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This game is legit amazing.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

I've played 5 hours now, and have 25% of the castle uncovered.

It's my game of the year so far, no question.

Metroidvania games aren't ones which I immediately gravitate to but, man, everything about Bloodstained is knocking it out of the park:

Combat is varied and fluid
Enemies are cleverly (and often hilariously) designed
Power-ups and augments are easily swappable on the fly, which means you can vary your play style up mid-battle
Puzzles are clever but not insurmountable for a dunderhead like me
The story is melodramatic and OTT, but it's told with a wink - They know it's daft and are fully leaning into it
Animation is fluid
Backgrounds are flat out beautiful
Wow, that score

Talking of the visuals, videos I'd seen of Bloodstained led me to dismiss the art style as a bit fussy but seeing it in motion changes things dramatically ..... unless you own a Switch. That port seems to have major problems.



I bought it on PS4.

I have to admit thqt I love the trailers for it. The humor, particularly. Were there really complaints in BETA the developer changed? Seems to be a major point in the few videos that I've seen. Or is that just a marketing gimmick similar to the Sonic the Hedgehog trailers?

Yep, it looks substantially better than the Beta. The video I posted shows some comparisons.

Totes Magotes.

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All these bloodstained videos reminds me that I saw a trailer for the old Genesis' Stryder that apparently has been out forever. I never knew. Loved that game, just hated the sprite glitches.

Still playing the hell out of this game.

"The universe of No Man's Sky comprises 255 unique galaxies, which in turn comprise around 3 to 4 billion regions, each of which contain more than 122 and up to hundreds of star systems. All star systems feature from 1-6 planets and moons, and usually a single space station."

I am not the best at math, but that seems like a pretty large play area...

That is hilarious... and quite possibly the most compelling argument for me to snag this game that I've seen yet.

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What to say about NMS...

My first 10 hours or so have been pretty fun overall. Or is it 20 hours...

I probably did a lot more messing about wasting time than most would perhaps do initially, but who knows. Most of my play time has been confined to a system of 3 planets and a space station that I have used as my tutorial area. I have warped to other systems a little, but just to complete quests so far. The initial few hours had a certain amount of tedium involved, but I can already see that tapering off as I have found ways to quickly gain resources, thanks to hints from folks like Tatty.

It's a mostly relaxing experience, even on survival mode. The cool thing is that it's a play it how you want to game, and each person's experience will be different. YMMV.

I did buy it and install it today. I just won't have time to fiddle with it prolly till the weekend...

Careful, it's a slippery slope until you land at Elite Dangerous.

NMS is a gateway drug.

I came at it the other way around, and I must say, I prefer NMS by a country mile. While Elite clearly has the more robust space sim material, I prefer the planetary exploration and more arcade style ship stuff in NMS, at least so far. The survival aspect and base building also put it over the top for me.

Meanwhile, I plan on naming a star system after my daughter, as soon as I find one that is worthy.


One more thing: this is cool...

Yeah the music-scape is one of my favourite aspects. Very fitting with the 'book cover adventure' vibe somehow too.

(But hey, Elite is likely getting 'legs', aliens & bases in 2020. Only like 3 years after I thought. It will probably be stupidly serious and over-priced )

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@Yoda - did you end up adding NMS to your library?

Oh yeah, I bought it on sale awhile back. Another one of those games I buy on sale and then don't play until it's on sale for even less a year later.

If you're already into it, I'll try to make a special point to dive in this week/weekend! Better than the thing where one of us plays a game and the other plays it two years later and tries to talk about it then.

We might even try to hook up for some multiplayer!

That said, I think that would work best once both people (or more if others want to play too!) are up to speed in the game. I still do a lot of futzing about in menus as I try to figure stuff out, so I presume multiplayer sessions would go a lot smoother without multiple people constantly saying "hold on a sec, I am trying to figure out X." Still I bet it would be fun to get several of us together to dork around on a planet or two sometime! We could build a base with no doors around @Golgot, for instance, or constantly destroy the terrain under @Tacitus' feet while he is under attack by some giant space beast!

I'd be down for MP, for sure. That really makes lots of things more fun. Most of my best Fallout 76 memories, after feeling like I'd "done" most of it, have come from meeting people and teaming up with them (had a great experience like that just the other night).

Say...are we linked up in on Steam? I am not sure we have done that yet...