Coelacanth

Following on the discussion about "Souls-lite" the other week I'll be playing one this weekend: Rise of the Ronin. Okay listen, it's definitely emphasis on the lite and not the Souls, but it does have bonfire equivalents and you do have an upgrade currency you temporarily lose if you die, and permanently lose if you die again before collecting it.

Overall I'm surprisingly enjoying it quite a bit. The combat takes a while to get going with a lot of stuff locked behind unlocks, but have heard a lot of praises about it and I can see that it's got some cool depth to it. Also a very heavy parry focus, which is fun (when I hit them). So far it feels like a better version of Ghost of Tsushima for me, despite the difference in reception of the two games. It doesn't look as good, mind. I also haven't run into any performance issues, so they may have been fixed in patches.

Personally I've been in both camps, first playthrough of Dark Souls was absolutely a sword-and-board, shield raised rounding every corner kind of gameplay. I have progressed with time, and these days I am definitely more of a dodge and weave kind of player, but I did sometimes resort to using a shield in Elden Ring whenever I thought a boss or situation called for it. Helps that I played right at launch (pre Barricade Shield nerf).

I definitely think it's more fun to dodge/parry, but it's not always fun enough to risk not beating the boss.

HGSS is peak Pokémon.

Let's see what kind of unbelievable powecreep they come up with to upstage Urshifu and the horses.

Summit is by far my favourite too. Boost is nice but for me I can't live without swipe gestures anymore. Let's you remove a bunch of buttons and makes the interface so much cleaner.

Lake House DLC was amazing, both a super tight horror chapter and a nicely written thinly veiled commentary on AI art.

Yes. I am still searching for a way to communicate this in a socially acceptable way but one that also doesn't cost me all my daily allotment of energy.

Fair enough. And 566.36 is a great driver, it's very fast and stable but to anyone who uses DLSS I think Preset K is too valuable.

I'm pretty sure there is a later stable one than that. I've been on 591.44 for a while without issues. 566.36 doesn't have Preset K on DLSS right?

I really wish this worked with Piefed communities.

I love dazzle camo.

Thank you, Nordic Souls does look pretty great. I'll jot that down for the future!

I know the Wabbajack scene is pretty big for Skyrim, is there any big mod pack you would recommend? Skyrim is also an embarrassing blind spot for me (played enough of Morrowind and Oblivion back in the day so never got around to it) but after all the hundreds of hours I've spent modding Fallout: NV, Cyberpunk and STALKER Anomaly I am not sure I want to dive headfirst into another multi month mod project.