don’t know how I got in that habit, but it’s stuck from MHW.

One thing frustrating about the Mon Hun games is that they throw so much at you in the beginning without differentiate between what’s important and what isn’t. For example, it’s nice that you can talk to so many villagers, but I would like to know which are important and which aren’t. It’s not hard to figure out, but it is a bit frustrating. Knowing how to use the camera? It that really necessary? Knowing how to use the wirebugs? Very important! The candy girl is cute and all, but she’s not giving me anything that helps with my questing. The blacksmith who smiths armor/weapons for my pals? VERY important! Also, the scrap system for said armor/weapons, also important. Fish merchant who doesn’t sell me anything? Not so important.

I’m on the hunt I’m after mons

Posted on January 16, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

For the past week or so, I was pondering God of War (Santa Monica Studio) versus Monster Hunter Rise (Capcom). They are both ‘old’ games that just got PC ports, which is why I’m interested. Even though I have a PS4, I am not going to buy any game for that console if I can avoid it. In addition, I don’t care if I play a game when it first comes out so it wasn’t that I HAD to buy one of the games right at this moment. However, I’m going to be playing Elden Ring (FromSoft) from the moment it comes out (hopefully, February 25th) to the end of time.

I want a game to tide me over until that date, not that I can’t play Dark Souls III until then. I’m currently in NG+4 on the Road to Sacri–wait. No. I beat the Crystal Sage, I think. Maybe? Anyway, I’m around there. No, I think I still have to fight the CS in this cycle. And I’m still dipping in Cozy Grove every day as well as Dorfromantik. But I hunger for a new game because I’ve been playing those three games for the past several months. Cozy Grove, it’s been nine months. Dorfromantik has been at least four. As for Dark Souls III, well, I’ve been playing that game since 2016.

It’s a bit strange to me that I was considering a new game that I would only play for a month-and-a-half. I mean, I could play it past then, but let’s be real. Once Elden Ring drops, that’s all I’m going to be playing for the foreseeable future. I might still check in on Cozy Grove, but I don’t like to play two action adventure games at the same time–in part because the buttons are never the same. Any time I go back to Dark Souls, I come perilously close to hitting an NPC. One time, I had a controller that eventually broke the B button. I broke it. Not on purpose, but because I use it so much. B is run/roll/dodge/quickstep in Souls games and I’m pressing in almost constantly as I play the games.

I asked my brother what I could do and he said I could map roll to another button. I laughed because that’s unthinkable. Soulslikes are always trying to differentiate themselves and one way is by having different buttons. Which, fine. Go for it. But do not touch the B button–just don’t. I found out many years after I started playing Souls games that their button scheme is considered weird and bad, but it’s all I know so it’s default for me. Anyway, one soulslike I actually liked was Salt and Sanctuary by Ska Studios, which was a cartoon-y soulslike. It was an homage–veering dangerously close to copying. It’s clear that they love Souls games and wanted to do something that was very similar–in 2D. Anyway, they put roll on…either RT or LT. And it wasn’t rebindable. I watched a few people play it and every single one mentioned that particular tidbit. By the time I got around to buying it, it was rebindable, thankfully.

More about dem souls

Posted on January 15, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

Dark Souls III is my favorite FromSoft game. I probably don’t need to say that by now, but it’s worth repeating. By the way, I’m in NG+4 at the moment and was playing a bit for funsies. One of my favorite things to do is break everything once I’m this far in the game. I just cheesed the Curse-rotted Greatwood with Pestilent Mist which is the shit. It eats away at the humanity of any non-dead creature–including the caster. So ,with the Curse-rotted Greatwood, it is, indeed, a big tree. It has, ah, shall we say, danglies between its legs. In other words, great big balls. And you’re supposed to hit it in the balls. Pustules. There are clusters on its back and limbs as well. You can break any or all of the cluster of pustules. Once you break a certain amount of them, the tree breaks the floor and we both fall down to our death–no, of course not. We just fall down to a level below and continue the fight.

Here’s the thing, though. With Pestilent Mist (which taken 30 Intelligence and used to be massively OP when it was Pestilent Mercury. So much so, they nerfed it), the tree doesn’t break the floor. No idea why, but my guess is because you’re not actually breaking the pustules with it. But, the thing is, you can do the same thing with pyromancy. With the Chaos Bed Vestiges pyromancy, I’ve managed to also have the tree not break the floor. But Pestilent Mist is funny because you’re not actually attacking the enemy–you’re engulfing them (and you) in a mist that eats away at them over time.

Anyway, I decided I might want to try killing–*spoilers*–the Dancer because why not sequence break? But I also didn’t want to fight her alone even though I rarely have trouble with her. So I went online to see if I could summon someone. The second I went online, i was invaded. I let a tough-ish regular enemy kill me because I like robbing the invaders of their kill (even though they still reap the rewards) and went about my business. I have many many humanities so I don’t mind wasting one now and again. But I hate invaders. But I’m impressed that people are still playing this much later. And I love that I can get human summons with regularity, especially on weekends. Anyone who’s still playing at this point is very good. Me? Not so good, but I’m a decent summon for a few bosses.

Fearing the new and the After Times

Posted on May 12, 2021 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

In a few days, I will be fully vaxxed. And I’m still feeling the effects from the second shot. This is not to discourage anyone from getting the shots. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. It’s just that I am the type who wants to have all the information available so I can make a good decision and prepare for it. Because I knew the second shot was worse than the first for many people and I had looked up the possible side effects, I was prepared. It helped that I knew I was someone who reacted badly to shots in general. I had a reaction to the first shot and I had a small achy bump on the jab site until I got my second shot three weeks and one day later.

I bought easy-to-eat foods before the second shot (ha! I first wrote boss), including gluten-free crackers and Kite Hill Cracked Black Pepper soft spreadable plant-based cheeze (no dairy). I was prepared to do nothing more than feed my cat and watch endless YouTube videos, which was pretty much what I did. It’s almost two weeks after the shot and I’m still tired as fuck. My arm is a little sore and I get body aches randomly, but I’d say I’m 75% better. So tired, though. So very tired.

Veering wildly, I’ve been watching Eurogamer’s Aoife Wilson play Resi VIII because I like her and I like Lady D, even though I am not a Resi fan. I don’t find horror games scary at all. I don’t know why that is. Actually, I don’t find horror movies that scary, either–especially the kind with jump scares. Psychological horror is different. But, the last Resi, eh. It was just body horror, which I don’t like at all. I will say that PT by Kojima was very tense, but that’s probably the closest I’ve gotten to scared while watching a game. I’m squeamish in that sense. But scary? No. I didn’t find Resi 7 scary at all. Then again, I didn’t play it. But I like the aesthetics of Resi VIII and the vampire ladies, of course. Oh, who the hell am I kidding? It’s all about Lady D. I just adore her in a large part because she’s a middle-aged woman who looks her age* and she’s not stereotypically hot.

I just went down the rabbit hole of reading the tweets from Maggie Robertson who voices and did the mo-cap for Lady D. She is definitely not what I expected (blond and cheerful) and I am here for it. She’s a delight and so appreciative of all the Lady D love. I want to be Lady D for Halloween or some other time when I can dress up. I have the boobs to do her justice and she just ticks off all my boxes. For cosplaying, I mean. I still find it funny that people are SO thirsty for her, but I’m glad. Anyway, I’m tired. This is all for now.

A little bit of this, a whole lotta that

Posted on May 7, 2021 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

Feeling much better, but still exhausted. Arm a bit swollen and sore, but not hot. Was a bit burny earlier this morn (had a wee relapse last night), but that’s gone now. I am ready for a nap, however, and I’ve only been awake for a few hours. Last evening, I had an irresistible urge to sleep and ‘napped’ for four or so hours when I normally would be awake. Still pared down my taiji weapons routine this morning. Still not feeling up to anything but the basics.

Anyhoo! Still playing the hell out of Cozy Grove by Spry Fox. I’ll get to that in a second. I tried out the Resident Evil Village demo, which surprised the fuck out of me because I normally DGAF about Resi games. I know it’s heresy to say, but I don’t find them scary and having come to gaming late, the tank controls are just too damn frustrating. I did try Resi 4 and gave up after an hour or so. It just wasn’t my jam. However. The aesthetics of Resi VIII are right up my alley. Moody, goth, hot vampire ladies? Yes, please. By the way, I find it amusing that Lady D has taken the internet by storm. Yeah, she’s hot and all that, but the over-the-top thirst is, well, outre. I do like that she’s a middle-aged woman who’s not stereotypically hot, but I don’t get the rampant lust over her and her daughters.

I only played ten minutes or so of the demo and five of those minutes were me interacting with the Duke (shopkeeper). Why? Because while I can watch other people play if they’re not whipping the camera around too quickly, the first-person bobbing got to me immediately. I hate it! I really wish I didn’t have these issues with first-person perspective, but there you go. I do like that both Andy (Oxbox) and Aoife (Eurogamer) uploaded reviews and they were diametrically opposing. Andy loved it and the story, thought it was a spiritual successor to Resi 4, and super spooky. Aoife thought the lore was rushed, not scary, and a disappointment to Resi fans who wanted more. Oh, and Andy liked Ethan (main protag) more this game whereas Aoife still found him bland and boring. They both are huge Resi fans. I would love to see them have at it with their opinions.

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