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Why my loyalty to FromSoft is wavering, part two

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I’m thinking about my brand loyalty to FromSoft and how it’s wavering. I ended the last post by saying about how it’s not me–it’s them. What do I mean by this? I mean they are spreading their wings, which is their absolute right, but it’s not what I’m interested in.

It’s interesting. Many people think that Nightreign was a cash grab. Even people who who like the game think it’s a calculated move to bring in th money. It’s an asset flip with no real new content except for the Nightlords and the nightfarers. And as it stands right now, there really isn’t any replayability once you beat all the bosses. Unless you want to play as the other nightfarers, of course.

I have to admit that I’m a bit bored with the runs themselves. Yes, making it to the third boss has added events and different enemies/bosses to the world. By the way, one map is not enough. Yes, the events change the map somewhat, but it’s still Lim…veld? I think that’s it? Based on Limgrave from the base game.

And because of the breakneck speed, you have to know what you’re doing before you’re even dropped int o the world.

Anyway. The prevalent feeling is that it’s fun with your friends for a few runs, but it’s probably not going to have a lasting impact on the genre.

Some people even think it’s the worst game From has made. It’s been interesting because usually, the people who love From games REALLY love From games. This time, it’s been decidedly mixed. Which makes sense because many people like the games because of the slow and deliberate pace, the exploration, and the unfolding lore. Nightreign has none of that. I mean, there is some lore, but so far, it’s not as compelling (to me), while retaining the frustrating obtuseness of how to uncover it.

I think I mentioned yesterday that if it had been made by someone else, I would not even have looked twice at it. It’s only because FromSoft made it that I bought it. Even then, I hesitated. I knew it was not going to be for me, and I was right.

Not only is it that I don’t have friends who play it so I have to rely on randos (which is very dicy), but I am not enjoying the game as I play it. If I’m going to be brutally honest, it’s missing something for me. Not even the hectic speed of it or the multiplayer aspect. There’s just something missing that makes a From game special.

I don’t think it’s a pure cash grab. Miyazaki said that one of his team members expressed an interest in doing an idea like this, and Miyazaki told him to go for it. I’m not saying money wasn’t a part of it (because let’s face it, money is a part of everything), but I do think Miyazki is interested in exploring games that aren’t in his wheelhouse. No one remembers Déraciné, a game they made for the PS4 in VR. That was, ah, very different, shall we say. I didn’t play it because I didn’t have a PS4, and I can’t do VR.


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FromSoft and brand loyalty

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I’m not writing about Nightreign (FromSoft) today. At least not directly. Well, I’ll probably end up going in that direction, but this is about brand loyalty in general. Here’s the post from yesterday just because it’s tangentially related.

I wanted to talk about brand loyalty because it’s been on my mind. Why? Well, it lingers in the back of my mind now and again, and with the Stwitch 2 releasing yesterday, I had to marvel at how bonkers people went.

Full disclosure: I don’t have a Switch. I had no intention of buying a Switch 2. Then, it was revealed that FromSoft had an exclusive release that was going to be on Switch 2 (The Duskbloods), and I was so disappointed when I heard about it. Then I found out that it was yet another multiplayer game, and I was even sadder. Why? Because I hate multiplayer games. Which is one of the reason I am not having a good time with Nightreign.

I have been feeling since Dark Souls III: The Ringed City (second DLC) that FromSoft games were getting further and further away from me. I mean, the first game was a miserable experience the first time through, and I have always been painfully aware that I’m on borrowed time with the games.

I started feeling it while playing The Ringed City, and it’s only increased with each gome (save base game Elden Ring). Sekiro was a miserable experience for me, and I don’t think I could even finish it now after my medical crisis. This is not me being a downer or hating on myself; this is me being pragmatic.

Side note: I am really tired of From fans now doubling down on ‘the games are not hard’. I don’t know where this retconning is coming from, but it’s bullshit. No, they are not the hardest games in the world, but they are not NOT hard, either. At least for 90% of gamers. And it’s irritating to hear hardcore From fans pooh-pooh that.

Side note to the side note: This is just another kind of gatekeeping. Years ago, it was people taking pride in the fact they finished Dark Souls. You weren’t a real gamer if you didn’t! That was unpleasant, too, even more so, but that doesn’t mean the current ‘the games are SO easy LOL’ is any better.


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Nightreign (FromSoft)–my final thoughts for now

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I only played one or two rounds of Nightreign (FromSoft) today, and it’s for a prosaic reason. The Switch 2 dropped, and I have had a devil of a time trying to matchmake. Now, the systems are down for maintenance and for a patch that improves Remembrance matchmaking. Before I go on, here is the post from yesterday.

Brief explanation. There are eight classes in Nightreign (called Nightfarers). Each class has a personal questline that you have to do Remembrances for. In order to do them, only one person in the party, the host, will get credit for doing the Remembrance. I think that meant that if you were trying to do a Remembrance, you could not get matched with other people also trying to do a Remembrance. You can probably see the issue with this.

Mainly, everyone in the first week will be working towards their Remembrance. And it would feel like a waste to do a run and NOT get credit for whatever Remembrance you’re working towards. For the Recluse, I’m working on (I think) the last part of her Remembrance–which is beating four Nightlords (simplified. No one seems really sure what exactly you need to do, but that’s the basic gist).

I’m hoping that they’re going to make it so everyone in the party can be working on a Remembrance at the same time. I can see why they might not want to do that (I know nothing about coding. I have the vague idea that something something mutter mutter cross-purposes of the Remembrances, but whatever. It’s a frustrating restriction).

In the one run I acutally played today, I was taking on the third boss. I had gone into the third world once before (yesterday), and I could tell that it was going to be much harder. I got a good duo, and again, they were working in harmony. We had a raid event, which I didn’t even know was a thing. Apparently, its’ one of the Nightlords in a simplied version or something? Or maybe not a simplified version. I don’t know. I have tried to avoid spoilers about the bosses, but when I looked up Augur to see what it was, I found out it was one of the Nightlords.

There are signs where the event is happening. I’m not entirely sure how you’re supposed to know when it happens because people are contradictory on it, but I got an achievement for it. I also read that this particular one is really rare. I found the Augur itself really easy, which was nice.

We cruised through the first two days/nights, honestly. I will say that we took on a field boss we probably shouldn’t have, and I lost two levels. At least I think it was that run. At any rate, it wasn’t as good a run as when I beat the second Nightlord, but I wasn’t expecting it to be great because it was my first real run towards the third Nightlord.


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Nightreign (FromSoft) is killing me, not vice-versa

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In yesterday’s post, I was talking about how I had made no progress in two days. I was dispirited, and I felt as if my time with the game was coming to an end. One of the biggest problems with the game is that for someone as bad as I am at it, I’m not going to make it to the final boss every run. In fact, I’ve seen the second boss four or five times. Maybe six. And the best I’d done was a quarter health left.

Today, I had three or four really bad runs. Bad runs are mostly when my teammates decide to take on a difficult field boss on the first day (you should usually wait until the second day), then stubbornly continue to try after dying time and time again. One person either got disconnected or left the game, and there was one run in which a Duchess single-handedly killed the second night boss on her own when both the other teammate and I were downed. The boss had roughly a quarter of their health left. The Duchess had revived our other teammate and me more than once, and–by the way, this is such a terrible mechanic in the game.

The revival system, I mean. My god. I really liked the idea of it hitting your teammates in order to revive them. However, in practice, it’s awful. I’ve explained it before, but quickly, it’s a circle made of three segments. When you die once, the first segment fills with purple. As your teammates hit you, the purple goes down and once it’s all gone, you can get up again.

Oh, and about that. If you’re anywhere near the enemy/boss who downed you, they can hit you again before you can stagger away. And kill you again. So that’s cool, too. I have screamed to my teammates to leave me before because I knew it was futile to try to revive me. And, I’ve sometimes ignored a downed teammate if I and my other teammate were close to downing the boss. It doesn’t feel good, but it’s better than futilely hitting my teammate and watching the bar fill back up.

People have said that if one of the bars is depleted, it should stay that way for that round of revival. I agree. I know that From likes to make things hard, but this is ridiculous. Especially since the hitbox for hitting a teammate is bullshit. It’s so hard to actually hit them, and it’s fucking frustrating. Let me reiterate that I like the concept of the revive, but it was horribly implemented.

Back to that one run–the Duchess manaaged to down the Ancient Dragon on her own. I was feeling pretty good as we went to meet the Nightlord. Could this be the run? In short, no. We got barely halfway before we wiped. I was the last person standing, which, as I’ve said before, is never a good thing. And it was so dispiriting.


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Nightreign (FromSoft)–I can’t versus I won’t

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I am bad at FromSoft games. I have said this from the beginning, and it only gets worse the older
I get. I hated Dark Souls by the time I finished it, and sometimes, I wish that I had ended my FromSoft journey there. I’m not being snarky;I think I might have been happier overall because my god, these games push me to my very limits.

I’m mostly kidding. Mostly. I think? I’m not really sure sometimes. I  have more to muse about Nightreign, and here is the post I wrote about it yesterday. I am still frustrated with this game, and I think I need to admit to myself that beating it (defeating all the Night Lords) is just not going to happen–especially since I don’t have a squad to roll with. I got lucky on my second run ever to have two great rando teammates who carried me to a win against the first boss. I have joked ruefully that it’s the worst thing to happen to me because it gave me unrealistic expectations as to how it would be to deal with other bosses. I mean, I never thought they would be easy because it’s FromSoft, but I did think it would be reasonable to do in this time-frame. I’ve gotten the second boss down to about a quarter-health, but then I was the last one alive. That is never good.

It’s hard because I see other people cleaning out bosses like it was nothing (in the Discord). Some are even first-timing the bosses (together on PS5. That’s what most people are playing on). I have envy, but I know that even if I were playing with the top-tier players, I would not be able to do that because I am the weakest link. Not always, but usually.

I have some hard decisions to make. One is whether I want to continue playing the game at all. This is where the meat of this post was going to be (we’ll see if I stick to that or not), so let’s get to it.

Am I having fun playing this game? No. In fact, I’m pretty miserable as I’m playing. Here’s the thing. I play From games for the exploration, which is slow and deliberate. At least when I do it. In my first playthrough of Elden Ring, I did not make it to the first story boss until after ten hours of exploration. That was not a smart idea because the first time you meet the first story boss and don’t beat him, Melina comes to say she was taking your measure. Would you like to go to the Roundtable Hold?


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Nightreign (FromSoft) is testing my patience

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I’m stuck on the second boss. This is partly my fault and partly not. Which is the theme of this game, really. Or rather, my reaction to this game.I am stuck on the second boss, and it’s frustrating as fuck. I’ve only actually seen the boss three times. At least I think it’s three. Maybe two? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s  three. I was lucky enough to be carried for a win on the first boss on the first night by two beasts of players. We demolished the boss in a rather quick fashion, too. Even though it wsa three or four hours after the game dropped, they were pros.

Here is my post from yesterday.

The problem for me is that I’m following one or both of my teammates because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. Still. I mean, I know to hit the churches and the sites of graces, but that’s about it. Some people seem to prefer fighting all the field-bosses to get the perks for that while others just run through all the dungeons to get the perks from that (which includes a field boss at the end).

I have to note that a patch came out today, and one thing they focused on was making solo more balanced. Someone in the Discord posted a pic of their first solo win (after patch) and said it was much more reasonable now. I tried it, and I still didn’t make it past the first night. And this is with my main character. So solo will not be for me.

I had a few runs today on the second boss. Here’s the frustrating thing. Each of my teammates seem to know what they are doing. Then, on the first or second night boss, it all falls apart. To be fair, some of it is my fault because I die to the goddamn ring. This is because oftentimes, my teammates like to fight something that is in the ring, get the rewards, and then hurriedly get out of the ring. Because I don’t know/can’t navigate the map, have difficulty with spatial observation and reflexes, that means I can’t cut it as close to the line as they can.

At this point, I think I need to watch videos on how to optimize if I want to continue playing. Which is no fun for me! I hate all that shit, and it’s antithetical to how I play From games. Other people in the Discord are making it to the third and fourth bosses, and it’s making me sad. I don’t think I’m going to roll credits (I think that’s killing five Night Lords). I can’t even see a way to kill the second Night Lord, let alone the last.

It’s really frustrating to have a really good team that demolishes the first night boss and even the second, but then falls to the Night Lord on the third night. The three times I’ve seen the Night Lord, we did the best on our first run. We got it down to a quarter of its health. The other two times, we got it to the second phase, but just.


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Nightreign (FromSoft) isn’t really for me

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Nightreign (FromSoft) is not me, and that’s…I was going to say it was ok, but it’s kinda not. I have done a series of A Quick Look at the game, and this is part three in which I listed several negatives about the game. I’m going to continue in that vein, pointing out what is on me and what is on the game (or both).

The last point I made was about the loot, and I want to expound on that a bit more. My M.O. is to follow one of my teammates because everyone is better than I am at this point. I just figured out how to ping on the map, but I rarely pull it out because there is no time. I just try to stay with a teammate, and if I lose them (happens a fair amount of time), I run to one of their pings. I try to spot them on the way, but even if I do, that doesn’t always help. I ‘ll get to that later.

I noticed that my teammates rarely stop to bust through crates with loot or if they do, they rarely pick up shit. And I’ve started to do that as well because the loot is so terrible. I mentioned in the last post how dispiriting it was to get shit that I can’t use–either because it’s not for my chaarcter or it’s too high level for me. Then I have to think about whether I want to take it with me in hopes I’ll reach that level. If it’s a Level 3 or a Level 7, I’ll probably take it with me. Anything higher, and I leave it because no way I’l get past a Level 10. I think you can get up to Level 15, but I have only reached Level 10 once. See, when you die, you lose a level. I think that’s too punishing. The whole death mechanic in general is way too much.

In addition, many of the consumables are just trash. I don’t need boluses for the most part or exalted flesh. I mean, both have their uses, but with very limited inventory, I’m not going to take them over, say, Starlight Shards (refills your flask of FP slowly) or boiled shrimp/crab (boosts defense for something like 30 seconds). You can have six weapons (three on each hand), and the passives work even if you’re not using them. Ther e are four consumable slots unless you buy the item that gives you two more (I want to say). There are plenty of item drops, but 90% of it is trash. I would much prefer less loot, but make each drop better/useful/relevant.

Each Night Lord is weak to a certain element. The first is weak to holy. The meta is to find something that does holy because it makes a big difference. You can look at the map and see where there is church/ruin/cave that is holy, but you are not guaranteed to have one on the map. There are greases you can pick up that add that element to your weapon, but I don’t think they work on staves and seals.

I only played with randos today, trying to do the second boss. It’s weak to poison, and I found a few poison things–but again, I don’t think they can be affixed to a staff or a seal. By the way, I have found a seal that has Black Flame on the RB and Lightning Spear on the RT. That is by far my favorite because both of those are really solid incantations.

Here’s the thing. I am not really enjoying the game. It’s too frenetic and fast-paced for me. If I take four seconds to look through my choices after a defeated boss, I feel guilty that I’m dragging my teammates down.

By the way, that’s one reason I don’t play mulitplayer co-op at all; I feel like I’m a drag on my teammaates. I mean, I am. The best I can do is not fuck up, not die, and revive my teammates if they do die.

Here are the things that are my issues that make the game not fun:

1. I have spatial/depth perception issues

As you might imagine, this makes it hell for me to try to get around the map.I can see where my teammates are, but I can’t figure out how to get to them. I spent one frustration Day One stuck in a mine, and I could not get the fuck out. I was contemplating quitting out because I was so frustrated.

It’s especially bad because of the breakneck speed. If I overshoot something and fall all the way down, then I have to find my way back to the starting point again before even attempting to go where I need to go. I have done this so many times because I’ve misgauged the distance of where I am and where I need to be. Or how to get there. I have died to the fire so many times because I simply can’t figure out the way to get away from it.

This one is on me, obviously, but it’s especially bad in this game.

2. No voice chat

This is probably a good thing with randos, but I do find it easier when I can hear my teammates and one of them is telling me where to go. In a game like this, you need someone to take point, and it’s easier to do this over voice. Today, most of my teammates just did their own thing, which was really frustrating. I tried to follow one or the other, but without them being together, it was kind of pointless.

That’s on the game, and it shows that From still has a way to go with multiplayer.

3. Progress is way too slow for mid players

Look. I don’t pretend to be amazing at From games. I’m decent at the Souls games and at Elden Ring, but I’m shit at the Bloodborne and Sekiro. I didn’t think I’d be good at this game, btu I also didn’t think I’d still be this lost after four days. And my interest has dropped every day. I managed to finish up the first chunk of the Recluse’s Remembrance Quests which gave me her personalized relic. Relics are placed in chalices. You equip three relics before you go on an expedition (run), and hers is quite good.

Which is great beacuse the ones I’ve gotten so far are piddling or not for my character. Again, they should have made it so you get a relic related to the character you chose for the run. These are the little things that really make a difference in a game like this.

This is on the game, and it seems like it would be fairly easy to implement some of the changes.

4. The little things

There are a bunch of little things in the game that would be a nice addition. One, have a way to abandon the run if it’s not going well. There are times when you know early on that it’s not the run. Once, we made it from not the run to almost the run, but not quite. Other times, though, there is just no way it’s going to be a good run. If I die twice, I feel like I might as well give up. But I don’t want to bail on my teammates like that. Funnily enough, the last run I did, one person eiether got disconnected or left, leaving me and one teammate. I followed them around, and we got to the second night boss. Where we died. Which leads me to the next thing.

5. Re-tune the bosses

Oh my goodness. I’m not even talking about the Night Lords, though I will get to them later. I’m talking about the field bosses, especially the ones that end the first two nights. If it was just the boss themselves, that would be one thing. But before each night boss, there are a ton of mid-to-hard ads that are just filler. It really feels like they’re added just to whittle down all your resources before the actual boss–and it’s not enjoyoable in the least.

More tomorrow.

 

Nightreign (FromSoft)–A Quick Look, part three

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I have more to say about Nightreign (FromSoft), so this is the third part of taking a quick look at it. Hey, this is as quick as I get. Deal with it.Here’s yesterday’s post in which I compare playing with randos with playing with people you know.

I have put in 15 hours, and I have a few general observations about the game. I’ll list them in no particular order.

1. The runs are too long and have very little reward if you don’t beat the Night Lord.

Each run can take up to forty-five minutes if you make it to/beat the Night Lord. Even if you don’t make it that far, you’ll probably get a half-hour run at the very least. Unless people just peace out early in the run when things aren’t going well.

I’m still at the very beginning of the game, which means the rewards are shitty relics (you have three slots for each character, color-coded, in which you can slot relics). Or a piddling amount of murk (the currecncy in this game) that won’t buy you much.

I’ve heard that you get more later in the game, which I would assume. And, yes, it’s very FromSoft to make things really fucking hard at the beginning of the game, but it’s not fun. Well, it’s a very specific kind of fun. And that fun is waning with each failed run.

2. There is no need to slap the trademark obtuseness all over this game.

I know it’s something they pride themselves on, but it really feels out of place in this game. The biggest example is that two of the characters are locked. Weirdly, one of them was in the beta. The other wasn’t even mentioned until the last trailer or two, and the embargo included this character’s ult.

I stumbled over the way to unlock the first character organically, but I could not figure out the latter for the life of me. That’s the character I was really intrigued by, so I desperately wanted to unlock them. When I wasn’t able to do it, I broke down and asked the RKG Discord for general hints. Then, once I got the item I needed (should have figured it out myself, really), I had to…SIGH. When I looked it up, I was not pleased. It involved my absolutely least-favorite aspect of the From games–PvP.

It was so bad, I thought I might not be able to do it. I tried for over an hour, and I just could not do it. I tried it with my main first, the Recluse, but then I thought maybe it would be better to do it with the archer, Ironeye, because he has infinite ammo. But I could not hit the opponent with the arrows as they kept dodging them. I went back to the Recluse, and I realized to my dismay that she had infinite FP herself for this fight. Had I known that, I would have used her the whole time.

I finally got it done and cursed loudly and steadily for about ten seconds after finishing it. I didn’t even feel triumphant because I was too emotionally spent. I took my new character out for a spin on solo. Which leads me to my next negative.

3. Oh my god solo play FUCKING SUCKS!

I did not expect solo to be great, but it’s horrid. Honestly, FromSoft should not have put it in at all rather than put it in like this. Supposedly, there’s a patch next week, but still. One of the issues is that you can’t revive. Well, there is an item that will allow you to revive yourself, but apparently, it’s expensive–if you can even find it. In the main game, you can hit your teammate to revive them. I talked about how that’s good in theory, but not gerat in reality in the last post.

I tried solo with my newly unlcoked bestest character (well, jury’s still out on that). I’m quite fond of the Recluse, honestly. Funnily enough, she and the new character have the smallest amount of health. Of course. I’m always drawn to the squishy characters. Mages for the win, yo! Plus, the Recluse has the sickest outfit in the game. Reminiscent of my favorite outfit in Dark Souls II & III. I also found out that any weapon can be used as a shield. 100% physical defense. Which is nice.

I basically tried to learn the map and how to navigate around the world when I did a few solo expeditions. I could not even hope to get one of the field bosses let alone the Night Lord, so I just wandered around getting used to the new character. I had no reason to think I would make it past the first day, and I didn’t.

4. The different elements don’t quite gel.

I have no problem with FromSoft trying something new. They get to spread their wings and fly, baby, fly. If they want to make a multiplayer/co-op, roguelike-lite game based on their very popular Elden Ring, mixed with some very FromSoft elements (such as obscure ways to unlock things), have at it.

I think it’s fair to point out, however, that the sum is not greater than the parts in this case. Why do I say that? Because while there is fun to be had, I find the deliberately esoteric nature of some things grating. Such as how you unlock two of the characters. There was no reason for it other than to be FromSoft about it.

It’s also difficult to properly tune up for the Night Lord, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. I’ve played roughly fifteen hours, and I have not found very many upgrading materials in that time. I’m not even sure you can upgrade staves and seals. I think this might fit in the last point more than this, but I really wish things were spelled out a bit more in this game. When you have to hit the ground running, literally, there’s no time for nuance and in-depth explanations.

It’s hard to cram everything in Elden Ring into a very small, self-contained game like Nightreign. There is only one map, but it changes from run to run. Well, at least it’s supposed to. FightingCowboy noted in his review that this was not really true. If a certain thing spawned, then the thing next to it was going to be the same thing as well. So, yes, there is some RNG, but it’s not as varying as you might think a roguelike should be.

I think the breakneck speed of the game doesn’t work well with this kind of game, either. I understand that From doesn’t want you to dally, but I hate that if I take three seconds to look over my new loot, I feel like I’m being a drag on my teammates. This actually segues nicely into the next point.

5. The loot needs to be more tailored to the character you’re playing.

I don’t want about 90% of the loot I get. I understand that it’s shared loot, so in theory, one of your teammates might want something you don’t. However, because of the aforementioned speed of the game, I rarely even glance at what other people drop on the ground.

FromSoft has simplified the stats so if there’s a green arrow, it’s better than what you’re holding in your hand (if it’s a weapon). I appreciate that because I don’t want to have to parse out percentages or whatnot while I’m on the run. It would be nice if there was loot specifically to my class, but I don’t know how easy that would be to patch in.

I will say that when I have loot just for me (after killing a field boss, for example), it was geared towards me. Staves and seals, mostly. But the loot in general? Nope. Very random. And I can’t help but resent it when I get shit items.

More tomorrow.

 

Nightreign (FromSoft)–A Quick Look, part two

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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.


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Nightreign (FromSoft)–A Quick Look

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Nightreign (FromSoft) dropped at 5:00 p.m. my time on PC. It dropped six hours later for consoles. No idea why, but I’ll take the early release. I went in and did the tutorial. I’m glad I played a bit of Elden Ring the last few days to get me back on track before Nightreign. It stays in my body, though, and it doesn’t take long to get back in the groove.

The tutorial was pretty basic, and I knew most of it from the people I’ve watched play. And because much of it was based on Elden Ring, it felt familiar. There were a few things that were added as quality of life (QOL) additions. One was a super-sprint (press in the left stick, I think) that makes you run as fast as Torrent. I immediately forgot that after I was told and did not employ it for the first three or four games I played. Once I remembered, it really made a huge difference.

Another is that the Sites of Grace only level you up. That’s it. There are merchants who sell you shit, and you can upgrade your weapons at a smithing anvil. The latter two are in churches, and it’s imperative that you find them.

There are also field bosses who give you a choice of three rewards if you beat them. You get to choose one of the three. That’s great in theory, but I really wish they would make it so that the rewards were more class-specific. Yes, you can drop things for your teammates, but it’s pretty disappointing to beat a field boss and then get three crap options.

Another thing is that the dropped loot is shared. I’m used to automatically grabbing everything on the ground, but I have to be more prudent when it comes to loot. Also, there are only a certain amount of spaces in your inventory, and they fill up quickly. So you might as well use all the consumables you got along the way. That’s what I learned after three or four runs.

By the way, Nightreign has mixed reviews on Steam. I t hought it was going to be performance-based as FormSoft PC ports are often shitty at launch, but at least on the first page, it was because people were mad there was no duo play. I read more pages, and it was still mostly that. And no voice chat. And look. I agree that both these things should be in the game, but it’s not as if it wasn’t known from the start. FromSoft made it very clear that it wsa going to be solo and three-person co-op. I don’t know why so many people are surprised you can’t play with two people. Let me be clear. I don’t understand why you can’t, either, but I knew it was not an option.


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