Absolutely iconic.

I can’t really go by playtime, because I tend to beat a game and move on to a new experience. But Withering Rooms was like 2023, that’s another one I am completely obsessed with. Death Howl from last year was also amazing. Darkwood is I guess 2010s but I am (trying) to play it right now, also phenomenal. With some notable exceptions I feel like my most memorable gaming experiences are indie games nowadays.

Titanium Court is the best game I’ve played all year and it’s currently only €9.99. Indie games keep completely dominating the value proposition in gaming.

Okay first of all I don’t want to say anything definitive because I haven’t played it myself. And Code Vein does have its fanbase, it’s just that they mostly like it for the anime story and the companion system (or co-op) or the character creator that lets you make your own anime character. Or the build variety I guess, I have heard it’s supposed to have good build variety.

But stuff like combat, boss design, level design and exploration are often brought up as criticisms in various ways. Clunky and weightless combat, some bad bosses, poor balancing, uninspiring level design with lots of samey-looking mazelike copy-pasted assets, poor enemy variety… stuff like that is what I’ve heard.

Okay, so yes. Lord Nobody of Nowhere in Central Nowhere sells photo plates (he also buys pictures, pays extra for pictures of ghosts). Like every vendor, he will only sell you up to a certain quantity, so you can never overstock anything (apart from craftables). I think the max limit on photo plates is 7. I think this also takes into account spent photo plates in your inventory so always sell those off before you restock.

I don’t think there should be any place that is completely inaccessible, not that I remember. Which area are you in? But doing a farming run with Mr Coffin isn’t a bad idea if you need more resources. There are also some neat farming strats you can do, like with the grandfather clock (set it to midnight to attract enemies then pelt them with an AoE like Harvest Field). Or some Door Hex shenanigans.

Well you know, if Druid can talk about throwing their sanity away in League every week in this thread then we can talk about playing non-Souls games too here. Plus, Withering Rooms was clearly inspired by Dark Souls (and its sequel will be an actual Soulslike/-lite) so it’s practically an honorary Soulslike anyway.

Also, weren’t you supposed to be punk? Sticking to some stuffy establishment notion of a “discussion topic” is not very punk rock…

Hm, I don’t think I’ve heard much praise for the level design in Code Vein. Are you sure you’re not mixing it up with AI Limit? That’s another anime Soulslike and that one does get praised a lot for level design (although I found it less impressive than people made it out to be).

Well, if he wanted me to take him seriously as a warrior he shouldn’t have garden greens growing out of his head. He’s giving less “Iron Fist” and more “Iron Fistful of basil for my omelette”.

Ohh, I didn’t think about farming related cheese but there is also the iconic DS1 spot on the bridge where you let the dragon kill all those hollows for you by just running up and down from the bonfire. That’s a classic.

What made you grab Code Vein of all things? I’ve heard some… not so good things about it. And does that mean you gave up on Withering Rooms, then? It’s totally fine, my recommendations can’t all be winners.

Love your hair! And you still got your claws I see.

Also that is a very cute flowerpot.

Yeah, cozy is probably the exact opposite of what Darkwood is haha. “Oppressive and stressful” is more like what I’m feeling. I’m in the second area still but I’ve also been watching Mapocolops playthrough of it because I want to see at least one ending of it and I’m not sure I have it in me to beat it as I said. And I can tell you the game just keeps getting worse and harder. It’s actually well balanced in that way, that despite you getting more and better weapons it never really gets that much easier. Though maybe playing on controller is just way worse than KBM. I definitely struggle more with aiming and dodging than Mapocolops does. You definitely have a lot more to discover, I won’t spoil anything but it feels like the second area is where things really starts to happen in terms of characters and story and world. Although the wedding in the first area was awesome too.

I guess I should play Monster Hunter at some point, that is a franchise I’m not familiar with. How do they adapt their bosses so that both melee and archers can have interesting fights?

Probably won’t be gaming much this weekend between the World Cup and F1, but definitely won’t be playing any Soulslikes. Might plug away some more at Darkwood but… it’s going slowly. Game does genuinely get to me, I don’t really play for long periods at a time. I love the setting, the story, the characters, pretty much all of it. It just stresses me out to play. I will typically get through a single day/night cycle then breathe out and exit and do something else, haha. And also it’s really fucking difficult. I still don’t know if I have it in me to actually beat the thing, even though I’m very glad to have played it.

So I started Lost Odyssey yesterday on Xenia Edge. Unfortunately I’m having some performance issues that I need to look at or this might be unplayable, which would be a shame. Otherwise it’s been pretty much exactly what I expected: “I can’t believe it’s not Final Fantasy”-the game. It has some interesting art direction and design which sits in that patented JRPG space where you’re not sure whether it’s cool or ridiculous, and the story opening has been alright if nothing too special. I do wish it looked a bit better though, while it’s graphically pretty impressive for its period it’s from the peak of that grey-brown design era and not even RTX HDR can save it from looking incredibly drab and dull. But maybe this is just the first area.

As for favourite cheese, the dung pie kill on Capra Demon you already mentioned is an absolute classic, that’s probably the first one we all think of.

My other immediate thought is killing Nameless King (phase 2) with a bow. If you keep far away from him he just slowly walks towards you menacingly and throws out the occasional easily dodged ranged attack and you can kind of just stay away and plink him down with a bow.

That’s totally fair. Even though I like using companions I don’t always use them, the lonely desolate vibe is definitely part of the charm of STALKER.

I totally respect a dogmatic anti-AI stance. I hate gen AI for most things, in particular art - where I want absolutely zero AI. I personally think dynamic dialogue in a sandbox game is one of the best use cases for it, but I still do hate the intellectual property theft and environmental impact.

That’s fair enough. I personally love playing with companions, especially since the TALKER mod with AI dialogue lets you have some really fun emergent narratives and role playing.

This version or Waltz #2 by Elliott Smith does kill me.

Also the piano version of Smoking Section by St Vincent. The outro of desperately repeating “it’s not the end” in an attempt to convince yourself hits me just as hard as the darker lyrics of the first half of the song.

God I really want one, but I can’t really justify buying one. This review did not make me want one any less.

Which is the Alife collection? (EDIT: I see in the description that this is indeed the Alife collection. No idea how it is but I know from Discords that this is very popular atm). I think what most people are playing with now is Alife+, although that got released a few months after I stopped playing the last time so I have no first hand accounts of it. I do have a couple of good AI mods in that sheet I linked, like Semi-Radiant AI and rank-based travel.

Otherwise like ReDone Combat AI, RE:Vision, Stealth are popular mods. Probably also want Decreased Enemy Bush Hearing Distance, Zone NPCs Can’t See Through Bushes and Zone Mutants Can’t See Through Bushes and Ghillie Rework. Some of these mods probably need some minor compatibility work for script merging or at least load order management.

Useful Idiots that I already recommended is in my opinion essential for companions (and includes the functionality of the He Is With Me mod you already have installed, I would just replace that with it). Companions Disable Headlamps In Stealth is also good, I’m trying to remember if there is a newer version somewhere though. There might be.

These were just some off the top of my head, I’m probably forgetting something.

I mean, sort of. Yes and no. Also, this is all from second hand accounts - I played it on launch when Alife was nonexistent and had to be emergency fixed with mods to not spawn on top of you, and have been putting off a second playthrough until at least the DLC drop.

Alife is still neither as good as previous games, nor as good as what they promised in pre-release material. But they have gotten it much better, and the spawn-in garbage of the release version should be gone. I think the final hurdle is that there is a very limited bubble around the player where NPCs are actually online and active in the world as objects as opposed to simulated offline, and that is the final hurdle to truly make it feel like it should.

I recommend Cheeki Breeki’s anniversary video, it summarises the patches so far and the state of the game (though it’s a few months old now).

I honestly can’t wait to get back in the zone. I had my fun around launch with a first playthrough simply because I’m a huge fan, but the game was not in a great state then. I’ve been following the patches, and I am so looking forward to trying out all the improvements along with the new DLC. Limansk is some quintessential STALKER and those new levels look very interesting.

He’s waiting to see if the upgrades hit, I’m pretty sure. He’s always said he wanted to go out on a high note. If the car is good after the post summer break upgrades he might give it another season, but I think if they’re still shit he might just retire after this season. Have another crack at Dakar maybe.

I knew it had to be some kind of sensor, calibration or measuring error. What a farce.

This looks amazing, actually. While I usually don’t allow myself the luxury of replaying games this long, a mod like this (combined with the upcoming DLC) might make me reconsider.

If I already truly despise Disney, is this required reading or superfluous would you say?