Coelacanth

Same thing happened with music too, music piracy cratered with the success of Spotify.

I could barely get through one playthrough of it to be honest. The first 20ish hours were alright but by the end of the 60h playthrough I had to actively force myself to finish it. I agree that the story is competent but nothing special, and the way it's mono-serious and every line is delivered in the same dour, stoic monotone just wore me down over the playthrough. Plus the quest design is repetitive and pretty dull, as is the open world stuff. And the combat is fine but really not deep or varied enough to fuel such a long playtime.

While the world is gorgeous from a visual design perspective, I didn't really get the alive sensation at all personally. That is something I felt in RDR2 for sure, but Ghost just felt like a bog standard Ubisoft open world to me.

But I seem to be in a minority feeling this way about Ghost so maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.

WHAAAT?? How did I even gain such an honor?

You always spread positive energy, post great OC art, use cute ASCII emotes, indulge me in my tirades... Idk you're always fun to talk to.

I'm nobody's senpai though, hah. I just have a lot of opinions and like to talk about them 😅

That's totally fair about Ninja Gaiden though, I get it. I will say that on Normal difficulty they're totally doable and both Ninja Gaiden Black/2004 and Ninja Gaiden 4 are very approachable. Ninja Gaiden 2 is a different beast, although I think it's also not as hard as it's made out to be, at least on Normal and even Hard difficulty. Master Ninja is on another planet though, here is some high level gameplay and yeah, I can't even get a sniff of surviving like that, with such minimal use of Ultimate Techniques too. But it's a great illustration of the proactiveness I'm talking about I think.

(I promise this is the last of me pestering you about this game :P)

Oh don't apologise. First of all as someone neurodivergent I understand info dumping and hyperfixations very well. And secondly you're one of my favourite people on here anyway. Plus you are apparently a fellow enjoyer of the word proselytize, which is worth bonus points as far as I'm concerned.

Also I pester everyone else on here about the games I'm into all the time, you know. Just as well I get some back on occasion.

I don't think proactiveness applies for this genre, if I'm understanding correctly.

I could probably go on at length about the differences, but I always view Soulslikes as fundamentally reactive in nature. There is timing and reflexes to a certain extent, but in general the combat is about pattern memorization and patience. Especially as time goes by and Fromsoft are adding more stuff like delayed attacks and built in rollcatches and stuff that prevents you from playing in a flowstate. You dodge dodge dodge and wait for your opening. In general when you die in a Soulslike it's because you got greedy, you got impatient or you hadn't yet memorized the pattern.

Ninja Gaiden has a lot more movement and a lot more tools, and in general relies much more on how much you as a player can utilise your toolkit. It rewards muscle memory of combo strings and wide awareness of your whole arsenal. For the most part, when you die in Ninja Gaiden it's because *you yourself * could have done something else and better in that moment. Use another weapon, better spacing, use the environment, use this move for iframes, cancel that move with shurikens, save Ninpo to have for this part... I think that's what I mean by more active and proactive - you make your own openings.

Actually now I'm the one ranting.... Can I reuse your cute penguin picture?

P.S

I know what you mean by the dopamine parry sound though. I got that from both Rise of the Ronin and Enotria, which both had great parry sound effects too. And I do think maybe I haven't given enough thought to Sekiro's lack of stamina, that is a point in its favour. Maybe I'll add it to the consideration pile.

I'm with you. I thought it was alright but I never saw what everyone else seemed to see in the game. I do admire it for being both beautiful and immaculately optimised however.

Big same.

Sources have suggested that a drop from the current 9MJ to 7MJ per lap could add almost one second to laptimes, but a 6MJ limit could more than double that loss.

Some fans might not like slower cars, but you can argue drivers pushing slower cars to their limits is better than faster cars being driven conservatively.

Show me the fan who can tell the difference between 1:30:00 laptimes and 1:33:00 laptimes by eye and I'll show you a liar.

How are you finding Stranger Of Paradise? Since getting into Ninja Gaiden this past year I've come into contact with some more CAG players and some of them talked it up as having really great combat.

Totally. I wish I had some friends to get that experience more often. Closest I've been have been online discourse when playing certain games around launch, like Blue Prince, E33 and Elden Ring.

I like Civ V personally. I like the hexagons and I like the one-unit-per-tile instead of death stacks, even though the AI isn't great at using it without community patches. I also like its visuals the most.

It also has the beloved fan mod Vox Populi, if you want to get into all that.

Withering Rooms

I've been absolutely absorbed by this game the past week, having finally pulled the trigger on it after eyeing it for a long time. It's a 2.5D light horror roguelike, but there is so much more to it than it seems at first. Whenever I think I have a handle on it it keeps throwing new cool stuff at me, and the world building and story just keeps getting more interesting the more I play. It has a very unique vibe to it and a very distinctive and unique voice and direction.

The combat is clunky and janky yes, but you do get used to it and it gets a bit better after you start unlocking more tools, spells and weapons and start being able to actually make focused builds. The build crafting and customization is fun even when the mechanics of the combat itself is a little clunky. But this isn't a game you play for the combat anyway, but for the exploration, the lore, the story and the world building. Which is also partly told through item descriptions, Dark Souls-style.

Honestly I really don't want to spoil anything as the game has some interesting surprises so if you think this is your vibe I recommend just giving it a chance. It's very cool and I can see why it's such a beloved hidden gem. I can't wait to see what else it has up its sleeve.

Oh don't worry I quit drinking like ten years ago at this point. Time flies. It looks tempting and all but I don't keep any alcohol in the house anymore so it's easy to keep away from it. Having social anxiety and disliking leaving the house probably helps, I have to actually go outside first if I would want to drink and who wants to suffer through that?

Also don't discredit yourself, you were breezing through DS3 and you beat Sekiro quickly and handily, I think you're a better gamer than you think. You're definitely a certified Souls veteran at least.

But yeah it's interesting, I find Ninja Gaiden easier for some reason, even though they may be harder in some ways. I am still only halfway through NG4 though, I got sidetracked, but I have beaten the first three and Ninja Gaiden 2 twice this past year, plus some various chapter challenges and stuff, sometimes on the harder difficulties. But maybe the fast pace proactive and stamina-less combat is easier on my ADHD brain or something, I don't know. Ninja Gaiden doesn't really have any super long and exhausting boss fights and those are the ones I struggle with most in Fromsoft games. The long 10-15+ minute fights with 3 phases where you have to maintain perfect concentration and patience for such a long time. Sister Friede and Demon Prince already pushed me to my limits in the DS3 DLC, and I think that's what's made me a little hesitant about Fromsoft games of late (and kept me from attempting Elden Ring DLC and Sekiro).