archworks-gaming

[archworks-gaming]

Some words about the Dark Souls Remaster.

Man, oh man. I did not want to make a thing about this, but I think it’s worth voicing an opinion on.

Let’s get it out of the way, I’m excited about it... Well that’s a bit strong, I’m cautiously optimistic about it. I’ve got no real expectations or any wants or desires about the kind of mechanics or graphical overall that’s going into it.

If it just plays like the original and I can play it on my PS4, then that’s fine by me. I’ll take that.

I don’t have the resources to play it on my PC with graphical mods and 60 frames and presumably a dedicated multiplayer user-base.

Hell I’m lucky if my PC lets me get 5-10 frames on any game, let alone Dark Souls. For context, my computer is a work tool. It’s good enough to do the things I NEED it to do, not necessarily the things I would LIKE it to do.

So, on that grounds alone, the remaster is definitely something that I would like, as a console gamer by necessity, as well as someone who first played the original Dark Souls two years after release on the Xbox 360. I never had the “release experience”. I didn’t have too much issue with invasions or much luck joining others in Jolly Cooperation.

So again, the remaster looks to potentially bring me another experience I would like to get.

And I genuinely can’t wait to start SunBroing Gargoyles again.

By this point I would hope that I’ve indicated that those with the means, shouldn’t be getting excited about the remaster. Because for those people, it’s not really bringing anything new to the table and believe me, I understand that.

But what I don’t understand is all the whiny children getting their huff on because the game wasn’t completely remade from scratch in Unreal 4, whilst paradoxically being made in Dark Souls 3′s engine (Which one guys? You get Havoc or Unreal 4, you can’t have both...) with bloom obscuring every minute detail, four ring slots and omni-directional rolling and Dark Souls 2′s PvP...

That’s not Dark Souls by that point, you... You do know what a remaster is, right?

A graphical overhaul is all you’re really entitled to in this instance.

And that’s not even touching on how ridiculous it is that these people are requesting all of these things in the first place.

You know that just including omni-directional rolling would drastically affect how the game is played and the overall challenge would take a massive dip as a result?

You don’t agree?

Well then plainly, you’re fucking stupid. Probably well-intentioned. But still stupid.

Dark Souls was originally developed with cardinal rolling (4-directional) in mind when creating combat and boss encounters.

Bosses were specifically built to combat a players ability to dodge in the 4 directions allowed. You throw in the ability to roll in any direction you want, then you run the risk of having to re-work bosses’ moves to account for these new directions the player can avoid damage with. Or you could just leave the bosses alone and risk them becoming antiquated doormats that can’t even begin to retaliate against a more nimble and mobile player.

Also, you can roll in any direction you want. You just have to not be locked on to do it. Which brings it’s own challenge or manually keeping track of your target, but that’s the price you pay for freedom of movement and I wouldn’t change that.

A similar but admittedly more manageable problem would arise with two additional ring slots.

Now, I fully agree that if a character has 10 fingers they should use them Heck, if I lived in the Souls universe you can bet that I would be wearing rings on my toes.

The fact of the matter is that Dark Souls was made with the players ability to wear only two rings in mind.

Rings in Dark Souls are specifically balanced (to varying degrees of success) to fit the two slot structure.

For example

Havel’s Ring in DS1 gave you a 50% increase to equip burden.

Fast forward to DS3 where Havel’s Ring+3 only gives you 19%...

(I know this is percentage increases, so it’s more about the base values you attribute them to, but DS1 Havels just gives you more, flat out.)

But what does DS3 also have? More than two ring slots and more rings that increase equip burden and also an unbreakable FAP ring.

Things were re-balanced to suit an updated system.

And throwing that retroactively onto Dark Souls would justifiably anger the community more than if it wasn’t included.

I know that people don’t often think about what would need to be changed to implement the things they want in their game that they claim to love and never want to change, whilst citing all of it’s flaws and shortcomings in the same breath. But I think it’s a worthwhile exercise to maybe just actually try doing exactly that?

I’m going to break focus for a second to bring up, what I personally believe to be one of the most classic examples of a remake built with the fans in mind before anything else.

Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes.

The original Metal Gear Solid is, by today's standards, not a looker. I won’t argue against that.

And while on paper a re-imagining of the classic game in the Metal Gear Solid 2 engine is a great idea. the implementation was disastrous.

For one, they made no attempt at keeping true to the design of the original game. while the birds-eye camera angle and lack of first person aiming might seem a little antiquated and clumsy now. The original game was built around these limitations.

Level design and obstacles were put in place to keep the player on their toes, security cameras and enemy patrol routes would often be hidden just outside of frame and in the case of security cameras there was specific tools set aside to specifically deal with them.

Mastery of the enemy AI gradually became more necessary as a skill than the stealth action that the game was made for.

But then you throw that all into MGS 2′s engine, without altering any part of the layout, enemy routines, or obstacles whilst also bringing over mechanics built into the new engine, the first person aiming, the tranquilliser pistol...

These two things made Twin Snakes a cake walk.

Security camera about to potentially spot you? No issue, just shoot them in first person to permanently put them out of commission.

Guard standing in the way of your objective? Tranq ‘em and move past them.

Certain bosses were made into complete jokes because you could aim at them manually. Vulcan Raven’s second boss fight is nothing on Twin Snakes.

The fight with Revolver Ocelot loses all of it’s tactical flare because you can literally just aim at him from the door and shoot him a couple of times to win.

You don’t even have to move to beat Psycho Mantis in Twin Snakes, thermal goggles + first person pistol = win boss fight.

And I hope it’s this kind of negligence of a games fundamental design that’s helping to illustrate my point about why you shouldn’t put too much stock in someone implementing all the neat ideas that weren’t in the game previous when attempting a remaster.

The guys handling the Dark Souls Remaster are so far doing a decent job, as far as I’m concerned.

Does the game look drastically different? No, not really, but it’s got just that little bit of extra effort and hardware it needed to make what was already a pretty decent looking game (even by today’s standard) look a few steps better and run a damn sight smoother.

And as long as they keep the already shown quality of life changes, like the ability to use multiple items at once and a option at bonfires to change (and potentially manage) your covenants as well as integrated UI scaling, optional button remapping and password multiplayer functionality.

That’s good enough for me. I’m buying the remaster for a classic experience with a few less stressful oversights and limitations in place and potentially a release-like mulitplayer experience. Maybe I’ll finally start to see the appeal of PvP now that I’ll likely get to do it more often while playing.

And also so I can play it on my sofa with my PS4 controller that I openly prefer using over any other controller.

And if what I’ve heard is correct the company out-sourced for the remake is the same team that remastered Dragon’s Dogma Dark Arisen. So I know that they have relatively decent experience with these kinds of games.

To summarise, If you already have access to Dark Souls on PC and mods that allow you to upscale the resolution to 4K with HD texture mods and a consistent 60fps. Then yes, as I’ve seen plenty of people saying, the remaster is not for you. Congratulations on being a sensible consumer.

If you were one of the hopeless dreamers who somehow misread “Remaster” as “Remake” and was expecting this grand, full-effort re-imagining of a modern classic in an entirely different engine to it’s predecessors with all the bells and whistles, despite how much that would actively ruin the challenge and overall experience. Then certainly yes, you will be disappointed. But then again, I think you’re probably used to that by now...

However, if you’re like me and you just want to be able to play one of your favourite games with a jazzed up, new look and some of the creases ironed out with a re-energised community of players to cooperate with in a jolly kind of way. Then I look forward to playing alongside you.

And for those of you on the Switch. Have fun chaining back stabs on the toilet.

Praise the Sun.

[archworks-gaming]

So... The Latest Nintendo Direct... (13/09/2017)

That Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon news...

It’s just reaffirming my belief that everything they’re currently showing us could have just been DLC, at a stretch an “Expansion” (But you know, call it what you want, DLC is DLC)

New clothes, Two new locations (so far) and 3 new Pokemon...

Wait no sorry, two new “Ultra Beasts” and one new variant evolution of a pre-existing Pokemon.

Can’t say I’m jumping out of my seat for this one...

I mean, let’s break this down, bit by bit.

New Clothes:

Yay! maybe now my character will be able to wear trousers that go all the way down? Or if I’m super lucky a long sleeve shirt?

It’s like they forgot that the story they were telling had the character climb a snow-covered mountain...

How about some more hair colours and styles? Maybe add Red hair back in? Purple-- Wait no “Wine red” wasn’t good enough.

Two New Locations:

This is the map for USUM, now I know there’s a cloud covering the lower part of the ocean, which probably means there’s a reveal waiting to happen, but look at how much of the ocean isn’t being used there... Two new little islands solely dedicated to one thing each, does not an excited potential buyer make. Especially when one of those of islands is dedicated to Pikachu. We get it Game Freak, he’s the games mascot can we give some attention to another Pokemon now? And no I don’t mean Charizard...

Also, the problem that comes with introducing “Newly discovered” islands into the game. How are they newly discovered? All of the those Islands are close enough to see from any of their respective shores. Heck, climb to the top of the mountain to the East and you’d be hard pressed to miss an island.

And it’s all well and good adding new islands, but unless we can SURF between them like we couldn’t in Sun and Moon (I’m still a little sore about that) then, where’s the fun? It’ll just end up being two new places that the NPCs will drag you to and then you can fly there on your complimentary Charizard.

New “Pokemon”:

Ok, so this one is the point I have the least issue with, adding more Pokemon, awesome. Even Ultra Beasts, despite being gimmicky legendaries with a different name I’ll take more of. New evolutions for current Pokemon? All for it!

Just maybe hold back on making an exciting reveal about it until you’ve got more of them? 3 isn’t as dumb founding a number as it used to be back in 10,000 BC.

I’ve been hearing murmurs of potential “Alolan form Johto Pokemon” for USUM. I’m not holding out my hopes.

But if it IS the case, maybe they should have held off on a reveal until they had a solid number of them to show off? Maybe just offer up a hint? Like some silhouettes? Tell us they’ll be on the “new” islands, get us amped up to go there?

Or, and I know this is crazy talk for 2017, maybe just don’t announce new Pokemon? Maybe try to preserve a little bit of the discovery that the game used to be all about?

Y’know instead of being shown so much info on every new Pokemon months in advance to the point where we already know which are trash weeks ahead of the reveal trailers?

I went into Sun and Moon already knowing what my end game team was going to be... Where is the fun of discovery?

And I know, there’s equal blame going on here, they shouldn’t show too much off and I shouldn’t go looking into it too much. But I’m still willing to say that there insistence on making too much known too fast is the real problem.

So to summarise, new clothes is too little too late, new islands makes no sense and will either be pointless or forced to be necessary. (special items can only be found there, etc.) and three new Pokemon, one that is currently locked to pre-orders and two that are most likely mid to late game, with so far no real promise of any more being  announced.

This isn’t the kind of stuff sequels are made of, this is a content pack.

And it’s disappointing...

[archworks-gaming]

Episode 2!

Any more information than that would be a spoiler...

[archworks-gaming]

I gotta start putting stuff on this page at some point, right?

[archworks-gaming]

Been thinking about starting a Nuzlocke run in Pokémon Moon.

But I’m a little apprehensive about it given the fact that some Pokémon aren’t just locked to certain routes, as they’ve always been, they’re also locked to certain patches of grass. And in the case of route one, some of those grass patches aren’t accessible until first completing the island.

I’m talking specifically about the grass patches that allow you to catch Bonsly and Munchlax as examples.

in a typical Nuzlocke scenario I’d have almost no chance of getting them unless I completely avoided encounters on route 1 until I get access to that area.

And even then, Munchlax doesn’t show up that often, so the effort will more often than not be worthless.

I understand the appeal of the nuzlocke run is how it’s all left up to chance, but when there’s something that is available but then also inaccessible that’s frustrating.

Then there’s the ones that are SOS exclusive, like Happiny and Pikachu.

How would the nuzlocke rules work for that? Would you be allowed to catch an SOS Pokémon because it’s still technically the first encounter? How far can you reasonably go with that until it just becomes standard SOS grinding?

I suppose to an extent I’m overthinking it and the overall challenge of a nuzlocke is the limitation, because you can end up with some real trash to work with and that’s fine, I like that. I just don’t really like the POTENTIAL of having a decent Pokémon or even just one I like show up because they’re locked into further reaches of the route for almost no reason*.

(*For clarification, outside of Nuzlocke runs, I actually quite like the idea that some Pokémon only live in certain parts of routes.)

In case you’re interested, here’s my (current) Nuzlocke Rules that I’ve loosely put together specifically for Sun & Moon.

Rule 1:

You may only catch the first Pokémon encountered on a new route.

(SOS Pokemon can be substituted as a “first encounter” as long as they appeared in the same fight)

Rule 2:

All Pokémon must be named.

(Excluding Legendaries and Wondertrades)

Rule 3:

Play in “Set” mode.

Rule 4:

Once you get the fishing rod you may catch an additional Pokémon on each route (With the rod)

(Provided you can fish there)

Rule 5:

No healing items in battle.

(Using Berries and Pokémon Refresh is fine)

Rule 6:

If a Pokémon faints it's dead, put it in the GRAVEYARD box.

Rule 7:

If you run out of usable Pokémon during a fight, you died.

Start again. Do better.

Rule 8:

You may breed each Pokémon you catch, ONCE.

Additions

Pokeball Only:

You may only use standard Pokéballs to catch Pokemon.

Premier Balls can be used if preferred/available.

Wondertrade:

If you catch something you don't like, you may wondertrade it ONCE

You must stick with what you get after that.

Duplicates:

If you encounter a Duplicate Pokemon (One you've already caught) as your first on a route, you may pass on it and catch another (or SOS to find another one if possible)

It’s a little basic, but it’s what I managed to come up with, but I’m still not sure if I want to run it even with this some-what forgiving rule set.

If I end up going for it, I’ll find some way to document it an probably share it on here, since I need something to do with this blog now that I’ve spruced it up.

If you got any thoughts about my little ‘dilemma let me in an ask or a message or whatever people do on here.

-Arch. 

[archworks-gaming]

So, I’ve been playing Fallout 4 again recently.

Because whilst the story is kind of ham-fisted and unimaginative the raw appeal of being a lone-wandering scrap hunter/robot maker is too strong for my frail human brain to ignore.

So from that you can likely gather I don’t really enjoy the story. To be more concise I don’t enjoy the main story.

Y’see, I’m the kind of gamer that will ignore the story at all costs. Not on a first playthrough mind, but for all subsequent playthroughs? That story might as well not even exist to me. Specifically with western-style, open-world RPGs.

It’s the same reason I recently got my hands on the remastered Skyrim, but you won’t see many story trophies/achievements appear under that title for me, because I haven’t done anything story-related. I’ve played the story already, it was... OK at best. Now I want to build a character and have their journey.

To get back onto Fallout 4, something that really stood out to me during a recent session was when I went to Diamond City to do an intro quest for Piper.

I forget the name of the quest, but it requires your character to be interviewed for the Publick Occurrences newspaper.

And for the most part the game will allow you to make up stuff during this interview. And generally just let you get away with whatever you want to say. (Well, out of the four options it gives you per question anyway)

But then you get to one of the final questions. Which is in regards to why you’re travelling across the Commonwealth, why you’ve wound up in Diamond City. 

And the game gives you options for this, but only one of them actually does anything.

And that’s super disappointing. This isn’t a story critical conversation. I’m not going to lose anything by choosing the wrong answer. No matter what I say, Piper will publish it and then become a companion.

But for some reason at this point in the sidequest, Bethesda thought it would be best to force the player to pretend they give a shit about Baby Shaun.

I don’t feel like I’m alone when I say I couldn’t care less about Shaun in Fallout 4. And in fact the majority of the problems I have with Fallout 4′s story are directly related to Shaun.

“Oh but you have to feel attached to him because... He’s your baby, I guess?”

No. No I don’t. Because he’s not my baby, he’s a baby. Even without the gamer/game disconnect or the 1′s and 0′s argument, by this point in the game I had spent a grand total of about 30 seconds with him before he was taken.

We had one interaction with baby Shaun in the opening part of the game where we tickle him a little bit and that’s it.

That’s our full backstory with Baby Shaun. As a player I couldn’t be less engaged with this “character”. I’d spent more time telling the Vault Tech sales rep to piss off than I had actually interacting with what is supposed to be my son in Fallout 4.

I’ve grown attached to settlers more than I have with Shaun.

But for some reason, whenever my character is showing any kind of empathy towards another survivor in the Commonwealth the first words they’ll usually utter are:

“I know what it’s like to lose a child...”

Hey asshole, we’re in a post-nuclear apocalyptic wasteland! There are literal fucking monsters outside that like to eat us and use our bones for decorations! Safe to say pretty much everyone knows what it’s like to lose someone!

And the thing is, for the most part your character will always go straight to “MY BABY WAS KIDNAPPED!” and never the more understandable: 

“MY HUSBAND/WIFE WAS SHOT IN THE FACE WHILE I WAS TRAPPED IN A METAL BOX MERE FEET AWAY WHERE I COULD SEE EVERYTHING! ALSO HELLO! I WAS ALIVE BEFORE THE WAR, EVERYONE I EVER KNEW OR LOVED IS MOST LIKELY DEAD!”

It’s amazing to me how little of a deal it is that you are a pre-war survivor in this game. The only time to my memory where the character openly states that they gave any kind of a shit about the pre-war world is in the epilogue.

Hell, most of the characters you talk to about this to either understandably don’t believe you, Believe you outright with no proof and honestly don’t react to it all that much or they knew you already.

And I feel that’s one of Bethesda’s greatest missteps in creating the story for Fallout 4.  We as the player have no reason to care about anything prior to what is happening right now in the wasteland. But are expected to regardless.

Even the player character doesn’t care enough about the world they were forced to leave behind because we and by extension they spent almost the entirety of it standing in front of a fucking mirror!

I personally pre-made my character’s appearance to look like they already lived in the wasteland, scars, bruises, that kind of stuff. And then they have to dawdle around in the pre-war section looking like their spouse says “I love you” with a hunting knife?!

This is the first time in a Fallout game where we’ve had even a glimpse of the pre-war world, let us have some fun with it! Let us have a reason to give a shit about it and not frantically mash buttons and jump hedges to get out of it.

If we’d gotten some sense of what the world, pre-war was like. If we’d been introduced to baby Shaun and given some actual time to interact with him, maybe even see him grow up a little bit because the next time you actually see “Shaun” he’s like 9-10 years old.

That section when you first enter the institute and are confronted by a Synth of Kid Shaun, that would have had so much more impact if that was what Shaun looked like when he was taken.

instead you’re yet again, FORCED to have your character lose all semblance of sense at the mere sight of a robotic ten year old. There’s no option for disbelief when you find Synth Shaun in the institute, despite the fact that your character is knowingly infiltrating the place where fucking synths come from!

Beyond that, Father’s devotion to the Institute would be so much more meaningful if he was old enough to take it all in when he was taken, instead of being basically tailored from birth to accept it.

It would make sense for an adult Shaun to release you from your cryo-pod at the start of the game if he was old enough to even remember you when he was taken, instead of this whole “Oh, I let my parent out on a whim, just to see how far they’d get” bullshit the game actually gives us!

And then there’s the games core “twist”...

“Oh no! my 1 year old son was taken whilst I was frozen, I should go looking for him with the expectation that despite being re-frozen after he was taken that he will still be a 1 year old baby!”

“Oh no! I have found my son and now he’s older than me and somehow dying of cancer in a future underground science utopia where they literally build human beings from scratch!”

... I’m not the only one who’d guessed that Shaun was going to be either long dead or an old man at the very beginning of the game, was I? It was just that blatantly obvious, wasn’t it?

I feel I would have been more satisfied if when you wake up in the pod after Shaun’s been taken, that Father had come to personally wake you up.

With cancer threatening his life they’d need a genetic back-up for the synth experiments and you’re the closest match. So out a sense of familial-fueled curiosity he accompanies the recovery team, but you manage to fight back and escape and you build up kind of an antagonist viewpoint of “Father” up until the moment you meet him in the institute, where he reveals he’s Shaun. Boom! Story twist.

It’s probably just as easy to see coming, but hell if it isn’t more engaging.

Maybe the reason Father has cancer in the first place could be because he tried to get out of the institute at a younger age and he got irradiated trying to find you? Then when he’s leader of the whole place he finally has the clout to force people to take him to you.

And with that kind of approach, when you possibly decide to take down the Institute his sense of betrayal towards you will feel a fuckload less hollow!

“Oh mother! I can’t believe you’re against the institute, especially since all they did was murder your husband, my father and kidnap me, putting you through almost literal hell trying to find me, only to find that they’ve robbed us of any meaningful time we were ever going to spend together, just so they can built robots that can more effectively kidnap and replace other people’s family... I thought more of you!”

And it’s fucking bullshit! You can’t even convince him that he’s wrong!? What kind of shit is this? I get that not everyone who’s committed horrible acts for “Good intentions” can accept that their actions were horrible. Some terrible people die safe in the personal knowledge that they’re probably not monsters.

But they are. And in the case of Shaun, this is a fucking videogame. A place where I as the gamer, the one in control, should have some sway in the matter.

Up until this point there has been an option to change everyone’s minds.

Fuck, I talked an armed chem dealer into not only leaving a place empty-handed but to also give me all his money before doing so. And he’s a chem dealer on the surface, he’s probably legitimately crazy.

So the apparent lack of any option to reason Shaun over to your way of thinking is baffling, since he’s so enamored with you that he actually names you his successor as leader of the institute (Which is another problem entirely).

If he values you and likely what you think so much why is there no option to persuade him to re-think his position? It’s mind-boggling!

To touch some more on the point I just made about how you can become the leader of the Institute, Why is there no active “good” option for this?

Why is it I can be named the Successor to the head-seat of the Institute but I’m not allowed to take this information to say... The Railroad and let them know that as soon the current leader is gone that I control the place where Synths come from.

Or take it to the Minutemen and tell them that in a little while Synth’s probably won’t be a problem and in fact might even serve as pretty good servicemen for the Minutemen (Especially the Gen 1 and 2′s).

Or I could go to the Brotherhood where I’d undoubtedly be shot on sight for saying I control the Institute.

Why can’t I choose to continue Synth production, but refuse to continue the abduction and replacement of humans on the surface?

Or why can’t I opt to halt Synth production to focus on things that can make surface life better? Like more effective water purification? Or something that can clean radiation from soil? Hell, even just make prosthetic limbs or organ replacements?

Admittedly, I’ve never seen fit to actually take the Institute option at the end. Even so, there’s a whole load of potential good that can be done with the place and for all my searching I can’t find a shred of evidence to suggest that any of it is actually possible... So far as I’ve seen the only difference you get in siding with them is that Synth’s take up control points on the surface and talk about how they control everything now.

In summary, the story is the weakest part of the whole Fallout 4 experience and it’s all Shaun’s fault.