What you playing PS4 / PS5 Style

It's definitely my favourite one. There's a pulse pounding intensity behind the fighting which works for me far better than the methodical Souls games.

Because there's such a fluidity to it, I found myself much more inclined to take risks and have fun with the game, whereas I'd always end up grinding out victories behind my shield in the first Souls game.

It's so so close between Dark Souls and BB for me, but if you pushed me for an answer I think Bloodborne edges it as I prefer it's world/combat & on top of that it's probably the most complete and well rounded From soft game. BRING ON THE ELDEN RING!

I think I need to go back to Bloodborne don't I? Think I'm roughly at the same point Buska mentioned but something else came along at the time and I've not been back since. As someone who's never played a Souls game I've thought about it and I'd have to say Bloodborne is the better game.

I actually really like the rhythm of combat in the original Dark Souls. That might be because I played it a lot like Bloodborne; I dodged more than I blocked, and I loved the parry. Parrying is my favourite mechanic in most games - apart from maybe a Bayonetta dodge - and Bloodborne leans even harder into that side of things.

I also like that the way the health system works encourages me to push on further from wherever I'm currently based - in Dark Souls, sometimes I'd get a ways from the last bonfire and be really desperate to find another one. I've heard people mention grinding, though I'm being a hoarder so far and hoping that won't come up.

Currently, I'm not feeling BB's world in quite the same way as DS, but I'm just more of a fan of fantasy and mythology than I am gothic victorian horror. I've heard this takes a turn for the Lovecraftian later though, so I might be swayed by that.

Definitely has Lovecraftian elements to it, although the extent to which you will encounter some of them depends on how you play. It would be nice to hear how you get on with each of the boss battles. There are some really good ones in there as you would expect.

I think I still prefer Dark Souls to Bloodborne, but it may be I ended up playing DS1, BB and DS3 in such close proximity that I kind-of burned out. Still good though, and I felt like a clever person for beating it.

I played all of them well spaced out. DS3 is probably the game I had the most fun with. Having gone through Bloodborne and the original, I was pretty good at the games by then. This meant I used to help other players against the more challenging bosses. Probably the only time where I have received nothing but nice messages from players via PSN messenger. For that reason, DS3 is probably my favourite multiplayer game on the PS4 to play solo... if that makes any sense!

I can understand why people adore DS1, and I have a lot of respect for it in terms of design, but it's not one I enjoyed playing on my own! Oddly it's probably the game I've completed the most outside of things on the Gameboy. I helped a friend get past the parts he was stuck on, and we ended up going through the whole game together over a few weeks. We beat it again later on, this time with him doing most of the heavy lifting. I think he's on the last few pluses of NG+ now!

The mulitplayer in DS3 really is fantastic! Had a lot of good times either in the PvP fight clubs that would pop up in certain areas as well as helping folk with certain bosses.

I started playing the star wars; fallen order game. It's... not that good to be honest. Night and day is the difference between it and a From soft game.

I didn't actually know it borrowed heavily from the Souls games before I started it, and the first hour or so you'd be forgiven for not knowing it was going to take that turn because it does its best Uncharted with a sad boy protagonist impression. The story is very basic but that's ok, it's a Star Wars game and it looks pretty.

Then the actual game starts and you're on a swampy shithole, pottering about for hours fighting bugs and frogs. This is where the game opens up and gives you a bonfire, a fairly open map (which you'll traverse gradually by unlocking new skills), and a limited healing between bonfires.

But while the game makes it clear during the prologue that you're a lapsed Jedi boy with weak powers, it still gives you a fun sense of action early on; you're unrefined but still a jedi. Well, in the swamp the limitations of the character, his garbage jump, stiff movement, and lack of cool force powers really puts a downer on the game. This is made worse by the fact that the enemies are just boring nibbly bugs that don't really feel like they're teaching you anything. It's at this point where, for all the window dressing, it just doesn't feel very Star Wars. It's not very fun.

Fallen Order highlights enemies in red when they're about to do an unblockable attack. But it's really confusing! Unlike a spectacle fighter, they don't turn red moments before they attack, there's a big windup between them turning red and actually attacking, a windup that's long enough for you to press dodge, finish the animation, and then get hit. My instinct is to read the colour not the character model and it's hard to unlearn that. Just animate the character well and I'll learn to dodge the unblockable.

Another thing with those accursed red moves. I used a force power to freeze a big frog boss as it turned red, and then tried to run behind it. But while your force power freezes the enemy from moving forwards or backwards, it can still move and track you laterally, so it just ended up hitting me. To be fair, I was fighting an optional sideboss, that's where all the unblockable knowledge comes from, but I didn't know you could return to areas so I felt like I had to beat it.

It's such a weird game because it feels both hindered and boosted by its license. If it wasn't a Star Wars game I wouldn't be playing it, but because it's a Star Wars game we're locked into another chosen one storyline. That could be fine, but so far the characters are just bad, especially the aliens who have so far all filled the role of the "working class comedy" characters. Not sure I'll finish it but will have a crack at some of the other worlds.

Interesting as Fallen Order, we got CW to play on the cast and believe he 1000g it, along with both EofGiz and myself least doing the story.

Those two umm aren't keen on Souls games, and you know what I'm like with them. Where Fallen Order, I really enjoyed don't know because Star Wars in a good game for first time in ages, or does the Souls stuff I like but with thing's like maps etc which talked about in what become the Elden Ring thread.

Muss wrote:

Fallen Order highlights enemies in red when they're about to do an unblockable attack. But it's really confusing! Unlike a spectacle fighter, they don't turn red moments before they attack, there's a big windup between them turning red and actually attacking, a windup that's long enough for you to press dodge, finish the animation, and then get hit. My instinct is to read the colour not the character model and it's hard to unlearn that. Just animate the character well and I'll learn to dodge the unblockable.

This smacks of the devs maybe seeing Sekiro's enemies have various unblockable attacks and not quite getting how that game executes them & what options you have as a player. It still blows my mind how From can make a Sword combat system look so fast and flashy but everything is still very deliberate as well.

I've not played Jimmy Fallon orders yet but it's reception seems hugely split, it mainly seems to be that anyone who hasn't experienced the combat from a Souls game loves it and those that are familiar with them don't think much of it, take that as you will but it doesn't make me excited to play it.

Can confirm: Bloodborne is very, very good.

Yeah Bloodborne is a banger. You can also finally watch the hilarious Simon Miller/VG Tommo let's play now!

Speaking of, one of the things all the Souls games get right is parrying. It's difficult, but pull it off and you are rewarded with a critical hit and a really satisfying animation. There's parrying in Fallen Order too... but it sucks. It sucks because you use a lightsabre, so obviously that should one hit kill anything. So what you end up with is a parrying system that can't deliver a big hit on anything but the scrub enemies because source material.

I've played quite a bit more of it now, finished a few more worlds, and it's still a mess tbh. At times it's good, when it does its Uncharted impression it's a fun game. When it lets you feel like a jedi, it's a fun game. But it's got some hot trash platforming, the puzzles are annoying and slow the game down, and the protagonist is lame. The souls influence doesn't really make any sense, and the level designs are often really dumb. Unlike Souls, this game absolutely needs a map because the layout is all over the place.

The exploration is pointless because there are 3 types of rewards, extra estus flasks, extra force/HP or cosmetics. 99% of the items you get for exploring are cosmetics... for your lightsabre... as in, that hilt you can never see, you can change it's colour!!! This makes its metroidvania-ness a waste of time. In fact, the way you're given new powers is annoying too. Of course all games do that thing where you get a new power and you immediately need it to do X, but there's something about it in this game that feels particularly on the nose. I guess it's because unlike a Batman game, for example, there's no real point in going back to an older challenge and using your new power, so you are just left with the arbitrary - you have this skill because the plot says so - moments. I mean sure, sometimes you're sent back to an old world because you can progress the story there too now but this is Star Wars! There is a galaxy worth of planets we could explore, but I keep getting sent back to the 2 different swamp planets in the game!!!

The pacing is really poor, both in terms of the amount of obstacles between you and an objective just being too many, and the narrative being quite weak. Compared to God of War, with the amount of care that's taken over the characters and the world building in that game, Fallen Order is a vastly inferior game. There's no way I could score this higher than a 6 at the moment. I don't care that it looks pretty, or that I'm playing it in 4k, the craftmanship behind this game was done by committee.

I'm playing the Windjammers 2 open beta & it is absolutely glorious! Also if this doesn't end up with high review score for our fantasy league then all future games should just be cancelled.

I started Nioh this week. It obviously not as polished as a FROM game, but the Samurai flavour and the combat are both right up my street, I'm instantly well into it.

Well that's good. I have been tempted by both the Niohs, and I understand they're better than just imitations of FROM games.

I'm still on the Outer Wilds, and it might be the closest a game's been to life-changing since a certain Wildy Breathey game.

I started the first one a while back but then stopped for some reason. I thought it was pretty decent, although I'd no doubt have to start it again now. It's definitely more than a FROM imitation. I don't think I got into the Outer Wilds as much as some people but it's a really smart piece of work.

I have Nioh too and need to give it another chance, having repeatedly failed against the first boss and when I Googled how to beat it, discovered it wasn't even the first boss I like the look and the combat more than Dark Souls so will definitely return - it's just whether I want to spend evenings throwing the controller across the room.

So has anybody else taken the plunge with Deathloop? Have to say that I'm really enjoying it. I haven't played a shooter for a while and found the controls a little bit floaty at first. Did not take me very long to get over that though.

The timelooping elements are good, really good actually. If you're a fan of the Outer Wilds then you won't find the same level of timing here. Once you enter an area, time won't progress until you leave it, but there is always the threat that you could be invaded by another player to keep you on your toes. I'd liken it more to Dead Rising than Outer Wilds, in that it's an order of operations game except more hand holdy so you will eventually (presumably) get towards the good ending. You have map markers for the important things, but equally there's plenty of side stuff that's more obtuse so there's enough puzzling things out for you to feel smarter than you actually are, which works for me!

Not that I know if there are multiple endings or not, I've only really scratched the surface. Definitely recommend it for any PS5 owners.

Seen a lot of reviews and discourse on Twitter etc, still not sure if it's my sort of thing and I know in 12 months it be in Game Pass. That I'm happy to wait till it's cheap or to the Game Pass release.

Especially like I've only just started Ratchet, Kena soon, FFVII INTERmission that plenty on PlayStation already.

I've ordered it so I'll be spending Monday on it mostly. Looking forward to it.

Got it but girlfriend is playing it through at the moment while I concentrate on NEOTWEWY

masofdas wrote:

Seen a lot of reviews and discourse on Twitter etc, still not sure if it's my sort of thing and I know in 12 months it be in Game Pass.  That I'm happy to wait till it's cheap or to the Game Pass release.

Especially like I've only just started Ratchet, Kena soon, FFVII INTERmission that plenty on PlayStation already.

I feel like you would like it. It's an amalgamation of lots of things but you could look at it as having some similarities to the modern Hitman games - you gradually uncover new opportunities and get a little better over time at taking out certain objectives. And also something like Dark Souls due to player invasions. Both those aspects though are wrapped up in a game that gives you a lot of help. The advantage is with the person who is invaded generally, and the game tracks objectives for you quite nicely. You can also toggle settings so that only the AI invades you or people from your friends list. But on top of all of that there's some nice character development going on with, a bright and colourful world, and a very fluid movement system.

The invasions add a real tangible sense of tension to the game. The enemies aren't pushovers generally, but they're easy enough to get comfortable with. The maps are fairly large arenas, and you're never sure where the invading human spawns. There is a punishment for dying, in that you'll reset your loop and if you had a few specific things setup from earlier in the day then you have to do those again, but you're always uncovering something new in each playthrough so it's not frustrating.

It's got some similarities to rogue likes in that sense, although mostly in the vein of Hades. You'll gradually be upgrading your abilities and weaponry as you play, and you'll gradually be uncovering more about the world and your character, but of course as with Hades you are expected to fall short from time to time. Dying is an integral part of the game and I think it's really special when a game can make dying part of the fun, instead of a penalty.

What makes this worth playing though is the way that it puts all of these ideas together in what is an incredibly cohesive package. It's very much it's own thing, but it also has so much of its roots in Dishonoured and aspects of other games and genres. Back when Shadow of Mordor came out, I was gushing about the nemesis system and was really hopeful we'd see things like that in bigger games. This isn't the same system, but it feels like something you couldn't have experienced on a previous generation of console. I think the SSD does a lot of work here because it helps you get back into the fray as you would in a roguelike game, but there's so much more going on here.

You've just named a load of games I've either not played or umm not got on with such as Souls even if I can appreciate how good the game is.

Because of that why I'm happy to wait for it being cheap or Game Pass.