The non-ME3 games recently enjoyed by ME3MPrs

I like it, I was so-so on it when I first played it and haven't done it since so I'm going on like 8-10 year memory. I just loved Old World Blues and Lonesome Road so much I think they overshadowed how good Dead Money probably is and add in that it's so different from the rest of the game it probably clouded my judgement (pun intended there as well). 

I haven't experienced that, but I can understand it. A lot of the prolonged action is in the boss fights, but there's a lot of strong enough enemies scattered throughout and even the simple enemies can mob you and kill you. I'm not that good and for me it can get crazy when I get more than 2 enemies attacking at a time. Managing dodging and attacking can be stressful That damn little green bar, you have to manage that little green bar and I think that keeps it from being pure hack-n-slash.


There's a ton of depth, but you have to look for it if you want to find it From doesn't really tell you anything straight up. It's given to you via item descriptions (so you have to look at every item you pick up) and through environmental story telling, for example where you pick up an item can give you a clue as to what was going on there. NPCs will also give you some more context, but you have to find them, and it's glorious when you finally find someone not trying to kill you. It can be tricky though because From doesn't come out and tell you how to do their quests and maybe you had no idea it's possible to save Solaire. As far as DS1 goes the world building is god-tier (even if the majority views the late game as weak I personally had no issues with Lost Izalith/Demon Ruins) with it's interconnectivity. That much was lacking in DS3, which is much more linear, even though the individual levels have great design.

I've had about 8 or so attempts at Friede and haven't gotten to 3rd phase yet. Best I did was get 2nd phase to about a quarter health before I got hit with that nasty AoE frostbite attack while attacking the father. I'm gonna do it without the Gael summon.

I reinstalled Anthem on my new machine to give it a 2nd shot. I've been playing it all day and I'm actually having a lot of fun going through the campaign missions for the first time. I do have three main criticisms: (1) with so few players I'm doing everything solo, (2) for how good my new machine is, the graphics still seem pretty un-optimized/underperforming compared to something like Destiny 2, and (3) there's a little too much walking around talking to people between missions. That last one could be on me though, I found the non-mission stuff in Mass Effect and Destiny 2 to also drag on just a little more than needed. Speaking of Destiny 2, it really feels like Anthem's mission statement was "let's make a Destiny 2 clone". I guess it probably sounds like I'm complaining a lot but just like with Mass Effect, I'm still having fun despite the flaws.

Lucky you... I have to keep a long ignore list that is always at its limit to at least have a chance to play strongholds solo. The playerbase is small but someone always uses that damn quickplay option whenever I try to record a run. And ever since the game (or actually the whole EA Play subscription) became part of gamepass there are always some new people getting in. Of course this whole problem could be solved if Bioware just made a "public", "private", "friends only" option for all game modes and not just the missions.


I think the game looks pretty nice, but it is indeed not well optimized. But which game actually is? Only "recent" game that comes to mind is Doom Eternal which runs supersmooth, probably even on a potato...


It's been so long since I played the campaign but I agree, it was exhausting. Especially since your movement is so slow in Fort Tarsis. And the conversations as well as the dialogue options are a lot worse and meaningless than they are in Mass Effect which makes these parts even more annoying in my opinion.



I'm still playing regularly because I'm having a lot of fun with the gameplay and while my javelins have nice gear but I'm still chasing some specific items. I have a ton of unplayed games but the problem with them is that they take so much time getting into and then I also don't want to stop after an hour. But with Anthem (as with ME3MP prior to that) I can just log in, play a couple of matches (doing daily challenges) and then quit again and continue with work and other things. Unfortunately with Anthem I'm having frequent lags and rubberbanding as of late and I was having a ton of pilot data problems as well over the last 3 months or. I was in contact with EA Support and they were actually not totally incompetent but in the end they couldn't really help me with the problem. Since some people I've talked to don't seem to have these problems it might be on my end but my connection is very stable and fast and I have no problems whatsoever in any other (online) game or app.

Second phase is pretty easy,you just need more practicing With heavy weapon this fight takes longer,but seems that you like heavy weapons .Now be ready for the good Dragon.It's tricky to find him,but what is Google for. Meanwhile i am closing in ER's end game zone.Already spent 70 hours.The game is freaking good,but the bosses are disappointing for now.As a hardcore fan,i don't use summons or spirits ,but none of the bosses managed to kill me more than three times.A friend of mine who already finished the game,said that the end game bosses are hard and even one of them is the hardest thing that FROM software have ever made.We will see.

I can't say much about the difficulty from personal experience since I didn't play the game myself and have only watched bits of streams (plus a sub 1 hour speedrun) but I can confirm that this one guy I was watching on stream during endgame died a couple of times to some of the endgame bosses but ultimately managed to beat them all after a few tries - but the last encounter really kicked his ass compared to the others.

Then again, there is a 2.5hours no death speedrun on Youtube, so how hard can it be, right?

In all seriousness though... it most likely depends a lot on how experienced a player is with these games. So you might find the endgame bosses relatively easy as well while someone else who has maybe never played a Souls game will find them hard as hell. Difficulty aside there was this one optional bossfight near the end I really enjoyed watching gameplay of just for the setting/atmosphere. Since I don't know if you've been there already I'll keep my mouth shut about it though.

Yes, I know. That's why I put that laughing smiley behind my post when I said "how hard can it be". Although the guy in the 2.5h no death speedrun didn't cheese the bosses as much as the any % guys did so it is a bit more impressive I guess. I watched the latest sub 29min speedrun as well though last night. I just find it very interesting what ways people find to break a game and/or just finish it quickly. But usually I prefer glitchless speedruns more. In any case, I'm aware that neither represents "normal" gameplay that most people will encounter. And I also prefer to either play a game myself or watch a normal run first before I start looking for speedruns.



You bring up an interesting point there. Whenever I was watching ER (or other souls games for that matter) I thought "melee combat seems so much more difficult". A lot of enemies have nasty attacks if you are up close and personal, especially bosses with grabs, AoE attacks with huge radiuses and such and I always had the impression it would be best to stay away from enemies and attack them from mid or long range. Of course this might be considered "easy mode" compared to close up combat - which brings me to my actual question: do you think the balancing is off in that regard and could be improved upon? Like redesigning enemy attack patterns more and have them change their attacks more significantly if you stay further away from them so the challenge becomes almost equal no matter at which range you fight them?

I actually meant a different boss. It's probably not even that big of a deal, I just thought the whole setup was very nicely done.
But talking about Malenia and her being the hardest boss... I'll just leave this video here (obviously not representative of the actual difficulty at all; just quite impressive):





Sounds like that ability the sub 30 speedrunners have been using for the bossfights. The one they were using looked like something that might get hit by the nerf-bat. Does FROM Software even rebalance post-release and nerf/buff items and spells? Especially since you also mentioned that their balancing has been mostly well done in the past.

Edit: just found this: "Patch 1.03 made Mimic Tear, Hoarfrost, and Sword of Night and Flame weaker"

Since we are talking about Fromsoftware games, I have slowly been going through their games. I actually think that Sekiro is their weakest. It might be the most skill based/difficult, but it is so rigid in its design. One weapon, no combos, and the ninja tools are very situational. It's like they saw the Nioh games and wanted to make something similar without the mechanical depth. I still liked it, but it's a game that offers very little variety and forces you to play as very specific way.

Niohs, especially Nioh 2, are the best of thse types of games. Though they play different from the other FS games.

I beat DS1 in January. It was good, but the second half of that game was bad with some awful boss fights. I beast DS2 for the first time a few weeks ago. As unpopular as it may seem, I liked it more than DS1. It was more fun to play despite its flaws.

Not sure if I should DS3 next or ER.

I recommend DS3 + DLC even though it's quite linear it's still dope and has a lot of good boss fights. I'm at Midir right now and getting my ass kicked.