Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: Neowiz Games

More about soulslikes and why I don’t like them (part two)

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I have more to say about soulslikes and why I don’t like them in general. Yes, this was spurred by me playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive), but I’m done talking about that specific game for now. I probably will bring it up later, but right now, let’s just talk about soulslikes in general.

The first soulslike was the first Lords of the Fallen is 2014 (Deck13 and CI Games). It was slow and clunky, and they did not understand what made Dark Souls special. They made the bosses really hard, but not interesting. Well, to be fair, I think I did two bosses. And they sucked.

The game did have an interesting mechanic where  after you lost your souls (or whatever they were called in that game), you had a timer for how long you had to collect them. And by interesting, I meant bullshit. They made The Surge after this game*, which I really like.d It also had the mechanic, but I just ignored it. Most of the time, I would never make it to where I had previously died, anyway.

The Lords of the Fallen (2014) just felt so sluggish. They misinterpreted deliberate combat for slow movements. Their enemies and bosses were damage sponges, and the magicks were useless–at least in the portion of the game I played.

By the way, CI Games SE, the developers of the current The Lords of the Fallen as well are absolute pricks. I regret buying their game, and I will never buy another game from them again. And their second game was shit. There. I said it. I did not get on with it at all, but I do not want to talk about it so I’ll leave it there.

I tried most of the soulslikes that came out. Or at least a good chunk of them. I will list several of them to show the variety. Deep breath: The Lords of the Fallen (2014) (Deck13, CI Games). The Lords of the Fallen (2023) (CI Games SE). Ashen (A44 Games), Salt and Sanctuary (Ska Studios), Remnant (both) (Gunfire Games), DarkMaus (Daniel Wright), The Surge (both) (Deck13), Mortal Shell (Cold Symmetry), Lies of P (Round8 Studio/Neowiz Games), Hollow Knight (Team Cherry), Nioh (both) (Team Ninja), Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (Team Ninja), Blasphemous (The Game Kitchen)–to name a few.

I have finished The Surge, Salt and Sanctuary, and Lies of P. I have almost finished The Surge 2. The rest I have played anywhere from a few hours to half the game. I thoroughly enjoyed Salt and Sanctuary, but I immediately forgot it once I was done with it (played one complete playthrough and one mostly-finished playthrough). It was so much like Dark Souls, but in a cute chibi 2D style. There was even a hunter starting class with a whip.

It did not have the depth that FromSoft games have, but it was immensely enjoyable as a mage/caster. It sucked, however, as a melee player, and that’s why I quit my second playthroughh. I can remember the boss I rage-quit against, which I had absolutely no trouble with as a caster. Weirdly, it was a magic user boss that tripped me up.


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Musings about soulslikes in general

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I’ve been playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive), and I have written several ‘quick looks’ about it. Here’s the last one, which is part four. I have mentoined that my interest wanes with each play session (I can now play for two hours at a time rather than just one, but it’s still less than I can play, say, a FromSoft game).

By the way, people are talking about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in very lofty terms. not just Game of the Year, but also a game that starts its own genre. Which, ah, I’m willing to believe that I’m wrong about it, buut it just did not strike me as that kind of game. Even knowing that it’s a special game and much better than I perceive it to be myself. I don’t think it’s going to be a genre-setter, but as I said, I could be very wrong about it.

Before I go on with the topic of this post, I want to say that I met the best NPC in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and I will do whatever I need to do to protect him. It was much needed, too, as the storyline was lagging. Again, that’s partly my fault because of how much I’m dawdling and re-treading old environments.

But, it’s a bit draggy in parts. And a bit obscure. I know, I know, the name and all, and they are huge fans of FromSoft–who are masters of being obtuse. But there’s a difference between being obtuse with a purpose and being obtuse just to be obtuse, and I feel like this game is the latter. There are small cut-scenes called Maelle’s Nightmares, and if they’re going where I think they’re going, then I have to take back a lot of the credit I gave them for their narrative.

I also am a bit disappointed in the fourth party member. Her voice actor doesn’t quite hit the mark in my opinion, and this character is jarring. To be fair, the voice actor is probably doing the voice the way she was asked to do it. I read that the character is meant to be upbeat and positive, despite her tragic past (and, I’m assuming, the events that happened at the start of the game). I get it, but it just doesn’t fit.

In the beginning, there was some wry joking between Gustave and Lune, which fit their relationship. It walked a fine line between a needed lightening of the mood and ill-landing comic relief. Maelle is on the gloomier side and a bit too sarcastic for me, but she’s fine in general. This new character, though, she just does not mesh with the party (to me). I use her in the fighting because I love her style even if I don’t quite understand it yet, but–wait.


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Done with soulslikes

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It’s been interesting to follow the discussion about soulslikes and the inevitable comparisons between Lies of P (which is getting DLC and is developed/published by Neowiz Games and Round8 Studio) and Lords of the Fallen (CI Games/HexWork, and which I have stopped playing). It’s interesting to me because the level of the discourse is one I cannot reach. I cannot ‘git gud’ at the games because it’s beyond my ability. I’m not being dow on myself; I’m being honest. I know that I have issues with my abilities in several areas.

I know this is the nature of having disabilities (or being a minority in any way), by the way. People without them simply cannot understand how far from the norm I am. This is why I wish there was  a soulslike that was made for people with bad reflexes, no depth perception or periphery, and just no innate sense of (non-dancing) rhythm.

I wrote in my post yesterday that I gave both games a 6. That is much lower than Lies of P received (pretty much 10s across the board. Or 9s), but the rough average of what Lords of the Fallen got. Not 6s across the board, but 4s and 8s and all the other numbers.

I have to say that if you can parry, you’ll probably  love Lies of P. If you can’t parry, then you’re going to be SOL. There were people in the RKG Discord who waltzed through the game because they could parry. If you can’t, then you’re going to spend hours on each boss.

Speaking of bosses, by the way, in Lies of P, from the fourth boss on, every boss had two phases. Whether it was half a health bar each or an actual whole health bar each,  you knew that when you got to a boss, it was going to be grueling–unnecessarily so. I included a video below by Elbethium that compares the two games. I don’t necessarily agree with all his points, but he does bring up unnecessary difficulty (which he had in terms of the Lies of P bosses before as well, I think).

Oh, the reason he brings it up in this video is because the devs of Lords of the Fallen made the baffling choice to only have one vestige seed in NG+. Vestiges are the bonfires and vestige seeds are portable ones (you can plant them in seed beds dotted across the map). A great idea that was less than great in execution. The baffling decision to make NG+ and beyond diffiicult by only having one seed for the whole game is, well, baffling. The devs quickly realized that (from all the negative feedback) and changed it so that they were taking away vestiges in chunks (for each additional NG+) rather than making it one vestige seed from the start.


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Final verdict on Lies of P versus Lords of the Fallen

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I think I’m done with Lords of the Fallen (HexWorks, CI Games). You’ll notice I did not say I had finished the game because I haven’t. I don’t think I’m even halfway done. It’s just that when I think about playing the game, I become lethargic and unhappy. Like, I ‘should’ play the game, but I…just don’t want to. At all.

I watched a video from a guy doing a deep dive into the game (which I have included below), and he hit on many of my frustrations wit hthe game. And the fact that it at least tries to be something different. I believe he even mentions that in contrast to Lies of P, this game stretches itself. It swung for the bleachers and while it whiffed, it at least tried.

It’s interesting. While I was playing Lies of P, I was bemoaning to myself how slavish it was to the FromSoft formula. For each section and boss, I could point out a similar or exact same thing in a From game. Most people call Lies of P the Puppet Bloodborne, but to me, it’s more Puppet Sekiro. You can only play the game one way, really. You need to have your deflects on point or you’re in for a really bad time.

As I have said many times, I do not have good reflexes. I never had. They have only gotten worse since my medical crisis. I want to tell people who are good at these games to imagine if they pressed the button and then their character reacted a full second later. That’s basically my reflexes. I literally cannot ‘git gud’ no matter how hard I try. Let me put it this way. I could not finish Stray because of the QTEs. Stray! It’s a cozy little game about a stray cat by BlueTwelve Studio. It was highly anticipated and highly praised. I believe it even won indie game of the year last year.

It’s a great game about being a cat and trynig to get back to your cat friends. There are elements of a dystopian world, and it’s just amazing. And they ruined it by having these sections when you have to escape the zerg rush. No, that’s not what it’s called, but it’s close enough. Zurks. They are zurks. And they rush in groups. As they attack you, you have to click whatever button it is rapidly to shake them off. I literally could not click the button fast enough. I failed the QTEs several times each, which was really frustratitng. The game was not supposed to be hard in the sense of challenging gameplay.

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Lies of P: the final post (maybe)

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*MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR END GAME*

I legit beat Lies of P (Neowiz Games/Round8 Studio) yesterday. Before this, I had beaten the purported last boss, but then had to make a choice. With one choice, I would have ended the game. That involved giving something to Geppetto, and no way in hell I was doing that. Geppetto was a big ol’ jerk and the reason the whole world went to ruins. Just because he wanted to bring his son back to life. That’s not a spoiler, by the way. That’s the main gist of Pinocchio. It’s funny because when RKG did the demo of the game, Gav was explaining the story of Pinocchio. Geppetto’s s son died and he wishes so hard for him to come back to life. He’s a puppet maker and makes a boy puppet. A blue fairy brings the puppet to life and tells him that if he does good things, he can be a real boy.

I commented on the stream that the blue fairy was kind of a jerk, and Gav laughingly read it out loud. I stand by it, though. It’s cruel to bring the puppet to life and then make it go through all these trials before  maknig it a real boy. If she could have just made him a real boy in the first place (which she apparently could), then why make him jump through all these hoops to become one?

I know the answer. There would be no book is the real reason.  I get it, but it’s still a flimsy basis for a book. Then again, most premises are.

Back to the game! I was not going to give something to Geppetto. I hated him and was convinced he was the true last boss. Which he was not, but he might as well have been. No, the optional last boss is called The Nameless Puppet. And he fucking comes out of nowhere. Well, he comes out of a box that Geppetto is carrying and there are magical strings controlling him.

My theory was that he was actually Pinocchio or at least the one that Geppetto wants to make into his son. That was kind of shot down in the end cutscene, but I still can make it work.

Anyway. I tried so many of the cheese strats to beat this guy back when I was playing the game on the daily. The biggest cheese was to use Aegis as your Legion Arm. The first time it gets hit, it explodes and does damage. Then, someone found out that if you hold it down while tapping LB (block), that’s supposed to do the perfect block without actually having to do the perfect block. Or something. I watched someone do it, but you still have to be able to time it and have good stamina. I had neither.

I tried it and kept running out of arm juice (as Rory called it). I asked in the Discord, and people said you can’t do it the entire first phase. That’s when people were doing it. Then, doing the throwables in the second phase. Which was the way I did all the bosses in the sceond phase from the fourth chapter on.


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Lies of P–final analysis

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Before I start, I want to say that the whole post will be spoilers. So.

*SPOILERS*

I beat the final boss of Lies of P (Neowiz Games/Round8 Studio). Kind of. I beat the game. Kind of. I’m done with it. Maybe?

Does this all sound cryptic? Well, it should. It’s as cryptic as the game’s systems and their refusal to explain them.

I was in the RKG Discord (we have a thread for this game) and more than one person absolutely loves the game. More than one person bounced hard off it. And there were a few like me who didn’t know what they felt about it. One guy said he loved some parts of it, but then was so frustrated by other parts. I said I felt the same. I have so many issues with it, and yet, I couldn’t stop playing.

Starting with Chapter IV, I was done with it. Especially the boss fights. That was the first two-phaser, but it certainly wasn’t the last. There are eleven chapters in total, so that was in the first third of the  game.

Right around Chapter VIII, I started to feel numb as I played the game. I was grim as I went about it, not really enjoying–well, any aspect of it. I hated how haphazard the enemies were and how out of place so many seemed. They basically used the same enemies over and over again, barely bothering to switch up the design for other areas. They also did the mini-boss as a common enemy trope thing–actually, she was a real boss because you had to beat her to get to the next area. She was like Margo the Wet Nurse, but not nearly as interesting.

Also, basic enemies that can kill you in two hits in the last chapter of the game is bullshit. And one thing this game loooooooves is to put an enemy in a corner or somewhere so you can’t see them and then as you go to attack another enemy, the hidden enemy jumps out at you. In some cases, I literally could not pan the camera to where the hidden enemy was.

I really was hating the game from the eighth area on. That’s the Blighttown of this game, though that’s not saying much because almost every area starting with the eighth have some kind of status effect strewn all over. In this case, it’s corruption which…oh I don’t remember. Corrodes your weapon? Not sure. As I said in a past post (and here’s the last post I wrote about the game) , I gave up trying to remember which status effect did what. There was decay, corruption, disruption, overheat, shock, electric shock, and break. The only thing I knew for sure was that if the disruption meter filled completely, it was an insta-death. And guess which boss did disruption damage?

The one I fought today. By the way, he was nerfed in the patch. I cannot imagine fighting him before the patch bceause I barely beat him after the patch. They nerfed his health pool (both of them I think) and the damage certain attacks did. Which, my god. If that’s the case, I really hate to think what he was like before the patch.


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The anatomy of a good boss fight

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I’m in the very end game of Lies of P (Neowiz Games/Round8 Studio), and I want to talk about how a good boss fight goes. And why the boss fight I just fought is ultimately, not a good one. Here is my last post about this game. As usual:

*SPOILERS*

First off, this area was the culmination of the direction in which this game was going. As is very obvious, this game wears its FromSoft inspiration on its sleeves. It’s laughable that they said they didn’t think about the From games as they created this one (the devs, I mean), because there is a one-to-one comparison for nearly everything in the game.

And, the one thing this game has gotten consistently wrong is that the difficulty of From games*is not the main point, but a side effect of several other things. In this game, the difficluty is at the forefront all the fucking time. You can’t cross a single rafter without facing HOW HARD THIS GAME IS.

In the area I’m in as I mentioned before, there are artillery shooting ballistae at you as you’re facing the enemies. There are gaps you can fall into as you try to run by said enemies. There are corners you can get stuck in that once you’re there, you cannot get out at all. And there is an enemy that has basically a bowling ball  on each hand, and it can bend in any direction to hit you–and it tracks you and can stretch to hit you, and it has no poise. It can literally keep on hitting you five or six times in a row. And take about a quarter of your health per hit. So while it’s not a hard enemy, it’s frustrating as fuck especially if there are two of them attacking you at the same time.

The thing about From games in general is that they are tough but fair. Really. That’s what everyone says about them, so it must be true. I’m being tongue-in-cheek because it’s mostly true–until it’s not. In general, the combat is tough, but fair. There are windows when you can attack, and you have to know when and where they are. Poise is a thing, and you can break it.

In Lies of P, poise does not exist. It just does not. The game likes to tout a mechanic in which you get an enemy (or a boss) into a groggy state (their health bar is outlined in white). You hold down RT (charged heavy attack) and hit the enemy. It stuns them and then you follow up with an RB for massive damage.

Which sounds great except the enemy (boss) can keep attacking while its health bar is white. Which means that if you try the charged RT at the wrong time, you get creamed. And since the enemies have no poise or stamina, they can keep attacking you. So while the charged RT/RB combo sounds good, well, I rarely bothered trying to do it in practice. If I happened to get the white bar, I would look for my opening (with a boss, it’s an orange spot on the ground after the charged RT), but otherwise, I’d jkst ignore it and continue.

This is a common complaint about the game, by the way. The fact that there’s no pause in the enemies attack pattern after it reaches stagger/the groggy state. And that if you parry, you don’t get anything, either. In fact, with a boss, you get pushed back when you parry, so why bother? The idea I think is that it adds to the combo in order to get to the groggy state, which as I said, I end up ignoring more often than not because the enemy/boss is still attacking.

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Lies of P–I’m so tired

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So I’m in the homestretch of Lies of P (Neowiz Games/Round8 Studio). I’m in chapter 11 and it’s massive. It’s also bullshit. And it encapsulates all my gripes about this game. Needless to say:

*SPOILERS*

You first arrive in a shark submarine on a deserted beach. It’s ethereal, and you go from figures to figures to get snippets of the story. Which I liked! And you get consumable souls, er, ergo, which, ok? I don’t know why, but I’ll always take crushable souls. Sophia, the level-up lady (blue fairy/firekeeper/etc.) is there and she tells you she’s from there. Her father was the head of alchemists, I think, but something something Simon something something righthand man. He split up her soul and something something something. This is the way to explain how she can be in several different places at once.

By the way. The nonsense in the game started, well, right from the beginning, but it was chapter four when it got ridiculous. So, yes, very early on. That’s when it first got up its own ass and wanted  to out-Dark Souls FromSoft. This is one of my biggest issues with soulslikes. They don’t know when to stop. They take elements of From games and mash them together in a way that is untenable.

In this case, every area reminded me of three or four areas in a From game blended into one, and it’s not great. There’s a section in the…ah…seventh chapter I think that is in the rafters (again) with shielded robots (what I think of as mini-mini-bosses, but more like black knights–just extra-hard enemies) and these whirly robots/puppets who throw bombs at you. Somone in the RKG Discord said he expected me to say something about it. I said, honestly, at that point, I was just done with it. Yes, it’s like the rafters in Dark Souls III ramped up to a hundo. The way I dealt with it was to bait the two-shields asshole to one side and then run by him and the whirly robots to the shortcut.

That’s right. I did not fight that asshole in the rafters. Why? One, I had fought them before. I had no need to fight them again. Two, I just couldn’t be fucked. That’s really it, mostly. Starting in the seventh or so chapter, I just started running by enemies I didn’t want to fight. I haven’t leveled up much at all in the last three or four chapters, preferring to use my souls for throwables. My one saving grace in the game.

Which is another reason I’m hating the end game so much. At a certain point, you cannot use the Stargazers. And you have to defeat a boss in order to get back to Hotel Krat. The corrupted version of the puppet master, er, parade master, who was the first boss I fought. And up until the end boss of chapter four, the hardest boss in the game.

And you cannot summon your specter. So to recap. You have to fight a souped-up version of one of the hardest bosses in the game by yourself without any throwables except what you have on hand. Which wasn’t much. I had some because I always overbuy when I can, but I didn’t have much.


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Lies of P and cheating

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I’m into Chapter VII of Lies of P (which I always want to call Lies of Pi, by the way) (Neowiz Games/Round8 Studio) and the most recent patch says they nerfed the last boss I fought. Too late for me! They nerfed one in the future, too (at least I don’t recognize the name), so I’m happy about that. Someone in the RKG Dsicord said they were not waiting for the patch as they fight the Chapter VI boss because they are stubborn like that. I joked that I wished I had waited until after the patch to fight that boss!

*SPOILER*

Here’s the thing. I have said in the past that soulslike take the wrong lessons from From games. They focus on the games being HARD without really absorbing what makes them enjoyable. Again, this is a me-thing because this game was highly-reviewed when it came out. People were gushing about how it was Bloodborne 2, which, I mean, uh, no. It’s not that. It’s not even close.

The dodging is sluggish. The parry is impossisble for me to figure out for all but the most scrubbish of enemies. Blocking is what I do and desperately hope I get lucky to block enough or get the parry by accident. Then, once the boss (and let’s face it–it’s the bosses that are the problem) is staggered, hope that the specter detracts the boss enough so I can get the RT in. That’s not strategy–that’s just luck. Here’s my last post on the game.

The last boss I fought was the King of Puppets/Romeo. The first phase is the King of Puppets and then once you get rid of his entire health bar, Romeo comes out. He’s a fast fucker, and I had no chance of doing anything with him. I could avoid his attacks, barely, but I could not actually hit him. I was using the exploding pickaxe at this point with the police baton handle, and I had it upgraded to +6.

Here’s the problem, though. I only had 6 heals at this point, and I would be down to 1 or 2 by the second phase. And my specter barely survived into the second phase–the phase when I needed them the most. The King of Puppets could cover the entier arena with a swing of his arms. I have decent stamina in this game, but one combo from him would wipe me out. That’s my issue with the bosses in general. Dodging is shit. I can’t parry. Blocking takes up so much stamina. In other words, there’s nothing I can do to mitigate getting hit.

Here’s the thing. In the Souls games, I felt as if I could actually fight the bosses after learning their patterns. I have not felt that way in this game for the most part. I did learn the first boss’s patterns, somewhat, but he was the only one. Second boss, I got lucky and demolished him on the second try with the specter still alive. Third boss, I got SUPER lucky and demolished him on the first try with the specter lasting until the last few slivers of the boss’s health.


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Lies of P, more to say

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Lies of P (Neowiz Games/Round8 Studio). The game  I can’t quit, even though I’d rather be playing a From game. Why? I don’t even know, honestly. I think it’s partly because other people in the Discord are playing it. It’s also because I’m playing along with Rory in Elden Ring (to a certain extent), which means only playing a little bit at a time. Yes, I can play with my other characters, but I’m just not doing that at this time. In addition, this game is adequate enough to keep me pushing on, but it’s not great. If I was to grade the fourth chapter on its own, it would get a failing grade.

Here is the post from yesterday about the fourth chapter boss and how much I hated that boss. I had hoped it was a one-off, but it has not been. I’ll get to that in a second.

My biggest issues with this game are the following. One, there is no poise. Even when you get the enemies into the stagger state, they still attack you. Someone in the Discord mentioned there are I-frames (invincibility frames) after a dodge, but not nearly as many as in the From games. You can upgrade it, but I’m not going to waste my precious quartz on that when I can get more heals. The dodge is useless in this game. I don’t care that they said they improved it. Itt’s not worth a lickle of spit. This is not a real phrase, but I don’t care. I like the way it sounds.

You cannot expect the enemy/boss to get stunned. Ever. Which means that the groggy state is useless for someone like me who has bad reflexes. Yes, it’s a good idea in theory. Hit the boss enough to get them into the groggy state as indicated by the white border around their health bar, then do a charged RT to get them stunned, and then follow up by RB, so long as you’re in the right place. With the boss I was talking about yesterday, that’s an orange circle on the ground by his face. So if you’re whaling on his butt as I was because the specter was dealing with his front end, I had to run around and find the orange circle in time because the specter couldn’t be bothered to get the visceral.


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