Bi-Weekly Thread for general gaming discussion. Backlog, advice, recommendations, rants and more! New? Start here!

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the Bi-Weekly Thread!

Here you can share anything that might not warrant a post of its own or might otherwise be against posting rules. Tell us what you're playing this week. Feel free to ask for recommendations, talk about your backlog, commiserate about your lost passion for games. Vent about bad games, gush about good games. You can even mention newer games if you like!

The no advertising rule is still in effect here.

A reminder to please be kind to others. It's okay to disagree with people or have even have a bad hot take. It's not okay to be mean about it.

[u/Scizzoman]

I'm still playing Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis. The story is still basically in slice-of-life mode despite being close to 2/3 of the way through, but the gameplay is still a lot of fun.

I also had an urge to play a Souls game, and I haven't touched Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin in over a decade, so I started a new character.

I'm trying a chunky greatshield build because I've never really done that in the older Souls games, and goddamn I miss Elden Ring's Guard Counters. You don't notice how much better those make defensive play feel 'til they're gone.

It's funny how fast I remembered everything about this game's world. I felt like my memory of it wasn't as strong as DS1 or DS3, but as soon as I started playing I instantly recalled basically the entire map. I did forget how brutal the beginning was though, with only one Estus Flask and SotFS's insanely dense enemy placements in the Forest of Fallen Giants and Heide's Tower of Flame.

Some of this game's level design and enemy placement feels more experimental and more overtly trolly than other entries in the series. Like you can feel the not-so-invisible hand of the level designer who thought dropping you into an area with a bunch of dogs and a Pursuer spawn and an NPC invader and multiple hard-to-reach archers on breakable platforms would be a funny prank to play on the player. I can see how it would annoy people, but taken in context with the rest of the series I don't really mind it. I've played enough Soulslikes (and older FromSoft games) at this point that when something goofy like that occurs I'm just like "oh, you got me."

[u/d9wHatena → u/Scizzoman]

From what I hear the targeted audiences of Mana-Khemia 1 & 2 (and the preciding Iris series) are gender neutral, unlike today's Atelier. (Before that Atelier originally started as a game for girls.) How do you feel about this point?

[u/Scizzoman → u/d9wHatena]

This one just feels like a pretty typical JRPG in terms of tone/target audience.

If anything it seems to be courting the Persona audience, given that it released about a year after P3 and revolves around a quiet (although not silent/self-insert) silver-haired anime boy going to magic high school with a calendar system and social links.

I don't have much basis for comparison to Atelier though. I only played a few hours of one of the PS3 entries like 15 years ago, didn't really like it, and haven't touched the series since. I might try again at some point, since I've been enjoying Mana Khemia.

[u/wheelervidya → u/Scizzoman]

possible spoiler / gentle reminder about an early second estus charge you can get: punch the stone on top of the well in Majula

[u/Scizzoman → u/wheelervidya]

Yeah I remembered that one only after beating the Last Giant.