What game are you playing?

[Noisy Humbucker]

I think Borderlands 3 is radically superior to Borderlands 2 in the gameplay department. The first playthrough doesn't feel as gimped as your first BL2 playthrough, and unlike BL2, all the base game characters were actually viable in endgame and playing them solo didn't feel like you were just stringing together Fight for your Life/Second Winds to get through every level. Just too bad about the awful story and dialogue!

Gameplay - yes (including vehicle controls). Just about everything else including level design, not so much (to me).

 

[MFB]

Ugh, Nioh is kind of infuriating me already, I hate the healing system right away; I mean consumables is one thing, but limiting you to THREE in the beginning? Holy shit that is insultingly low, given that certain attacks can do half to all your health.

The mob in level two at the top of the hill also sucks, like, I'm good with ki management and activating the pulse for it, but all of them can do combos and have different weapons types, so you can't easily be near or far from them. One hit and you're forced to heal, which opens up for attacks from three other guys. I lured a few of them out and they still manage to hang up at the end with axe/spear, so that wasn't fun.

 

[wankerness]

Ugh, Nioh is kind of infuriating me already, I hate the healing system right away; I mean consumables is one thing, but limiting you to THREE in the beginning? Holy shit that is insultingly low, given that certain attacks can do half to all your health.

The mob in level two at the top of the hill also sucks, like, I'm good with ki management and activating the pulse for it, but all of them can do combos and have different weapons types, so you can't easily be near or far from them. One hit and you're forced to heal, which opens up for attacks from three other guys. I lured a few of them out and they still manage to hang up at the end with axe/spear, so that wasn't fun.

Nioh’s healing system is kind of like Bloodborne, though - you can loot more during the level and thus have well over the cap that gets refreshed at the shrines, plus if you use them you can often find more in the level.

Something that makes a HUGE difference is getting the shrine blessing that increases the number of healing items that drop. That's definitely the best one early on, don't be tempted by the one that slightly increases EXP. You can get shrine blessings after you've rescued a few kodamas (little green guys with hats that are hidden through the levels). You also get an increase to the number of potions you can hold based on the number of those little guys you rescue. I think this number starts at 3 on every "overworld" and increases based on the number of Kodamas you find. And I think the ninjutsu skill tree (maybe it's magic?) has skills that increase the base number of them, too. Basically you're heal-starved at the beginning of the game if you are messing up a lot and don't have that heal blessing yet, but it gets better. I don't think it's nearly as bad as Sekiro where you have the same low number at the beginning and you can't refresh them without actually resting at a shrine.

I don't know what mob you're referring to at the top of the hill. I'm guessing either the big skeleton guys that drag the axe, or the basic bitch demon (that still can 1-shot you if you have low armor at the beginning of the game), or maybe the fire wheels which are like the skeleton wheels from Dark Souls only somehow worse. The big axe guys are really easy cause they have like two attacks and are slow, but they can pretty much 1-shot you if they hit you with the big slam. They run out of ki really fast. I would usually just go after them with the spear strong pokes and they couldn't do anything.

What weapon are you using? Spear is probably the easiest - mid stance spam strong attack is the easiest/most boring way to play. Axe can also be very easy if you wear heavy armor and just mash the high stance strong attack and stunlock everything. Your evasion sucks but once you learn proper spacing to hit monsters from just outside of their attack range you can really demolish most of the game with it.

Kusarigama is pretty good, but definitely weirder and harder to master. Odachi (BIG katana) is probably about as easy as Axe and Spear. Tonfa are pretty darn good but you'd need DLC (or the "complete edition") to have access to them. Katana is like, the most varied weapon in terms of abilities and stuff but has a really high skill ceiling and is pretty bad if you aren't great with it, cause it has like zero stagger on enemies.

Don't level like dark souls and try pumping your "damage" stat, you want to basically level all stats somewhat evenly to like 20 or 30. You get huge bonuses from about levels 1-20 but then it falls off quick, and your damage/survivability is primarily based off gear, not stats. Once you're really high level you can dump stats into whatever most boosts your weapon of choice, but it's not a good idea on first playthrough. The only good stat to boost like crazy on a first playthrough is stamina, if you're doing an axe build, cause you'll need it to equip heavy armor without the game's equivalent of "fat rolling" and it also boosts the axe damage besides. You can also go spear build and pump the "body" stat (the game's health stat), cause for some reason that's what boosts spear damage and it also increases survivability, just not by that much.

 

[TheBlackBard]

Tried Flintlock: Siege of Dawn and at first I was worried because it was said that it was along the lines of Souls difficulty, and thankfully I found that wasn't the case. However, this did not stop what I did play from being very pedestrian and derivative. After playing a game that felt like a mash-up of better games I've played, there's no soul here. Not in exploration, not in upgrades, it feels like a very stripped down mash-up of God of War and some of the Souls games. Feels like a copy/paste job. Shame, because what I saw in the trailers had me a little excited, at least to play it.

Bought Dragon Quest 11 and so far this has been a pleasant surprise. Turn-based JRPG, pretty cutesy, and I was told it was a good starting point to get into Dragon Quest. I needed something a bit more relaxing, and if I'm honest, maybe a little less dark in terms of thematic material. And yeah, so far there isn't much that I haven't seen before, but it feels like the devs really enjoyed making this game, it's got some heart for sure. 6 hours in, going to see where it takes me.

 

[gasolinedreams]

You can also go spear build and pump the "body" stat (the game's health stat), cause for some reason that's what boosts spear damage and it also increases survivability, just not by that much.

First time I played Nioh 1 I co-oped with my brother and a friend. My brother was using spear and pumped levels into Body and honestly his build turned out a lot tankier than the builds me and my friend were using that playthrough.

 

[MFB]

I don't fucking get it, I went out and got several extra levels today splitting it between stamina/ki/strength - all of which also increase life but not as much as directly - and still fucking NOTHING. In low stance I hit for mid-40s, my mid-stance is high 60s, and I don't dare try high stance on him because the attack window is so small. I've got him into Phase 2 a couple times but not enough to feel even close to confident with. This chip damage feels like endgame Radahn all over again and it's the SECOND boss!

I also found FOUR extra Kodsma today, but I'm still only starting with four healing items! What the fuck gives? I see 8 of these little fuckers chilling on the shrine and for whatever reason the game is throwing me a middle finger saying, "you figure it out, stupid!"

This feels like Team Ninja adopted the OG Xbox Ninja Gaiden into a FS formula, and that's not a compliment