Tag: soloing | A Banana Peeled

Tag Archives: soloing

Swallowing my pride and moving on in Nioh 2

Posted on January 31, 2023 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

So, as a FromSoft fan, I played all the Dark Souls and Bloodborne with the mentaliy that I had to solo the bosses, otherwise, I’m not hard–and I’m not a real gamer. I did summon a few times, but only as a last straw. Then, I went back and beat all the bosses solo. Except for three bosses in the BB DLC and the gank runs in the DS II DLCs.

When I started Nioh the original, I had the same mentality. No summoning. It’s a crutch that only fake gamers needed. Except. Here’s the thing. I quit the game a third of the way through because I hit a boss that I found too grueling. I fought her for hours and then switched my weapons. I proceeded to beat her in thirty seconds, quit the game, and did not go back except for a brief moment.

I know you’re saying, “Minna, you beat the boss. You’re not making the point you think you’re making. But it’s part of the point. If I hadn’t spent hours against the boss, I would not have felt as infuriated that merely switching weapons did the job. I will say that my one big dislike of both games is that once you start a mission, you can’t quit out of it without losing all your XP, amitra, money, and any progress you made in the mission. So, you can’t dip out and go to an earlier mission to grind, which bugs me.

Anyway, Nioh 2 by Team Ninja was the game I was playing when I ended up in the hospital. The last message I sent to Ian was about the forge boss we had both just beaten. The second main story boss. It had been really difficult for me because I poured all my points into Omnyo Magicks, but you can’t actually use them until late into the second main mission. So, yes, I had some magicks available by the time I reached the boss, but not much. And I had no health or stamina.

I had heard that Omnyo Magicks were very powerful in this game, but then later found out that meant midway through the game. Of course. Which meant that I was highly under-tuned for the first two story mission and three or four sub-missions. Actually, I’m still underleveled now. My general marker for what level I should be is the suggested level +5 or +10, but that’s not easy to do in this game. I’m level 30, and the next batch of missions are suggested 35 or so.

I beat the forge boss the day before I ended up in the hospital. Or at least, that was when I messaged Ian about it. I died to that boss 100 times. Nioh 2 keeps track of your deaths. Ugh. I do not need that on my permanent record, thank you very much.

Elden Ring–do what you want

Posted on October 13, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

Yesterday, I wrote about my pet peeve that is ‘magic is for pussies’ in FromSoft games. That wasn’t what I intended to write about, but I couldn’t get it off my mind. Today, I was going to write about the thing that was on my mind, but another ‘you should play the From games like this’ stuck in my craw. It’s because I was still watching Aoife and other-Ian make their way through Elden Ring (again). They were in Mount Gelmir, making their way to Volcano Manor.

At some point, they were talking about summoning for the bosses (I’m pretty sure it’s in this episode. Or the one following. Probably this one, though. They were talking about how a newbie can ease into a From game and how to make it easier on themselves. Other-Ian said that you could summon if you were having trouble, and Aoife said you should try to solo the boss first.

Side Note: She doesn’t count the spirit summons as summons, but many hardcore fans do. It’s one reason some of them don’t think Elden Ring is a good game–because some of the bosses are nearly impossible to solo. I have NO sympathy because the game was created around the system, which means you’re SUPPOSED to use the spirit summons for the boss fights. So someone knowingly refusing to use a tool of the game, yeah, you get no sympathy from me.

FromSoft is allowed to grow, change, and adapt. They do not need to keep their systems stagnant just because some of the hardcore fans have a static view on what the games should be–one that is, when taken to extreme, toxic and damaging. Not the desire to solo, to be clear, but the idea that if FromSoft deviates from this one bit, it’s a deep and bitter betrayal and a blow to their manhood.

Back to Aoife and Ian. Ian quickly countered that he had summoned for a few of the bosses without fighting them solo because he just wanted to move on. Aoife said that if you don’t fight them solo, you don’t get any sense of them and don’t get the satisfaction when you beat them. Ian said he definitely got the satisfaction when he beat them and moved on, which disgruntled Aoife.

They moved on, but I wanted to expand on it a bit. I actually agree with Aoife. I always tried to solo the bosses (with my spirit summon) because there is something satisfying about finally beating a boss who had given you so much trouble. But, on the other hand, there was a boss I reached at the end of an area I hated who was a trick boss with two looooooooong stages. I tried the boss a few times, but I was so tired of the area by that point. And, if I’m to be honest, I was a bit weary of the game. This happens to me at the end of all FromSoft games because I inhale them and go hard at them when they come out.