[Maark Abbott]

tiam, on 12 November 2025 - 07:51 AM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 26 September 2025 - 07:48 AM, said:

polishgenius, on 25 September 2025 - 07:01 PM, said:

I think I might end up liking Silksong even more than HK, though only replays will tell - it's so rewarding, and once you get past a certain point you get way more customisation and ways to engage with the difficulty than the first game ever gave you. But it does take a lot of blood sweat and tears to get to that point, and there is one questionable decision in the game's structure that is definitely gonna put a lot of fans off.


Like, I don't think it's actually more difficult than HK, but the ways to mitigate the difficulty are harder to find than the difficulty which you just run face-first into.


It's very, very satisfying though. Hornet moves like a dream.

I actually played HK very close to the release date (started roughly in April) and the difference in the early game is very pronounced - it reminds me to some degree of Metroid Prime 2 which is noticeably harder than Prime 1 (given it expects players to know what they are doing already), but at the same time the difficulty curve in Prime 2 is more of a steady incline with a couple of spikes here and there (the infamous one is the Boost Guardian, although he's never given me any issue personally). The comparison is not great, I'll admit, but it's the best I have. A lot of the issue with Silksong is that because the opening is so very punishing, it felt like exploration was discouraged (a common thing in romhacks to gate players out of areas the developer doesn't want them in yet is to just make it horrible to go to that area), and so I never felt like I could go off of the beaten path without being slapped for it. For some context, the first part of HK I found sweaty was the Mantis Lords - but I still got past them first try, then went straight into Deepnest. With no upgrades. Because I didn't find that city place until after I had the monarch wings and the crystal dash.

It does bring back the dialogue around difficulty options, I guess - whilst I'm not interested in Clair Obscura, seeing that it has a mode that makes it at least accessible to play for people who don't really care about parry based gameplay is neat. I would have liked it if Silksong had done that but in its current state it was the least fun I have had in a game in a very, very long time, and given that HK was as good as it was it's a very bitter aftertaste left by that. Maybe I'd try it again if the developers made it more reasonable on the early game difficulty, but in its current state? No chance.

Anyway, on my end I'm in my retro PS2 horror era. About to starty on the second Fatal Frame game. The first was neat, if janky as heck, so I'm looking forward to the second.

Can I ask what you use to play PS2 games please? Theres a few old games I want to revisit.

Not long completed Lies of P. Wasn't sold at first, played like an odd Bloodborne clone but it actually ended up being a decent game. I enjoyed the lore and apparently there is a sequel pending based on further fables which could be good. I would recommend it and it was the free game with PlayStation a few months back so you may already have it

Without anything that'll get the server in bother, Papa Charlie Sierra Xray (two). Runs well and easily. And then the games I usually go to Victor India Mike Mike Sierra.

[Tiste Simeon]

Thanks for mentioning those sites so I know to avoid them.

[Maark Abbott]

It's an issue of preservation, unfortunately. I will always play something I can obtain legitimately via those means but companies just don't make some stuff available.

[Mentalist]

Been messing around with the backlog.

Wrapping up ReCore, one of Microsoft's most overlooked exclusives. it's a decent-ish metroidvania, where your traversal stuff comes from the various robo-toys that you have helping you out- and you can only have 2 (of max 5) active at once, so there's a bunch of swapping involved. The combat's kinda meh, b/c it's a third-person shooter with auto-lock, and you can do a QTE to fishih off weakened enemies by yanking out their cores-and you need those to upgrade your own robots' base stats. There's only 5 base enemy achetypes, with 6 colour variations that reflect different abilities.

Still, overall there's decent task variety, the platforming's fun (Joule start out with jet boosters, so you've got a double jump and an air-dash right off the bat), and the levels are fun enough to explore. Looking forward to wrapping it up this weekend.

[Mentalist]

Played both Hellblades back to back.
Combat gets a bit wonky in the second game, but the presentation's top notch.
The collectibles in Senua's Saga included stone faces you need to focus on to open new paths. By the end of the game I was seeing those faces in every rock texture, so the game did its job of instilling some of Senua's paranoia into me. Good job, I guess.

[Mentalist]

Shockingly, managed to launch PoP Forgotten Sands off Uplay. Earlier had issues with this, both thru Steam and Uplay, but apparently Ubi actually fixed something. So I've been trying to capitalize on that and finally play it.

[Mentalist]

Been making my way through an indie game.
It's called Wicked Seed, and it's an RPG/horror mix, ala Parasite Eve.
It uses Active Time battle system, where the player moves in real time, but needs to build up stamina to shoot (basic bullets are infinite, high-damage are scarce) or use skills (and you learn more skills as as you level up). The enemies seem to move in turns. There's a lot of the ResI-y trappings (limited health items, stashes that morph between save points, save rooms, etc), and the design feels like a Resident Evil Best Hits playlist (there's a police station, a colonial manor with a lab under it, etc), and there's several million unlocks for speedruns, S-ranks, etc. The unlockable Despair difficulty actually reshuffles key items, collectibles, encounter design and puzzle solutions.

Despite veru clearly being a very derivative thing, this gam e(which seems to be mostly a solo dev endeavor) is very much more than merely the sum of its parts. It's very much an RPG at its core, as you have to spend a lot of times tinkering with gun upgrades, and figuring out which perks to slot into them. There's an in-game currency (scrap) which is used to upgrade your guns, and also for skills that let you craft items in combat. You can farm it by respawning monsters (when you rest at coffee machines), but more importantly, you can also bust your weapon down to level 0 to recoup all the scrap spent on it, to switch to a different gun. There's also a whole lot of armors you can equip, and each weapon and armor has 3-4 part slots, which let you play around with parts that convey stats bonuses or special benefits (like instantanoeus gun switching- including reloads, or regaining health when using a finisher on a Staggered enemy). The intent is to min-max and craft builds to maximize damage output to take on increasingly more ridiculous enemy types. It's a simple loop, but it manages to be pretty addicting.

Been playing for just over 20 hours (did a bit of grinding over the weekend) and I'm in the last chapter, and new enemy types just keep popping up. overall, it's a pretty neat gem, especially for its price point.