Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: disabilities

Hades II (Supergiant Games): I might be done, part two

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I am still thinking about whether I want to continue playing Hades II (Supergiant Games)  or not. I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I suddenly realized that one of the boses I thought I could not beat might not be the last boss on that path (of the two paths available). Well, I beat that boss, and I was right. It’s not the last boss on that path. I have no idea why I thought it might be as it’s the third boss, and there are four on the other side. There were four in the last game, too, so why did I think there would be three on this path?

Well, one, this path is markedly more difficult after the first level. The second level and boss are a leap up. The second boss on the down path is no joke, but for the most part, I can get comfortably past that boss with the right acoutrements. There is a mini-boss on that level, however, who is an absolute nightmare. The level of difficulty with the mini-bosses varies way too much.

Weirdly, the third boss on the downwards path is relatively easy. I have little problem with the boss and–

*SPOILERS*

I’m still going to try to keep this as vague as possible, but the third boss on the downwards path is an NPC in the first game. I have a theory that the reason this boss isn’t that hard in this game (compared to the other bosses) is because they (generic they) don’t really want to hurt you. They know you’re Hades’ daughter and Zagreus’s sister, somewhere deep inside them. Otherwise, I can’t made sense of why they are so easy. I appreciate it, mind, as the boss of the final area is way too hard in my opinion.

I have maxed out my relationships with three NPCs, and they’re all siblings. It’s been interesting to pursue each character–wait. I might have maxed out another. One of my Olympiad relationships. With two of the siblings I mentioned before, I eavesdropped on two of them talking–about me. One of them was a bit jealous that I was paying attention to the other. It was strange because in the prior game, no one was jealous of anyone–and I romanced everyone I could in that game as well. In fact, I was able to have a threesome, which I have yet to see anyone else mention. As I’ve said before, there are a lot of steps to make it happen and I was not expecting it, so it was a surprising delight when the scene unfurled before my eyes.

I have to say, I’m a little disappointed in the romance dialogues this time. I still thoroughly enjoyed maxing out each relationship, but I felt that I got to the conclusion to many of them so quickly. In the last game, it took ages to conclude some of the relationships. I understand why they wanted to make it easier in this game (it really did take too long in the first game), but I think they overcorrected.


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Hades II (Supergiant Games): I might be done

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I may be done with Hades II (Supergiant Games). There will be spoilers throughout the post, but nothing that wasn’t really shown in the first trailer. Well, one thing wasn’t specifically revealed (at least not that I can remember); I’ll ttry to keep that as vague as possible.

*SPOILER*

The big boss down below that does thousand points of damage? There’s no way around that. There’s no trick to it or a way to cheese it; he does that damage no matter what. There are two or three different moves he does that each end up with that thousand points of damage, and the solution is to stand EXACTLY in the spaces that aren’t covered by his bullshit and wait until the bullshit is gone.

I think you can see my issue with this if you’ve read any of my other posts about my biggest difficulties in games. In order to do this, you have to spot the safe spot as the lights are moving, and then race to it in time not to get hit. I read up on the way to fight this boss, and it’s basically hit him once or twice when you can, then race to the tiny spot where you’re safe as he constricts the arena around you, then wait for alllllllllllll that bullshit to go before hitting him once or twice again.

This is the second phase of the fight with the first phase being bullshit, but at least manageable. I have said it before and I’ll say it again–a boss should not be able to one-shot you. At least not if you have a reasonable amount of health. Well, I don’t think at all,  but that’s up for debate. In this case, though, it’s an amount of health taken from you that you could not withstand at all.

Here are my issues: I can’t track all the things that are happening on the screen during the boss fight. This is not the first boss fight (or fight in general, actually), in which I find this to be true, but it’s by far the worst. My brain cannot process what is happening as it happens. I’m sure most people have no problem with it, but that’s why it’s called a disability. Even if I wouldn’t give it the ofificial title of ‘disability’, I certainly feel as if it’s one.

I also have depth perception issues, which means that I can’t tell how far or near something is. At least not with precision. Of course, I can tell if something is ten feet from me versus two feet, but three inches versus four? Nope. Add to that the fact that my twitch reflexes are shot, and this game may be too much for me.


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Neurodiversity and me, part four

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I have a lot more to say about neurodivergency and society. In yesterday’s post, I talked about how society is more aware of the issue in general these days than, say, twenty years ago. Some people complain that everyone thinks they’re neurodivergent these days (much like some people complain that everyone thinks they’re nonbinary/trans/genderfluid these days, and much like twenty years ago, some people complained that everyone thought they were queer/gay these days) because it’s more talked about. As with any other issue like this, it’s not that there are more in the category (though there very well might be), but that people are more aware that the…issue–by the way, I’m not happy with using that word, but I can’t think of another at the moment.

This is a good thing. Itt is always a good thing to have more exposure for things such as this. This meaning neurodiversity, sexual orientation, gender orientation, etc. I would also add mental health issues to that list. It’s a plus when the society at large realizes that not everyone thinks/is/acts/believes the way they do. It really is that simple (and that complicated).

Here’s the thing about (in this case) autism. If it’s true that I have it, then it’s been fifty years I’ve been living with it. (Pllus a few). It’s not as if I suddenly got it in my twenties or thirties. That means I’ve had it, undiagnosed, for a half century.

Why didn’t I even think it could apply to me for much of that time? Because of society, quite frankly. The fact that it’s always portrayed in a certain way (male, unempathetic, constantly stimming, flat affect, etc.) was a massive hindrance to me even thinking it might be possible.

It wasn’t until my friend, A, told me to think about it without adding the mask/filter to it that I realized, wait, it might be possible.

Flat affect? Yes when I don’t put effort into it.

Side note: I think part of the reason I like being alone so much is that it’s so exhausting for me to try to act like everyone else. At this point in my life, I’m just off by a degree at all times, which is in some ways more exhausting than being completely out of sync with the norm. Because I feel like I’m juuuuuust off the mark and that can be fixed if I TRY HARDER.


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Challenging myself

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I love FromSoft games. I think this is probably a well-known fact about me. Dark Souls III is my favorite game of all time and watching Kurpa get the plat in it is making me want to go back to it. When I did my own hundo chievo in it (there is a raging debate about whether you’re allowed to call it a plat if you don’t do it on PlayStation, which I think is ridic, but whatevs), and I was hating the game by the time I popped The Dark Souls achievement (meaning I got all the other chievos), and then I did not touch the game again for several months. That was a grind of a plat and I think a way of FromSoft saying, “We don’t wanna, but if w e hafta, HERE. The covenant achievements are b-r-u-t-a-l.

Anywayy, I’ve been dipping back into Dark Souls Remastered because it’s finally, FINALLY back on line. They had to take it off because of a hacker issue back when Elden Ring was dropped. All the PC versions of the From games were cut off. Now, they are all back online.

Before that, there was a glitch with the PC version in that it would not save properly and you could not play online. Which was annoying. Now that I’ve beaten every boss solo, I have no issues with summoning. Can I beat the bosses solo? Yes. I did when the game first game out as Remastered because…well, ok. Quick  detour.

When the Remastered came out, there was a hack that allowed someone to invade (on PC) and kill Andre, the first and most important blacksmith. He’s very early into the game, but the first time I played, it took me twenty or more hours to get to him. And I accidentally hit him because I was still getting used to the controller buttons. It was the first game I played using the controller (Xbox) so when I went to talk to Andre, I accidentally attacked him instead. Here’s the thing about the first game. If you attack someone once, they will be forever aggroed to you. I thought maybe if I sat back down at the bonfire, I could reset him, but no. He came after me, fists up.

I Googled it because I could not imagine playing the whole game without him. I had to kill the Bell Gargs (hadn’t done that yet) and meet Oswarld of Carim so he could forgive my sins. Here’s the thing. It goes up with every level, so between the first time I met him and when I could actually pay him, it cost a few thou more. I think it was ten thou in total, which was an exorbitant sum at that time. In following games, you can hit a NPC once without any consequence, which is much better.


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Dark Souls is metal as fuck

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In my last post, I was talking about how you are playing Dark Souls wrong. It doesn’t matter how you play it–you’re wrong. You’re a caster? WRONG. You’re Haveling it up? WRONG. You’re so dex, you’re rolling all over the place? WRONG. Drake sword? Wrong. Zwei? Wrong. Over-leveling? Wrong. The only right way to play it, apparently, is to one-bro it up. That is, starting as the Pyro (level one) and never leveling up. Not your character nor your armor nor your weapon. Wait. I’m not sure it’s verboten to level up your armor. Huh. At any rate, though, not your character or your weapon.

I have never done a one-bro because I need my magic tricks (literally) to get the job done. I was fighting  an NPC in PvP in Elden Ring (for a quest)  who drops my favorite talisman (Crepus’s Vial, muffles your footsteps) much earlier than I normally do. I did not have my powerful magicks, so it was a chore because this particular NPC (Rileigh the Idle) is a quick assassin-type who will Scarlet Rot you to death with successive jabs of their dagger. They also have a crossbow with scarlet rot bolts.

I never had a problem with them in my other playthroughs because I foughtthem near the end of the playthrough. That mean I had powerful magicks that could kill them in a few zaps. THis early on, I needed four flasks of cerulean tears along with one measly flask of crimson tears (flasks get halved when you invade) just to get them deaded. Ginstone Stars fired off with the aid of Radagon Icon, a talisman that shortens casting time. A time before the last time, I had them down to a pixel, but ran out of blue juice. I could not get one measly melee hit on them.

I called them several bad names on my way to killing them (well, actually one bad name several times), and now I have to go fetch the Hidden Body spell (called Unseen Form in this game) in order to have my beloved Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring/Hidden Body combo.

As I was looking up Dark Souls trailers, I came across the one below which I had never seen. Or at least, I don’t remember ever having seen it. It could be because I truly have not seen it, but it could also be that my brain damage wiped it from my memory. I love that I can blame everything on my brain damage! In actuality, there was very little that was actually damaged during my medical crisis–which makes it more surprising when something actually is because of it.


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