Furi: I’m playing Furi. I’m not going to write a lot about Furi. Because I’m utterly god awful at it.
Truthfully, I’m not entirely sure that I even enjoy it. What’s happening (or has happened, maybe) is very similar to my feelings to Enter the Gungeon at a certain point: a game that I persevere with out of love but out of stubbornness and compulsion. I’ll come back later (hopefully) with some better skills, and a more rounded view point.
Some evidence I’ve done something good in this game. A minimal amount of good stuff, but there’s still some there.
My natural dislike of bullet hell isn’t helping though. That’s not really helping at all.
Absolute Drift: It is a supreme feeling to play a game without the intent of getting a high score, of seeking technical brilliance or discovering some sort of transcendental, immersive experience but with the sole intent of having fun. All those things are great in their own ways but playing just for the fun of it is one of those pure experiences.
Absolute Drift is a game I come back to just to mess around in the over world. My days of getting the challenge scores are long since gone. I just like drifting around while listening to the game’s great sound track (best song is Crystal Hearts).
I just drift around, crash into walls, spin in doughnuts of varying sizes and try to do silly things. Like a few nights ago, by accident I almost jumped a fair distance from a ramp to a roof. And I spent the rest of my time dealing with near misses, decent attempts and things that landed in different area codes. But with enough effort, I made it. Completely pointless, but very satisfying.
Just joyful to do something silly, free from the tyranny of high scores and purpose.
Dark Souls III: I’ve written lots about Dark Souls III over the last few months, but I don’t think I’ve written in any great detail about the Spears of the Church boss fight from the Ringed City DLC. It’s one of the few boss fights in the game that can give each player who attempts it a completely unique experience. I say “can” because it depends entirely who is summoned to face you.
Either an NPC is summoned (thoroughly okay and nothing else) or, far more excitingly another player is summoned to face you. Throughout the fight Painting Guardians can be summoned, and they heal the player (or NPC) with miracles as the opponent in this fight doesn’t get estus flasks. The Guardians will also harass and attack, but they aren’t tough to kill. Do be careful of the Painting Guardian Sword though. That thing can combo like no tomorrow.
The whole fight is cool (well, NPC version aside). You have no idea who you are going to face. It could be a mage, a pyromancer. A pure strength build can muscle in on you, or a swift dexterity build may attempt to shred you finely. Builds aside, humans do not act like an AI. They move in accordance with their own rhythms and do things an AI would not even consider. Running around for back stabs is one of those things. The AI in Dark Souls III really doesn’t do feints and spacing. It will not attempt to bait out your swing and then catch you in the aftermath of a move cooling down. And the AI certainly will not go for the Hornet Ring riposte.
Beyond the mechanical aspects of the fight, there’s also the demeanour of the player that needs to be considered. Sometimes a Spear of the Church will hang back, and let you finish off the Painting Guardians before having a one on one duel. That’s a pretty cool happening, and I’ve been lucky to have that. Some players will use the distraction of the Painting Guardians to try and fuck you up good and proper. And then there’s the demeanour of the person coming into the fight. Are you bringing a legion of summons, turning this into a gank? Remember, the Spear of the Church doesn’t get estus. Once the Guardians are gone, and it gets real close will you drink the estus, or leave it by you side? It’s a boss fight I get a lot of joy out, for these reasons and more.
And then the most important thing, the fashion souls. So many outfit combinations to check out. Some people have the best ability to co-ord outfits.
It’s just a really cool fight. And if you want to be a Spear of the Church, you’ve just got the simple task of defeating Darkeater Midir. Have fun with that.
Speaking of Darkeater Midir, I’ve found something cool (well, other people will have already found it but it’s new to me). The bridge that Midir divebombs before the Shared Graves bonfire, there’s a spot on there were Midir cannot hurt you will continue to divebomb, blowing fire everywhere and just looking cool. So naturally I started to record footage of the whole thing. Midir just looks awesome. Definitely in the Video Game Dragon Hall of Fame. Hell, make that the Dragon Hall of Fame.
And now for some general Dark Souls III stuff. I’m still mainly being a Warrior of Sunlight. In fact, it’s pretty much all I do now. It’s all I really want to do. I just really like helping people in the game and fighting bosses all over again something that never bores me. However, it’s just bosses I help with. Nothing like going through entire areas with people, because that leads to invaders being ganked and I don’t like ganking on either end.
One thing I’ve never noticed before with Dark Souls III is the little flourishes some weapons have with their movements. The R1 with the Onikiri will see a wonderful hand twirl upon returning to the players side. And the final R1 of Friede’s Great Scythe combo see the weapon twirled mid swing before landing the final blow.
I wonder what other little details I’m missing from this game.
I do love this game.
Bad North: For someone who said that he can’t think tactically I’ve somehow to managed to finish two strategy/tactics games in back to back weeks. Into the Breach last week, and Bad North this week.
I mean, I won with 6 troops left and all the houses where burned down on the final island but a win’s a win. It came in rather dramatic fashion as well. It was the final wave, and my right flank utterly collapsed. I was terrified of failing at this point, the thought of doing this again after being so close. But with a valiant sacrifice by my last band of knights (well, armoured dudes) and some very resolute pike men we held on. It felt great. It felt earned. And along the way I triumphed over my great enemy numerous times, the dreaded Vikings with great bows. Turns out hanging back and rushing them with elite armoured dudes does the trick.
For the curious, the winning combination was 2 sets of armoured dudes and 2 sets of pikemen. Usually I’d go with 2 armoured dudes, 1 set of pikemen and 1 set of archers. Archers are brilliant but 4 groups of close range troops does allow more flexibility in close fought battles. Up close archers can’t do anything and sometimes that can lead to a unreversable crisis. Whereas the others not having range isn’t nice, will be able to handle the nitty gritty work all of the time. That’s a great thing.
Onto the next rougelike!
On a more serious note, this game while being fun on the Switch does have issues (I meant to mention these on my first write up but forgot – many apologies). There are crashes, it’s possible to get stuck on an island on the map screen and I’ve had an enemy turn invincible so that I couldn’t finish an island that lead to a restart. It’s been updated with patches, but I’ve still been getting crashes. So just a heads up there.
Video Games And Things I Write About Them 