krad

i love how ubuntu bugs are 'haven't reset the laptop in three whole ass weeks, keyboard mysteriously doesn't work until you hit enter in textedit a few times, probably firefox again' versus 'sneeze in photoshop on mac and it has a kernel panic' :P 

anyway. the point of the post is elden ring. probably the most complimentary review of the game is 'don't expect to accomplish anything for a month and a half if you start'. (which is not a negative by any means, just a fact of the matter.)

here's possibly the last loveblog post on it ~

( minor late game spoilers )

something else really interesting about elden ring's gameplay is even when there's an option to cheese a boss - it doesn't usually feel like breaking the game/cheating/glitching; there's some kind of subtle environmental hint that you're encouraged to use if you're getting obliterated.

let's take the pre-big-boss fight in leyendell for example. (golden spirit guy with a huge honking axe you fight indoors).

his moves are huge sweeping axe swings, and he's fast/aggressive/jumps from really far. extremely difficult for most builds. but there's a little alcove under a balcony with 8 or so columns that you can place in between yourself and him to delay those jumps just so, and whittle him down with arrows. a lot of time elden ring's boss fights are super minimal in settings, so the devs absolutely put that alcove there intentionally to give you slack.

so many times i get obliterated by a boss a few times and think "okay, i was going in with no plan. what's the intended plan here." and then it clicks into place. scarlet rot arrows on a difficult boss that's heavily hinted to be weak to scarlet rot, charming-spirits-to-be-allies-and-siccing-them on an enemy spirit caller, etc. it really is one of the few combat-oriented RPG's that has made me think of tactics when you hit a wall of difficulty in brute-forcing them.

ER does that "suggesting" thing a few times elsewhere in visual themes (morgott reverting to "normal human stature" instead of being 16ft tall in-battle is such an interesting example) that i can see why this series has been a staple classic.

the thing that's really cool about elden ring's gameplay loop is .... okay, runes are both experience points and money, and you get them when you kill enemies. once you level up, it uses up a certian amount of runes you're holding.

you also drop all of them when you die. :D
(you get one chance to retrieve them but then they're lost permanently if you die again)

so it actually forces you to play different play-styles aka "close to leveling up conservative" and "more risky/recklace when near zero" which is a total game changer from say, skyrim or tears of the kingdom, probably the two-most-similar games i've played. once when you find a play-style in both of those games (and most open world games) that cheeses the experience (aka assassin mage sneakbow crits in skyrim or puffshroom arrows in TOTK), you don't move away from it. ever.  you might have a rare enemy that makes you mix it up but it's annoying.

but elden ring has a nice comfy yin-yang tension between stints of being much riskier ('time to yeet-run myself through the endgame capital to see if i can grab another save point before being OHKO'd') that's ACTION PACKED but also the stakes are comparatively lower versus if you're holding TONS of runes and you're on your last healing potion and ya gotta assassinate 5 enemies EXTREMELY CAREFULLY and you're literally sweating after. (even my weapon loadouts are different; if i'm riskier i'm usually using a whip that's great with diving into mobs head-first, or if i'm more careful i'm using a polearm that can do sneakstrikes and more likely to use arrows to soften/distract targets)

like you can cheese both. but they require to be cheesed in different ways.

i know the reputation that it's super difficult but ironically i feel like tears was actually.... slightly more difficult....? maybe specific major-story ER bosses are bottlenecks (radhann). ER gives you tons of options in general for open world enemies that you're underleveled for like slapping soft cotton on and sneaking/running by them - frankly you're encouraged to simply run past enemies you can't beat so there's usually some element of a cool-chase-and-shake-them-off-of-your-tail experience i wasn't expecting versus bashing everyone's heads in that's also not pure boring stealth.

anyway tl;dr after i finish a thing about to go test myself on morgott >;3

... i think that was the first time i saw an area in a game so beautiful i legit teared up a bit.

( elden ring thoughts! no real spoilers, but up to the mages academy )

played about an hour of hades (original) ~

( like nier:a i'm not.... feeling it )

so i spent about 2-3 hours on elden ring today "testing" the steam deck before putting it aside to be given for christmas. :P 

( elden ring thots. there will be more come december. )

tl;dr elden ring is addictive enough i can tell i'm going to need to have absolutely everything wrapped up by mid december or it's going to take another six months to do lol

BERGAN WAS POSSESSED TOO??????????????????????????

skjsjsjhahahhahjhzjh WHY DO I HAVE SUCH AN ODDLY SPECIFIC TYPE OF HOT PSYCHO POSSESSED OLD KNIGHTS I am wheezing

anyway last proper loveblog was all the way back in the ...... henne mines?? damn.

* i find it hilarious that i was able to drop numerous mini/(bosses) with literal one-hit-concurrence-knockouts but the one enemy by far i've had the most difficulty was the fuckING NINJA AMBUSH JELLIES in those mines yeesh

* penelo going 'but the nethcite was my good luck charm, i'm not afraid of it ^_^' literally seconds after the viera getting unposessed was. something. i'm in awe, girl. i want your vibes. ALSO HER SQUEE WITH AL-CID KISSING ASHE'S HAND? adorable

* ALSO HOLY FUCK THAT CUTSCENE. you know the one, where vayne ascends to power and there's the whole coup with him and bergan and the other judges... that was so much fun to watch.

* i'm not gonna 100% the game but i'm having fun at least attempting a vast majority of hunts + espers along with the main game itself to stretch it out just a bit longer since it's so.... satisfying to play, especially after a rough day at work. flattened the gil snapper hunt just yesterday after grinding a little in the zenthin(?) caves - and i kind of love the point when you can tell you're ever so slightly underleved walking into an area and then steadily getting overleveled the more you grind/cheese through it. oddly fun.

* the fight with bergan was too shortttttt uuuu_uu. i did love how the game hella psyched him up in the desperate race back up to the mountain though.

* on the way to the labratory but gonna wrap up a few hunts in the meantime :D

oh i had fun in ff12 tonight. :D

* howled laughing when vaan had that utterly absurd critical failure charisma role asking fran how old she was. lol. lmao even. oh dude did no one teach you you never ask a woman what her age is :P

* weirdly enough i'm really liking penelo of all characters right now??? i think it started with that one really intriguing moment back in ranbaste when.... i think it was balthier? gave vaan that pointed 'and what are you looking for?' line (philosophically) and vaan was real... flustered, just didn't know how to answer to that because he had never really considered it before. but as the gang minus him all walks out of the room it was interesting to see penelo of all people be as determined-looking as ashe and the others when in like, any other FF, i feel like they'd have her as the "softer lady" be comforting vaan since they were childhood friends. ever since then it's been fun to watch how unusually serious and focused penelo is in cutscenes. she cool.

* reached a 'oh i get this now!!!' tipping point both with figuring out how tf to do concurrences, reaching some critical license points, and optimizing equipment. things are clicking, you know?

* also i am SO glad i gave machinst/guns to penelo. gameplay-wise it's because guns aren't scaled to strength and she has the weakest strength etc but now i am SOLELY doing it for the 'i'm a healer but [cocks gun]' vibes LOL. she actually can do some serious damage now holy shit??? went from doing 0x2 to 400+ damage overnight l o l

* right now i just got ahold of the imperial's chocobo after the viera village, but i actually think i'm going to wander around and do some miscellaneous hunts since i can chainsaw through most foes now and i'm curious to see what does actually give me a hard time.

bro WHAT kind of look was vossler/ashe/basch sharing on the leviathan.....................

i have seen way less loaded looks that have singlehandedly driven flagship ships good googly moogly lordy

(sleepyquail  i suddenly get why you ship those three :D;;; also i saw your cid blorbo! ) 

* anyway, engrossed with the way the plot is developing! judge ghis went down quicker than i was expecting. then again i did uhhhh kind of grind/powerlevel just a wee bit in the mines with the skeletons :D;;

* anybody who has a newly minted armor kink can't be me is uh. gonna enjoy the leviathan section just sayin. kind of wish vossler would put back on the imperial armor that was a nice piece of eyecandy. huge kotor2 flashbacks in a fond way to 'going around in a maze onboard a massive starship.

* i love how .... crunchy? the princess ashe is? not granola-crunchy, but just how sharp her edges are and how she holds a grudge against basch way longer than vaan does. then again she doesn't know about basch's brother(?) yet so we'll see there.

i'm considering changing ashe's main class to time mage vs red mage.... time looks like it has some really useful spells, hmmm....