Currently preparing for a Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous playthrough, but I might play something else before then.

I’m definitely not gonna make my own builds, nor am I interested in that, with the hundreds of feats and spells in the game, many of which are just traps and no real way to learn. So I’m going through a bunch of different guides, a lot of which are outdated, and am currently creating a spreadsheet for me to reference, so I don’t have to sift through different videos and websites, every time I level up or do some other stuff (like the Crusade mode). I did the same for my BG3 Honor Mode playthroughs, and it makes everything so much more convenient.

Bought Titan Quest 2 in Early Access and played through the current content (Prologue + Act 1) with two characters.

While the game is fun, the current masteries (classes) are kinda boring (except Storm). For some reason, only the Storm mastery gets different basic abilities (low cost, spammable attacks), and everyone else is stuck with the dinky basic weapon attack. I also wasn’t too hot on the active abilities for the Rogue and Warfare mastery, so I basically just ran around with two passives and the default attack otherwise (which you can upgrade) on my Bowman. My first character, a Frost caster (Storm+Earth mastery) was a lot more fun, with better abilities.

I wouldn’t recommend at its current non-sale price, but it’s a good foundation, as long as the devs can keep updating the game with more stuff.

There are a few games/genres like this for me. Like the Anno games, whenever I play one, I just turn it down to the lowest difficulty, and just build and expand. I kinda treat it like an idle/incremental game. That’s also why I normally don’t play any of the survival city builders, like Banished or stuff like that, it’s just not what I’m looking for.

I’m usually a normal-difficulty gamer and usually don’t turn down the difficulty from there. However, as the article says, If I started on a higher difficulty, I’m more open to go back down to the default.

Just finished The First Berserker: Khazan earlier today. For some reason, the final boss was extremely hyped up in the game’s subreddit, and it ended up just being alright. Overall a good game, I had fun with the combat, but the story is trash and the characters are nothing, not even cardboard cutouts.

I’ve been playing The First Berserker: Khazan. I’m maybe two-thirds through the game and generally have a good time. It’s basically Nioh with the faster paced combat, loot and mission based level format. For the first two regions, I mainly used the Spear, but recently have switched to the Greatsword. The monster bosses are fine, but some of the human bosses can be extremely infuriating, with how their stamina regenerates so quickly.

I’m someone who tried a few Fromsoft games, but only really got into Elden Ring and that was the first (and so far only) game of theirs I finished.

If you want more Fromsoft, there’s going to be a lot of overlap with their Souls games, because of how From reuses assets.

Dark Souls 3 will be the most mechanically similar, but depending on what you liked in ER, it might get too similar and just feel the same, or you get frustrated when muscle memory kicks in when you do some Elden Ring move, that doesn’t work in DS3.

Dark Souls 1 might be a nice palate cleanser, as another user already stated.

If you play on console, Demons Souls or Bloodborne are also options, the latter probably being the fan favorite (or you can try to emulate it on PC). I think BB combat is supposed to be more aggressive because you can get back health, when you attack enemies after you’re hit.

Sekiro is focused on parries, and a lot faster, and more difficult.

If you want to try other developers, Lies of P is a recent one, that’s pretty good, more focus on blocking and perfect blocks, along with the BB-esque health-leech after you get hit, so you’re supposed to be more aggressive.

If you’re a Star Wars fan, the Jedi games, Fallen Order and Survivor aren’t bad, but they have some open world bloat, that you can ignore. Also, it’s an EA game.

If you like old school Zelda and puzzles, maybe check out Tunic.

If you like Crabs, try Another Crab’s Treasure, that was already mentioned here.

If you like 2D Metroid and bugs, check out Hollow Knight.

If you like 2D Metroid and little girls (what?) take a look at Ender Lilies.

If you like FPS and have friends, try Remnant for some coop fun.

If you like fast-paced action games and loot, with some souls stuff, Nioh and The First Berserker Khazan have you covered. If you want more of that along with Final Fantasy, there’s Stranger of Paradise.

If you tried Sekiro and liked it, or maybe you thought it was too hard, but it’s good in concept (and like loot) you can check out Wo Long. Also helps if you’re super into the Three Kingdoms stuff.

If you want Chinese mythology, take a look at Black Myth: Wukong.

If you like anime tiddies, there’s Code Vein, a decent game like this, on the easier side.

If you’ve tried a bunch of these games and just look for more, The Surge games are alright, nothing special I think.

If you want to defeat the woke mind virus and are extremely based, but don’t like good games, take a look at the Lords of the Fallen (2023).

True, didn’t think about games like this, but that’s the case for every online-only game, even if the changes might not be as drastic as OW1 -> OW2. It’s not like you can roll back a patch in FF14, Siege or Destiny and play on that version, if you don’t like the direction the game is going.

I don’t think a part of SKG is making sure all different patch versions of a game are available and playable, once the devs end support for a game.

BTW I’m not against SKG, I’ve signed the petition, but when people say this would keep companies from selling the game forever, kill yearly installments of some franchise, or would “force” devs to make old version of their favorite game available, that’s not what SKG wants to do.

I mean, SKG is about keeping the game still playable, not buyable forever.

But I want to resell it to the same person for further profit

One of the biggest controversies at the start of all of this was Ubisoft pulling The Crew whilst pushing people to buy The Crew 2.

I know about The Crew, but it’s not like Ubisoft had a Special Edition or something lined up that replaced the original game, and you had to buy it again. There was no reselling, the sequel is a different game.

Nothing in the SKG initiative is against Sequels, Remasters, Remakes, whatever. It’s not even about keeping a game in stores forever. It isn’t against yearly releases of Fifa, Madden, NBA 2k, that get removed after a few years, as long as you can still play your copy of Fifa 26 in twenty years.

No one’s forcing you to buy a remaster… unless they are because they revoke your right to play the original so it’s your only option.

That’s the thing though, does this really happen? Usually games that get completely removed, that you can’t even play anymore are multiplayer games, live service stuff, that are just so dead that nobody is even remotely interested in a remaster, so the game is just gone.

Not really what this is about.

They could even still keep doing that with Remasters, Remakes, Ports on a new Console, Special Editions, whatever.

Finished the Lies of P: Overture DLC. It was a mixed bag for me. A rough beginning, which got better in the second half, and I got back into the rhythm after not playing this game in a year.

Not sure how to feel about the final boss. The setup was alright, the fight itself not bad, but for me, it was just constantly blocking the 10-20 hit combos of the boss, then maybe get one hit in. This boss in particular, but also other fights, felt like they weren’t made for a player like me, who beat the game once and then came back for the DLC.

Performance wise, this week I noticed a lot more frame drops, mainly when you move the camera. I think it’s connected to small particles flying around, since in the epilogue, your base is just full of these tiny sparks, and fps just tanks. It would be unplayable, if you did more than just walk around for a minute or two. Otherwise, the drops weren’t as bad, and they never caused a death or something, but it’s definitely something the devs should look at.

Gacha rolls are like breeding right?

Is there any connection between the hardware your initial purchase was made on, and the hardware you would run that game on right now? You can buy games from your phone, or your Steam deck, or at the public library, or on your father’s Gateway. Maybe he means the game’s original system requirements, as listed “on the back of the box” so to speak.

I think it’s more about if you don’t upgrade your PC.

Say you bought a game on Steam, while Windows XP was current, then just kept that PC, didn’t upgrade for whatever reason. Why would you, your game is running fine. But now Steam doesn’t support Windows XP anymore or Windows 7 for that matter, even if the game itself would run on it, making Windows 10, eventually 11, then whatever in the future, effectively the minimum requirement to play your game. The dev isn’t really at fault, because the game could technically still run on that OS, you just can’t download it anymore.

I agree with him in that regard, that it these things suck, however few people are actually affected by this. I think there should be some sort of “Legacy Client”, but then you have to deal with security. Just saying, connect your Windows 98 machine to the net for an occasional DRM check isn’t really viable. Installers would be the obvious answer, but that’s not what Steam does. Maybe Linux could be the answer, but I don’t know if it could be basically the same at one point with kernel version requirements or something like that.

Performance felt a bit choppy at times (need to activate an FPS overlay again to check for drops), but otherwise no bugs as far as I could tell. It’s just that I think the first boss is terribly designed, and I don’t know if stuff like that would get fixed in a patch.

Started the Lies of P: Overture DLC. Rough beginning, getting back into the groove, some bad enemies, that culminated in an absolutely terrible boss fight. Just complete garbage.

You’re stuck in a tiny arena, with a big ass monster, and a terrible camera. You constantly get shoved around, into the walls, clipping halfway into the boss, because of terrible hitboxes, just living life. Half the time I died and couldn’t even see my character, so I had no idea what my mistake was. Did I mistime my block? Or maybe the last block sent me reeling, and I couldn’t react in time? Or maybe I was just on the ground because the hit before that knocked me down? Nobody knows, not even the boss, because his face is inside the wall.

It’s been getting better since then, the next two bosses weren’t as bad, the second one might even be fun with a few tweaks, and the fourth (which I just beat last night) was actually pretty good. I hope it continues like this, and doesn’t go back to the atrocious start.

Dead Cells

Never really agreed with the Metroidvania label, same with Skul: The Hero Slayer. You unlock different biomes (and side rooms), but the items to do so are more like keys. Just my thoughts on that.

Hollow Knight
Tunic
Ori
Animal Well
Axiom Verge

Finally beat Windblown on the hardest difficulty (one run). Now I’m back down one step to unlock the new items that were added in the last six months.

BTW, the game can’t be bought in Germany for some reason, but you can activate third-party keys with no problem. No VPN needed.

I bought it on Nuuvem years ago and everything worked. Dunno if region-locked keys are sold, but the store should tell you if it’s only Russian, Japanese or whatever.