drahkon

The game shines in those epic one-on-one boss battles. I think I'm at the first major boss fight and while he's kicking my ass in his second form it's such a fun fight. Trading blows and deflections is so satisfying and every time a deathblow lands it's a feeling of "yeah, I'm the best" (even if it's only one of many deathblows needed to kill an enemy ). Those moments of the game: 10/10 And then there are those mini-bosses with swarms of smaller mobs in the immediate vicinity. Like that drunken dude in Hirata Estate. Why do there have to be 7 or 8 other enemies? Yes, you can kill them one by one if you lure them (and the boss) out, kill one, run away so they "reset" rinse and repeat. But it's so tedious. And if you decide to fight them head on, sooner or later there's no way to avoid an attack and bam: 2-3 hits, if one is from the boss it usually means death. Those moments of the game: 0/10 Maybe I suck at Sekiro, maybe I just don't understand the point of those encounters, but they do take away a lot of fun. And I doubt it'll get better the further I progress. The 10/10 moments and the prospect of reaching more of those still keep me going, though.

For a game whose battle mechanics focus on one-on-one encounters it sure does throw you into a lot of gangbangs. Even when you sneak around and stealth kill enemies, there will always be groups that you can't dispatch stealthily and then you have two swordbros and 3 dogs attacking you. Maybe later on there will be methods to deal with groups more easily but right now it's rather annoying. The one-on-one battles, though...freaking awesome. Now I don't know if I've actually fought against a "real" boss (do those exist? I.e. enemies with a big HP bar on the bottom of the screen? ) or if those "bigger" encounters have only been mini-bosses...but (aside from that stupid flaming-non-stop-bum-rushing-you-bull) the fights have been exceptionally fun. Parrying, blocking, punishing, getting punished. It's a weird rhythm that you have to learn, but once you got it down the battles are intense and enjoyable. Still haven't gotten used to Sekrio's blocking/parrying timings, though. Even normal enemies regularly manage to land a hit on me. It's odd. While I don't necessarily like parrying I generally am pretty good with it, but in this one it feels a little weird somehow. Gonna take me a lot more time to actually nail it.

After an hour it still hasn't clicked but there's something there I need to get out of my usual Souls mindset. Playing defensively is a death sentence in Sekiro, it seems. You really need to pressure opponents. I guess once I've internalized that it'll click.

Looks like the Spongebob game is already available on PS+. I was able to add it via my PS5. Just search for it in the store.

It has arrived two days ago, but I wanted to finish Kena: Bridge of Spirits before diving into the world of Sekiro. I've played this quite some time ago (I actually borrowed my mate's copy back then, too) but it never really clicked. I'm not that into parry mechanics in games, which doesn't bode well, if I understand Sekiro's game play correctly But I'll give it another go and see whether I'll enjoy it or not.

Just finished it after a 7 hour long journey. Had a lot of fun with it. It's such a gorgeous and entertaining action-adventure. Ember Lab shows a lot of promise as a game developer. I wanna see them go for a game that has a larger scale. Their character and environmental design is top notch. I'd love for them to try an action-adventure or RPG with different tribes and various regions. I think they could pull it of, at least artistically. Anyways, Kena: Bridge of Spirits was great. A little jank here and there, but it's really good for Ember Lab's first game.

Been playing this some more now. Freed the first major spirit. So far so good. It's a great game and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. The Rot is cute as heck Combat is fun, if a little janky at times thanks to enemies that home in on you really fast Using The Rot's true form is also a little odd...its movement is kinda slow and the camera does what it wants occasionally. Other than that, it's a very polished game. Beautiful setting, gorgeous animation, sound and music are top notch. Ember Lab has got some talent I'll probably won't bother with the trophies, though. It's not a game I can see myself play through twice.

And after 140 hours, there it is: Slay the Spire is a mechanically perfect masterpiece. That's the highest praise I can give to game. A few days ago, Elden Ring tied the #1 spot on drahkon's magnificent favourite games of all time list but playing Slay the Spire again just made me realize that the deck-building rogue-lite has no flaws (aside from some RNG heavy trophies, but as I said: I despise the persons who decided on those, not the game itself ) and needs to be at the top alone. @Hero-of-Time before you try out this game: I remember one of your goals this year was to get the Platinum in every game you play. Keep in mind that there's almost no way to cheese the Platinum. You actually have to learn the game and play perfectly on the highest difficulties (not that this would be a problem for you, but it is a time sink and could take away a lot of time you'd otherwise have allocated to other games).

Two more trophies down in Slay the Spire. This one was a bit of a nightmare...had a lot of runs powerful enough to complete Act 3. Most of them I had either no Feed or no Donu boss fight. But it had to happen eventually: A ridiculously powerful run and I got both the necessary card and the required boss fight in Act 3 Funnily enough I managed to win this run in under 20 minutes. This actually has happened many times while hunting other trophies...shouldn't have specifically gone for the speedrun trophy earlier Also did this: Two more achievements to go: Complete the ending with The Silent and with The Defect. Edit: First run with The Silent in ages:

On the ignore list you go

Thanks @Happenstance for making me start this again and go through with it. I'll put my final thoughts in spoilers, just in case. What a game @Julius Play it sooner rather than later! Edit: Just realized, I basically played this for 6 hours (almost) straight. Yeah...what a game

Gonna be interesting to see what it'll be like. I have two theories: It's weird. The game isn't good, the narrative isn't anything to write home about, yet, but the prospect of something big happening keeps me going. You better not be lying to me. Edit: Well, I just played one of the most harrowing missions ever...

Well, reached Chapter 6 of Specs Ops: The Line and so far...nothing special Just your usual "team's gone rogue", "shit's going down in a city", "kill your old mates" stuff. Apparently it's quite a short game so I might actually push through tonight and see what all the fuss is about.

I might. I really dislike the game's clunkyness (is that a word?) so turning down the difficulty seems like a good idea. I just wanna play the game for the narrative anyways

Ok, I'll give it another try

Zero.

PS3 streaming was expected, but still sad. Other than that: Sounds good. I'll be able to test PlayStation Plus Premium for a few months since I still have a PS Now sub until October this year. There will surely be deals to reduce the annual sub a few quid just as it's been for years now. Might actually be a good idea to look out for some cheap PS Now deals Now I just need the entire list of games available in each tier.

PS1 - Vagrant Story, Xenogears, Gunners Heaven (haven't played the first two) PS2 - Dragon Quest VIII, Burnout 3: Takedown, Twisted Metal: Black (haven't played the latter) PS3 - MGS4, Killzone 3, Resistance 3 (haven't played the last two) PSP - no idea...I haven't dabbled with the PSP at all, yet

And one more: One final very RNG heavy trophy left: Kill a certain boss (1/3 chance to fight it in the last act) with a certain card (which shows up quite regularly). Other than that it's just a matter of beating the true ending with all characters and create certain types of decks with each (e.g. a deck which lets you get 999 block in one turn).

Rumour has it it'll start today. Brace yourselves. I'm not expecting an incredible launch of the new service. I'd settle for the potential of it becoming great over time, i.e. having more and more classic games available. But we'll see. It could also be a total disaster

Trusted leaker Dealabs is back: First of all: Objectively, this is the best month ever because of Battle for Bikini Bottom Slay the Spire. But this is the first month in ages that's pretty bad for me. I might give the Spongebob game a go, though. Never heard of Hood Oultawas & Legends to be honest...