Gripe about What You're Playing 2: Bellyache-tric Boogaloo

Octopus Prime · Dec 26, 2020

I was surprised too; I had all the same complaints with Blind FOrest you did, but decided to give Will of the Wisps a try anyway because I *really* wanted to like it and was delighted to see that they learned their lessons;

Combat is a lot more enjoyable since you have an actual melee weapon with a clearly defined hitbox instead of that weird free-floating lightning-bolt thing, it's MUCH easier to discern what parts of the scenery are things you can climb on and which are parts of the background, the game's got a quest list to show (vaguely) where you have to go next, and you get the traversal abilities much earlier. Game is also a lot easier in general since enemies drop WAY more resources and less of it is dependent on emptying out a very finite energy pool constantly.

Only complaint is a weird one; Ori is SO maneuverable so early on that I have a hard time figuring out if something is a roadblock or if I'm just flubbing a jump.

Ludendorkk · Dec 26, 2020

Octopus Prime said:
Only complaint is a weird one; Ori is SO maneuverable so early on that I have a hard time figuring out if something is a roadblock or if I'm just flubbing a jump.

Man this is my number one complaint in platform games. See also: the slope you can almost, but not quite, walk up

MarcAlan · Dec 28, 2020

So I'm playing Borderlands 3 and up until now I've been really enjoying it as Zane. I've beaten the base campaign, Moxxi's Heist and Bounty of Blood with only a little trouble here and there but I've been able to adjust gear or my action skills and gotten past it.

However! Yesterday, I started Guns, Love and Tentacles and was once again having fun shooting all the things in the face. I've once again had minimal issues until I reached The Empowered Scholar. And honestly? Fuck this boss, fuck this boss so hard. This fucker has four phases to him, a crap ton of adds, including one that he empowers and makes it hard to shoot at him and, the worst part, platforming elements. See, the Scholar will first regen health with four crystals around him. Not bad, just shoot the crystals. Oh, but the second time he does it he goes off to a platform that you can't shoot all the crystals from the the main arena. So you need to jump onto a floating platform to reach the last one. And if you happen to mistime your jump either before or after knocking out the crystals you die and have to restart from the beginning of the fight. And he does this a third time. To make it even more fun, the second and third times he generates shields and armor, so if you don't have the weapons to knock those types off, you are screwed.

So yeah, in between being a damage sponge, the adds, and the platforming, FUCK THIS BOSS.

Becksworth · Dec 30, 2020

I’ve only just got into Will of the Wisps, so don’t know if my final opinion of it will be better or worse than the Blind Forest, but my initial opinion is that of visual overload. I’m playing on Series S (4K/60 FPS), so I’m almost wondering if it would have been better to try this on the Switch because of the visual downgrades, and not in spite of them.

MJG · Dec 30, 2020

I tried and dropped both Ori games, and the visuals were a large part of it. The whole screen is just packed with bloom, particles, layers, blur, light sources, swaying animations, etc. I would definitely say "overload" is an apt description. Looks lovely in a screenshot, but I found it almost tiring to play against.

nataeryn · Dec 30, 2020

I got Assassin's Creed Odyssey for Chistmas. Its mostly fine. Its just not an assassin's creed game.
Kasandra literally says when asked to go kill a guy "I'm not an assassin"...
And why does my girl not have a shield? If I said Greek soldier, you'd imagine someone with a spear and a shield. Bayek had a shield. Lots of enemies could break your guard so you couldn't just sit behind it.
The leap of faith is barely in this game. most AC games will signal LoF locations with some birds or something. Odyssey has the LoF and there are usually a pile of straw or whatever, but you can't stay in the pile. You pop out of it and if you try to go back in, you just walk on top of it. I went to a synch spot and it was literally just the trellis on top of a 2 story building. And they don't even do anything in terms of revealing the map.

karzac · Dec 31, 2020

MJG said:
I tried and dropped both Ori games, and the visuals were a large part of it. The whole screen is just packed with bloom, particles, layers, blur, light sources, swaying animations, etc. I would definitely say "overload" is an apt description. Looks lovely in a screenshot, but I found it almost tiring to play against.

I'm not having quite the same overload, but I do d turn off motion blur early, which was a good decision.

TE-Ryan · Dec 31, 2020

I'm finding Doom Eternal very difficult. I don't remember Doom 2016 being this difficult. It was challenging, yes, but not to the point of "stuck on one level for two hours because I keep getting killed a dozen times in every other combat encounter".

Might have to ratchet this one down to Easy. It's a lot of fun, but... just a little too much for me.

Riot.EXE · Dec 31, 2020

TE-Ryan said:
I'm finding Doom Eternal very difficult. I don't remember Doom 2016 being this difficult. It was challenging, yes, but not to the point of "stuck on one level for two hours because I keep getting killed a dozen times in every other combat encounter".

Might have to ratchet this one down to Easy. It's a lot of fun, but... just a little too much for me.

The DLC is even harder, as it just acts like, "the next stages after what was the final boss" so it assumes that you're just still playing and already good.

Issun · Jan 9, 2021

Playing Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and got to the first boss but have not managed to procure any weapons. Like, every game I've played in the series hands them to you right away WTF?

Edit: Never mind. I checked a walkthrough. I did not realize you could enter the trucks. So I started over and this time should go much better.

Zef · Jan 9, 2021

I finally started Final Fantasy VII Remake over winter break, and I want to throttle whoever decided that Items should also be subject to the new ATB.

Spells and Abilities, sure. But Items? They're already consumables. It's not like I'm not going to spam Potions whenever I get the chance. And given how sharp the damage curve gets for your active Leader, major attacks just guarantee I'll spend the next five minutes dodge-rolling all over the place while my ATB fills up and I can heal just one tiny bit of damage, then I'll do it again for another five minutes so I can heal another tiny bit.

(Also, did anyone actually watch the Honeybee Inn dance number? The rhythm minigame is already tough, with the camera going all around the prompts, that the only way I could watch the performance was thanks to Youtube.)

Lokii · Jan 9, 2021

ATB goes up very quick when attacking so you can look for openings to get a couple strikes and build gage.

jpfriction · Jan 9, 2021

Yeah, I liked it better than FF XV’s consequence free item use.

Zef · Jan 9, 2021

Yeah, but FFXV was extremely easy because items were dirt-cheap and your income increased exponentially as the game went on, plus, even if your whole party was KO'd, you had a brief window in which to use a a Mega-Phoenix. The only "difficulty" lay in that Fiends depleted your Max HP gauge, but Elixirs could bring it back up and they were just as plentiful as Potions.

FFVIIRe has me just as broke as a Megaten game, I can only afford a few Potions at a time, and I end up going through my whole stock within a dungeon (if not a single boss battle) so I usually have to grind within view of a bench just to stay alive. That's why I don't think that "instant items" would throw off the difficulty like they did in XV.

(FTR, I just finished the Sewers, and I last saved at the entrance to the Train Graveyard. I was originally very excited and giddy at the appearance of Hell House but I never had any ATB during the 1.5s it doesn't have God Mode on so it took me about 40 minutes to bring down and the fanservice turned to pure frustration.)

Octopus Prime · Jan 10, 2021

I’ve been enjoying Immortals: Fenyx Rising, but whenever I fire it up I get an request to sign up for Ubisoft’s newsletter. I don’t wish to sign up for Ubisoft’s newsletter, and there’s no “No, I’d rather not” option for it. So I’m reduced to putting my Switch into airplane mode when I start the game and then turning it off once I actually start playing.

Its not a big gripe, but it is juuuust annoying enough that it makes me want to play the game less

Aeonus · Jan 10, 2021

To pile on with Zef's complaint, I got FF7R for Christmas and I was just telling my friend last week that I wish there was another difficulty setting that's just like Normal except you take half the damage from everything*. Now I'd just play on Easy, but when I tried that I barely got to engage with battles at all before everything died, and that was even less satisfying.

*: Well, I wouldn't mind if they made the really tanky enemies go down easier, so maybe increase stagger duration and fill rate while I'm wishing for things?

Cyrael · Jan 13, 2021

Dragon Age: Inquisition has too much content but very little of it feels rewarding or interesting. Coming off of two, where almost every side quest was fully voiced and while yes I retreaded the same zones a lot, at least I felt engaged.

How many giant open desert zones are there gonna be?!

Sprite · Jan 16, 2021

Ugggh, the Scott Pilgrim rerelease doesn’t let you use Knives unless you log into a Ubi Soft account. I understand tying multiplayer to that, but content from a ten year old game?

It’s making me reconsider if I want to get the Limited Run Games physical edition, since locking a character behind a login means the game isn’t really the “Complete Edition” when you buy it, and the whole point of getting a limited physical release is to preserve the game from the fickleness of digital storefronts.

If the LRG Reddit is to be believed, LRG wasn’t informed that the game they shipped would have missing content and are “investigating” the matter. I doubt they’d be able to get Ubi Soft to budge on this, though. Maybe I’ll just hack my PS3 and see if I can figure out how to legally extract the ROM.

Violentvixen · Jan 16, 2021

Started up Haven on GamePass. I like the story, the voice acting and the banter between the characters. Which is really unusual!

But this game is NO FUN to actually play. Controlling the characters while flying is awful, combat is weird and slow and disjointed. I think I'm just going to watch a Let's Play of the rest.

Edit: Ooof, got motion sick while trying to do the flying sections again. Definitely done trying to play and will just watch someone else's run.

Double Edit: Just finished watching a Let's Play of the rest and oh man what a spectacularly written game. It's so rare to have such a good relationship example, especially with an established couple. Also it's clear other players don't have as much of an issue with the controls as I did, so I recommend others check this game out for themselves.

MarcAlan · Jan 20, 2021

The Okumura boss fight in Persona 5 Royal is nine layers of bullshit surrounded by another ten layers of horseshit. I can get to the green fuckers in the fight but didn't realize they run away after two turns. And then more are summoned? Bullshit!

Paul le Fou · Jan 21, 2021

I went to an area in Horizon: Zero Dawn that begged to be explored - it was an isolated valley climbing up to a remote ridge in several steps with unique encounters along the way, which triggered unique dialog for my character saying things like "Machines X and Y? What are they doing here?" and "All these machines, someone is definitely hiding something..." It even had a cutscene for a boss fight. I was definitely on to something. And then I get to the area I'm clearly meant to find, which is huge and impressive and this whole thing was very epic and.........it's a dead-end. After jumping around for a long time looking for some hidden climbing point for access, I looked it up online and found out that it's a story progression thing, and a ladder will appear when I'm supposed to go there. And that............is very disappointing.

Riot.EXE · Jan 22, 2021

Paul le Fou said:
I went to an area in Horizon: Zero Dawn that begged to be explored - it was an isolated valley climbing up to a remote ridge in several steps with unique encounters along the way, which triggered unique dialog for my character saying things like "Machines X and Y? What are they doing here?" and "All these machines, someone is definitely hiding something..." It even had a cutscene for a boss fight. I was definitely on to something. And then I get to the area I'm clearly meant to find, which is huge and impressive and this whole thing was very epic and.........it's a dead-end. After jumping around for a long time looking for some hidden climbing point for access, I looked it up online and found out that it's a story progression thing, and a ladder will appear when I'm supposed to go there. And that............is very disappointing.

Oh...oh wow. So, imagine not knowing about the story bit and finding that. Why the FUCK would you go back, discovering that it's a damned dead end!?!

Paul le Fou · Jan 22, 2021

Riot.EXE said:
Oh...oh wow. So, imagine not knowing about the story bit and finding that. Why the FUCK would you go back, discovering that it's a damned dead end!?!

I'm sure when I'm supposed to go there, a marker will show up. Until then, I guess I should probably go where I'm supposed to go instead of exploring the entire map first, huh

MJG · Jan 23, 2021

I had the exact same experience, right down to wasting a bunch of time at the end trying everything I could think of to continue on and having to loop up online to find out what the deal was. It was by far my least favorite thing about my time with the game by far.

Riot.EXE · Jan 23, 2021

Paul le Fou said:
I'm sure when I'm supposed to go there, a marker will show up. Until then, I guess I should probably go where I'm supposed to go instead of exploring the entire map first, huh

I guess, but did you go off the beaten path before and get rewarded for doing so?

Paul le Fou · Jan 25, 2021

Riot.EXE said:
I guess, but did you go off the beaten path before and get rewarded for doing so?

Typically, yes! Though, since you can find longnecks that reveal the map and mark points of interest on there, I almost always have multiple things I can look for/route through, so there aren't a lot of areas where I'm truly exploring blind. But iirc there was something on the map to indicate it was worth exploring? Or at least there was definitely something to get me in far enough for the unique dialogs and cutscene to pull me along. OH, right, it was one of the collectibles (a Vantage point) which was up past the third encounter/"boss" fight. Once I was that far, though, I'd had three cutscenes of "Someone is hiding something," a unique- and awesome-looking road ahead, and I think an icon for ruins. And then, boom, dead end.

It's the only time so far something like that has happened to me, to be clear. Everything else has been where it says it was and let me go there when I got there.

My other gripe with the game now is the damned hunting trials. Some of them are neat, some are challenging, but some are just frustrating, either because of the trial's design or the area's and the way the monsters there work.

Falselogic · Jan 25, 2021

The spike in difficulty from Monster Hunter World to Iceborne is drastic. I'm at this point where I desperatly need new armor and weapons to fight these beasts but cannot get them because I need to defeat said beasts to get the parts necessary to make new armor and weapons...

Cyrael · Jan 25, 2021

Paul le Fou said:
My other gripe with the game now is the damned hunting trials.

Honestly the worst part of the game for me. Everything else was super enjoyable, but for some reason they always were extra hard. I eventually got all the suns, but it took a LOT of work.

Becksworth · Jan 26, 2021

Man, the new Battletoads game is a hot mess. I yearn for the awkward mini games because the core gameplay is that busted.

madhair60 · Jan 26, 2021

Becksworth said:
Man, the new Battletoads game is a hot mess. I yearn for the awkward mini games because the core gameplay is that busted.

It's a shame too because the cutscenes straight crack me up

Edit: also notably this is very on brand for Battletoads

Gripe about What You're Playing 2: Bellyache-tric Boogaloo

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