DeS Compare-Through Part 3, Progress Update
Added 2023-02-20 05:13:34 +0000 UTCContent Warning: Health Issues/ TMI
Last week I made some solid progress towards the next episode, the script is currently at page 13. I'm excited about some of the extra datamining details we didn't have access to previously, like the Hoplite Shield's exact drop rate (it's ~0.55% at base luck).
Unfortunately I've been battling a kidney stone for a few days and that's completely ground progress to a halt. The pain isn't at 100% all of the time and I've been able to have pretty decent stretches where the pain is very minor or even goes away entirely, but there's been like 1-2 hours of "I can barely walk" pain every day, and several more of like a 6/10 on the pain scale or whatever.
I've been absolutely miserable and I'm looking forward to this ending sooner than later, hopefully. I had gone years without having any, but this time, it's only been since last Thanksgiving. Time to drastically and permanently reduce how many peanut butter sandwiches and salty sneaks I eat, I guess. Fuck.
I don't know how much I'll actually play of it but I downloaded the PS1 version of Oddworld: Abe's Odyssey (PS4/PS5 port). That's a very nostalgic title for me; It's not a game I know super well because I never owned it, but it was one of those games a friend of mine from middle-school rented (shout out to Clay). We stayed up really late one night playing it. The "Hello, follow me" / "okay" dialog will never not be the greatest.
What have all of you been playing recently, and how is it?
Comments
Thanks for the kind wishes, and that's great to hear about Metroid Prime! It makes me wish all the more that ethos was stronger at BluePoint. While the tone of the compare-through has been pretty neutral so far, the gloves are coming off a bit when it comes to character/ creature redesigns in Stonefang and I'm going to be very critical about some of that.
illusory wall
2023-03-03 23:04:33 +0000 UTCI've never had to deal with anything like a kidney or gall stone, thank God, but last June I developed an ulcer/a flare-up of gastroesophageal reflux disease/SOMETHING that refused to stop attacking my abdominal lining no matter what I tried until, after thirty-six hours without sleep, I finally broke down and checked myself into the emergency room. And as I would imagine even the peak moments of that pain don't measure up to kidney stone-painβ¦ yeah, suffice it to say you have my sympathies and wishes for you to make as full a recovery as possible as quickly as possible. β€οΈ As for games, it was actually right around that same time last year that I played Dark Souls 3 for the first time! (Despite already knowing its reputation for "ignoring" the story of Dark Souls 2, I didn't want any allusions to that game Dark Souls 3 might still make to pass me by, so even though I played vanilla Dark Souls 2 at launch, I steadfastly held off on Dark Souls 3 until such time as the Lost Crowns DLCs became affordable to me and I had played all of them.) My point being (π ), I started my third-ever playthrough of Dark Souls 3 just a week ago. It's my first Strength build in this game, which I'm really excited about β I noticed in my initial playthrough that many of the faster-paced boss fights such as Pontiff Sulyvahn had such small recovery windows that even weapons with near-instantaneous windups like my trusty Uchigatana frequently only managed to get one successful hit in at a time, so in many of the game's more strenuous encounters, the Uchigatana's rapid attacks and bleed buildup that ordinarily ensure a higher DPS than weapons that do much more damage per swing but are slower and clumsier didn't come through for me right when I needed them most. Coupled with the fact that I got a taste of what Frostbite-inflicting weapons were capable of during my second run that I didn't during my Uchigatana-only inaugural run (in stark contrast to my first build β with which I was able to first- or second-try the fight without even really thinking about it because I had been freely upgrading my VIG/END/VIT to my heart's content after having long since maxed out my DEX to get the most out of the aforementioned Uchigatana β the Irithyll Straight Sword might be the only reason my sorcery/miracle/pyromancy-focused second build was successfully able to solo Champion Gundyr)... well, let's just say that even my brief time with Vordt's Great Hammer, which inflicts twice the Frostbite buildup per hit as any of the other Irithyll weapons, has proven TREMENDOUSLY enticing. β¦However, even all of that is only preamble to the fact that even such an exciting prospect as potentially my most enjoyable playthrough of my newest-played game in potentially my favorite series in the history of video games has had to step aside to make way for the newest entry in the only other series that gives the Soulsborne games a run for their money in my heart: Metroid. I adore the Demon's Souls remake *almost* without reservation, but stuff like the new Fat Officials, the drastically altered soundtrack, the new line readings often giving the same pieces of dialogue very different narrative implications, or for that matter Bluepoint having changed Wander's face in their Shadow of the Colossus remake (on which I also, for the record, hold a much softer stance than many of the original's more dedicated devotees) to look more like an innocent teenaged kid than the sort of young man in his early twenties that the particular brand of self-obsessed recklessness the entire story of that game is predicated around being the core of his personality is archetypally specific to β in other words, alterations to matters of character and emotional affect profound enough that I'm no longer capable of deriving the same emotional response from the reinterpreted material as I got from the original material β always end up in me playing through the remake once or twice before permanently seeking refuge back in the original version no matter how immaculate the remake is. But Metroid Prime Remastered is something different. For one, both the sound effects and the possibly series-best soundtrack are lovingly preserved from the original, so right off the bat the most important contributors to the game's tonality and atmosphere to me make it through unscathed (Star Fox 64 3D, by contrast, previously drove me nuts by retaining the original's iconic sound design but replacing the equally or more iconic voice acting and soundtrack [sometimes in ways I'm legitimately tempted to call an "objective" "downgrade," against my every better judgment]), and the sparse but tonally varied and often wildly evocative bits of writing (sound familiar?) have likewise been left wisely untouched. But even the visuals, despite having been remade from the ground up even as the original game continues to run beneath all the rebuilt assets just as with Bluepoint's remakes, don't grate the way even less intensive efforts that on paper should feel more faithful like BioShock: The Collection or Batman: Return to Arkham do by taking the same graphical assets but making drastic changes to the materials or lighting systems applied to those assets. It's not that the emotional affect of the original's graphical presentation is kept *entirely* the same; explosions and other effects that involve buffeting the screen with intense light sources are noticeably less impactful (possibly in a bid to not risk inducing seizures in susceptible players, so needless to say that sacrifice is worth it if so), and many scenes lean toward a higher-contrast, contemporarily stylized "blue-vs.-orange" sort of aesthetic that feels more deliberately artificial than the somewhat more incidental color composition of the original. But there's no (or at least very little) swapping out of Romanesque architecture for Gothic architecture just because the latter better lets you show off how many more polygons you have at your disposal now, if you catch my meaning. To wit, it feels like every artistic change in Metroid Prime Remastered was made first and foremost with the question of what reaction it would garner from the people who would be most strongly affected if that reaction was negative β the people who know the original like the back of their hand β in mind. Even among genuinely top-of-the-line remakes like Resident Evil 2 or Demon's Souls, where that type of attitude is strongly in evidence, it's still remarkably rare to see that ethos applied so pervasively across a classic game in its full breadth, and all the more heartwarming to be presented with as a direct result. I'd devote still more words and hours of my time to gushing about it in greater detail, but that would mean delaying going back in and playing more of it for myself longer than I already have in writing all of this. π Hope this was enough to get your mind off things, and again, hope you feel extremely better extremely soon!
Just Andre
2023-02-20 10:44:45 +0000 UTCFrom what I've heard kidney stones are hell, so I hope you get well soon! Oddword: Abe's Odyssey is a weird one for me. I vaguely remember playing it with my father, what must have been last millennium. I can even conjure up vague feelings of what it looked like, yet I couldn't for the life of me tell you if I actually finished it. Probably one of the earliest games I ever played, the only ones I can think of that must have been earlier were Riven and Myst. Personally I have been dragged back to Starsector hell. Something about Space-Mount&Blade is just addictive.
Basileus
2023-02-20 07:20:46 +0000 UTCoh shit. best of luck with it homie. Iβve had those before and itβs literal hell. I hope things get better soon!
Karl Germ
2023-02-20 05:38:45 +0000 UTCI'm sorry to hear about your health problems, hope you feel better soon! I actually just got Demon's Souls to run on an emulator, but I don't think my PC is good enough to play it well. I did just finish a murder mystery The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle where the protagonist is in a groundhog's day style loop trying to solve a murder (the comparisons to video games make themselves). Maybe a good audio book could be a helpful distraction?
Ken Yuen
2023-02-20 05:31:33 +0000 UTC
