gbanas92

gbanas92

It's not a lake, it's an ocean.

Comments 1,473

Re: Mini Review: Thymesia (PS5) – A Poor Take on the Souls-Like Formula

gbanas92

@KundaliniRising333 Haha of course! After your comment I looked at some of the scores, and yeah they're all over the place! Maybe not an outlier ultimately, but certainly at one of the extreme ends of the spectrum of scores. I'd agree with that!

As for difficulty options, nah nothing I recall seeing. The game was harder up front, but doesn't really increase the difficulty along with you as you level up, I was surprised at how much easier it got going along!

Re: Mini Review: Thymesia (PS5) – A Poor Take on the Souls-Like Formula

gbanas92

@KundaliniRising333 It's reasonably lengthy, took me about 20 hours top to bottom. I didn't get all the endings (I believe there are 4? 5?) But I did do all the side content, optional bosses, etc. and I believe the price is $30. Relatively decent ratio of price to content. Replay value would definitely depend on how much you enjoyed the content. Some of the levels are pretty painless to replay for grinding though, so I'll say replay value is decent if you find you like the game. You only have to do the final mission over and over to get all the endings too, so you don't have to beat the entire game multiple times

Re: Mini Review: Thymesia (PS5) – A Poor Take on the Souls-Like Formula

gbanas92

@JJ2 🤣

@Olmaz Yeah the gameplay was....really strange. One second the flow of combat was brilliant, the next second it felt like nothing was working right. Definitely easier to brute force through the weaker enemies even when the game wasn't operating at peak performance, but it was practically a coin toss enemy to enemy, and it never really felt like a matchup issue so much as the game just not doing what it was supposed to be doing. It was....very strange!

@Danloaded Definitely a possibility! I didn't spend any time with the PC version, so I can't say how drastically the 2 versions differ, but definitely possible!

@Titntin Yeah, a mini-review doesn't offer a tonnnn of space to make the case for the score haha. Happy to offer any expanded thoughts (for anyone else reading this too!) if you had any questions! Especially given how much of an outlier my score seems to be when looking at aggregates!

Re: Mini Review: What Remains of Edith Finch (PS5) – Still Immaculate All These Years Later

gbanas92

@glassmusic Ohhhh it was doing that! Yeah the trophies were functional and you would still have been unlocking them, but they just wouldn't have been visible because they *technically wouldn't have existed in the database yet. If you jump through a few hoops, you can still view them in an offline mode. It's a common problem when working with review copies of games haha.

Re: Mini Review: What Remains of Edith Finch (PS5) – Still Immaculate All These Years Later

gbanas92

@SAMTYLER1974 Yeah I wish the DualSense haptic feedback was used a little more, especially because the moments where it WAS used were great! The viewfinder, the flipbook, etc. The rumble usage really stood out there.

There is a platinum now!

@glassmusic What issue were you running into with the trophies? I didn't see anything out of place with them while I was playing through

@shamirqushairi Native, with 4K and 60 FPS, and a separate trophy list

Re: Synth Riders Is Celebrating a Milestone with a Brand New Update

gbanas92

@Burntbreadman Beat Saber and Synth Riders are the 2 of the VR games I leave installed at all times haha. Those and Pistol Whip, so all rhythm games. Definitely agreed about Synth Riders over Audica, I kept that installed for a while too, but once Synth Riders hit PSVR, it kinda just replaced Audica, but these days, if I turn the headset on, it's basically guaranteed I'm playing one of those 3! Synth Riders for something a little more calming, Pistol Whip and Beat Saber when I want to really get a workout in.

Re: Soapbox: I Tried So Hard to Like Elden Ring, But I Just Couldn’t Do It

gbanas92

@BeerIsAwesome For sure! Yeah, my favorite games wouldn't really top a list like that either, even if I do like a lot of the "classics" too. Heck one of my favorite games is Alan Wake, which I think a certain @johncalmc might have some thoughts on!

@Shakybeeves That was a good watch! Well articulated reasons for what you did (and didn't) get out playing the game! Thanks for sending the link over!

Re: Soapbox: I Tried So Hard to Like Elden Ring, But I Just Couldn’t Do It

gbanas92

@Constable_What Definitely agreed on being burnt out on that kind of open-world formula. THe first one felt serviceable, but a little out of date when it came out, but the second seems like it might not have really changed much up, so it's just more egregiously dated haha. I might try it if it winds up a PS+ game at some point, but I'm not in a hurry. I did appreciate that Elden Ring wasn't a game about just blindly following an objective marker for 200 hours, definitely agreed! Even if at times I felt completely lost as far as where they actually wanted me to be heading. Between the two, I think I'd pick the looser guidelines haha

@Shinnok789 Woahhhhhh, 600 hours?!?!?! Geeez, that is an impressive amount of time put into Bloodborne! Deserving of every second of it though!

@Teddie-bear Oh for sure! Did you like Remedy's games prior to Control, or was that their first game that you were curious about? Every played Alan Wake, Max Payne, etc?

@EverydayRobot Especially since it's clearly a consideration made in the other games they made where they decided it would be replenished automatically. So odd!

Re: Soapbox: I Tried So Hard to Like Elden Ring, But I Just Couldn’t Do It

gbanas92

@Ralizah When I first started Elden Ring, I had planned on going back to the rest of their stuff, but I think I might've scared myself out of doing it now, even though I could wind up liking DSIII so much. Especially because I stubbornly wouldn't let myself play it without DS1 and 2 first and I do noooooot wanna do that haha.

Yeah, Caelid, I just....one enemy to the next was a coin toss if you were gonna be way over-leveled or be so underpowered it'd take ages to kill anything. The entire region was just so bizarre as far as figuring out the point in the game they wanted you to be there. I did quite like the way statting and upgrading weapons worked. I found it a lot easier to upgrade many weapons instead of feeling like i had to hoard everything until I knew I wanted to upgrade a specific weapon like in Bloodborne. The open-world meant you could get your hands on a lot more material, so that's one thing I did appreciate at least.

Re: Soapbox: I Tried So Hard to Like Elden Ring, But I Just Couldn’t Do It

gbanas92

@SplooshDmg Yeah the interconnectedness is just so interesting. WHich, sure, Elden Ring does that still, both in the smaller self-contained areas, and with gaining access to new areas in the open world, but yeah, most of my favorite elements from this wouldn't have been out of place in their older games from a level design standpoint!

@Northern_munkey It's still insane to me that the game's gone this long without a 60 FPS upgrade, at this are they just gonna wait until doing a full remake of it? Not that I really think it needs one, but I mean, I would definitely play it haha. And for sure, those lower areas gave me some Bloodborne vibes. Some of the boss fights down there did too!

Re: Soapbox: I Tried So Hard to Like Elden Ring, But I Just Couldn’t Do It

gbanas92

@JSnow2 torture chamber games hahahahaha

@NEStalgia For me, I was hoping Elden Ring was gonna be the one to make me interested in playing all of FromSoft's stuff, and it just didn't really happen. It cooled my interest in going back to their other stuff if anything. Bloodborne might wind up being a fluke for me in just how much I loved it!

@Ramb I was actually dreading the comments section to this initially, but everything's been surprisingly engaging. Lots of civil disagreement, which is exactly why I would have wanted to write something like this in the first place. It's always fun to engage with dissenting opinions, just so long as they're not mean-spirited haha. Plus what would be the fun in everyone just having an identical opinion!

It sounds to me like you ARE considering giving Bloodborne a go! I support you! Go for it haha. No harm in trying if you actually wanna do it! Plus, if you don't like it as quickly as DSIII, then you won't lose much time from doing it either!

Re: Soapbox: I Tried So Hard to Like Elden Ring, But I Just Couldn’t Do It

gbanas92

@Andee I let 7 years pass in between Bloodborne attempts. Just let an entire console generation pass in between trying it! haha

@berte Haha yeah! I wasn't really struggling to play the game the first time I picked it up so much as just not really enjoying it. I fully expected when I put it down that first time, I would never be playing it ever again. All it took was to wait almost a decade before trying again to enjoy it haha.

@ErrantRob Hmmm, would adding more content to it make it a better game though? I don't know that I think it would. Caelid felt like a choppy mess, but everything else in the game felt complete to me. I think I would have wanted less of the game to like it more if anything, not more! Not to say that was necessarily your opinion since you were mentioning the Subreddit, but still!

@Shakybeeves Hahaha, glad you got enjoyment from their other stuff at least! Even if we appear to have had identical thoughts on Elden Ring. Send me the link to the vid! I wanna watch!

@Ralizah Hahaha, Journey Abzu, and The Last Of Us represent some of my favorites funnily enough! And Bloodborne now I think, and then I also felt the opposite with Elden Ring. We might be polar opposites with games I think haha!

Re: Soapbox: I Tried So Hard to Like Elden Ring, But I Just Couldn’t Do It

gbanas92

@gdog989 I can't even being to count the number of times I got 1-shot out of nowhere, sometimes ever from attacks that I had already taken with little to no trouble sometimes within the same encounter haha. Absolute madness! Also agreed on the skyboxes, the underground areas especially, the cosmic skybox on the cave ceiling, in particular, is one of the prettiest I think I've ever seen!

@kyleforrester87 Yes, definitely gorgeous! The art direction is incredible. That riverbed area, with the stars on the cave ceiling area? Absolute perfection!

@TeapotBuddha Yeah I started the game with a brutish strength build, stick to a similar vibe to how I played Bloodborne, and shifted away from that to Dex and Magic pretty early into the game though. Things got much easier, though the fun factor never really changed haha.

Re: Soapbox: I Tried So Hard to Like Elden Ring, But I Just Couldn’t Do It

gbanas92

@Vriess Honestly, I don't think I've ever had to cheese things in a game as much as I have with Elden Ring haha. It's surprisingly open to exploit in that respect. Not everything of course, but there were quite a few moments where I just looked up cheeses to see if there were any, and almost every time there sure were haha

@EverydayRobot Mercifully no, I think Bloodborne might have been the only FromSoft game that handled health potions like that. One of the worst elements of that whole game!

@Teddie-bear Funnily, I actually love Control haha. One of my favorite games of the last gen! Can absolutely understand that sentiment and feeling of disappointment though!

@Constable_What Hmmm, curious how you felt about the first Horizon? I never picked up Forbidden West, but I felt the way you feel about the second one with the first one haha. Did you really enjoy the first one?

@SplooshDmg I think I'd tend to agree with you! Liurnia was definitely the peak of my enjoyment, especially Raya Lucaria!

@pyrrhic_victory Weapon degradation, I'm out!

@Colour I can't tell you the number of times people have told me that at this point haha. I should legally just change my name to that! Definitely agreed that Bloodborne is very different though! From's games get compared to one another in a way a lot of other developers don't really get, and sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't, but yeah, definitely different experience with those two for sure!

Re: Soapbox: I Tried So Hard to Like Elden Ring, But I Just Couldn’t Do It

gbanas92

@Shepherd_Tallon I didn't dislike every boss fight, but I liked so many fewer of them than I was expecting. I did LOVE the Astel fight though! Probably gonna remember that one in the same breath as many of the Bloodborne bosses years from now!

@HeeHo So you're specifically saying I should go to Twitter right now, and just shout about Elden Ring?! Okay, it's bold and I wouldn't think to do that, but let's try it!

@johncalmc The floor is yours. Let's get spicy!

@cuttlefishjones Approachability was part of why I opted for this after Bloodborne instead of going to one of the Souls' games. Figured it would be a better-optimized version of the older games, taking lessons they had learned from all those prior design experiences! After beating it though, I'm thinking I might have been better off going to one of the older ones first haha.

Re: Soapbox: I Tried So Hard to Like Elden Ring, But I Just Couldn’t Do It

gbanas92

@CynicalGamer There were moments within Elden Ring that felt that way too, which was the stuff I liked most. Raya Lucaria just basically felt like a chunk of Bloodborne plopped into the middle of the ER. More vertical, claustrophobic, and self-contained. And it was easily my favorite part of the game haha. There were spots of the game here and there that felt like that, but the open-world areas in between all of those I wasn't in love with.

@Gloamin Nah, they have to make Déraciné 2 first! Thennnn they can make Armored Core! 🤣

@TheArt Yeah, the chalice dungeons do definitely lean into that repetition factor! They annoyed me less there when I saw a boss pop up an extra time, probably just because the chalice dungeons weren't something you could just stumble upon while exploring the world. You had to make a conscious decision to visit them, so I think that brought with it an awareness that I could see a boss I'd fought previously. As opposed to just stumbling up a cave while wandering and then finding that the "reward" at the end is just a boss I'd killed 8 times previously in other caves.

@TallBlondeTexan Definitely agreed on the pricepoint haha. Definitely hard to argue the game doesn't give you your money's worth. So so so much to explore and find across that massive map. A lot of it really interesting no less!

Re: Soapbox: I Tried So Hard to Like Elden Ring, But I Just Couldn’t Do It

gbanas92

@add286 The repeated bosses for sure were a problem for me too! I understand why they did it, but it definitely sped up the rate at which playing through the game would start to get on my nerves! Definitely agreed on build flexibility. It's such an impressively malleable game for just how many ways you can approach a given situation!

@Kanji-Tatsumi Definitely agreed about Bloodborne! I loved practically everything about it to a much greater degree

@BeerIsAwesome More often than not games with reputations like that for me usually do live up to the hype, but I know that feeling of disappointment too for sure. It can be so disheartening! Like, "what am I not seeing that absolutely everyone else is?"

@PenguinLtd For real! Without summons for the majority of the boss fights...hoo boy. Things would have been so much worse haha. Thankfully they're integrated so well into the game!

Re: Mini Review: MX vs. ATV Legends (PS5) – Scrap Metal

gbanas92

@AnnetteM Yeah that sounds about right. Back in the old days of EA Big! But yeah, definitely not a cover image that screams simulation racer haha

I used to love Mototrax so much back in the day, haven't played I for years now though. Let me know if you do pick it up at some point!

Re: Mini Review: MX vs. ATV Legends (PS5) – Scrap Metal

gbanas92

@GusBH You can turn that off, so turning is entirely done with the left stick still, for what that's worth!

@AnnetteM Yeah, I used to play split-screen Superfly with my dad all the time. And my personal fav, MTX Mototrax! FreekStyle I have heard of, but I never played it myself. I do still remember the box art though haha