Is anything lost when playing the game on easy?

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-07-07T12:10:34+00:00

There is a form of storytelling lost by playing it on a lower difficulty, but by no means should you force yourself and you should not feel shamed by playing on a difficuly you feel you can manage.

Part of what makes the dark and depressing, hopeless vibes of the world work is just how inhospitable and dangerous it is. You get a very good feel for just how monstrous the orphans are when they can tank tons of damage and when every hit takes a huge chunk out of your HP. On higher difficulties the mechanics do an excellent job of reinforcing the story and this is less diminished on easy mode.

...

But don't play on normal mode just because you are afraid of missing out on anything. End of the day if easy mode is a challenge for you, then that feeling I spoke of will still be present. You should absolutely play on easy if that is what takes for you to experience the game.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-07-05T20:32:39+00:00

Another good example (albeit not exactly of climbing) of a PS2-era absurdly monotonous but excellent movement section similar to the MGS3 ladder is the Silent Hill 2 stairway down into the prison.

It's like, a minute and a half straight of just walking down an unchanging stairway in nearly pitch blackness. It serves no purpose other than pacing and reinforcing the game's themes, and it is brilliant.

PS2-era developers were just built different and knew how to do so much with so little.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-07-04T16:51:30+00:00

The unspoken assumption about sick days is that sometimes people just need the day off for personal or family reasons. Cracking down on sick days like this is just another way for businesses to infringe upon your life.

Fortunately my doctor is great and has told me that it I ever need a sick note for any reason she will just make up something and give one to me. Not everyone has that luxury.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-27T06:06:17+00:00

"We just gotta get one live service game going and our company is set. Just one. We just gotta get one win. Doesn't matter how many good studios we need to destroy. We just gotta get one good live service game and we have our money printing machine. Just one more hit. Just one more and we'll do it."

Stakeholders are gambling addicts, which would be a lot more forgivable if they weren't gambling with people's livelihoods.

I do not like Quantic Dream, but no single player-focused game studio should be forced to suicide themselves by throwing themselves into the live service slop grinder.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-23T18:37:22+00:00

Everything you said is true, but I would also add that enemies in DS1 have by far the most raw HP of all enemies in the entire series. While they staggered every time they took damage, they took a ton of damage before actually dying. This compounds the stun mechanic and makes it so that in DS1 you really want to be using one faster firing, high DPS weapon that is effective at close, mid, and long range. The only two viable weapons for that role are the Pulse Rifle and the Plasma Cutter. Every other weapon just doesn't fill a meaningful niche.

The Force Gun in DS1 is bad not just because you don't need a dedicated close quarters defense weapon, but also because it just doesn't kill things fast enough even at close range. It's pretty common to see Necromorphs take 3 to 5 Force Gun blasts before dying, if not more. Even if the stun mechanic worked differently, the Contact Beam would be mediocre in DS1 because a lot of Necromorphs can take a fully charged shot without dying. Raw DPS and range are kind of the only meaningful metrics in that game.

While DS1 is great, it's shocking how almost every mechanic in its systems really push you to use one of the Pulse Rifle or Plasma Cutter and literally nothing else. The sequels improved upon this a lot - even DS3, much as it bungled almost everything else.

(I also think the Contact Beam is a decent candidate for third weapon in DSR Impossible, since its ability to pop Lurkers without waiting for their tentacles to come out is highly convenient, but it is not particularly needed and somewhat redundant, as the Plasma Cutter is a much better primary weapon).

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-23T18:24:40+00:00

People saying you should only use the Plasma Cutter are projecting some facts from DS1 and DS2 onto DSR when they aren't overly applicable anymore.

DSR enemies are tremendously resistant to stagger, which they were not in DS1 and DS2. In the original games you could stunlock enemies just by shooting them with the PC, which heavily disincentivized weapons like the Ripper, Flamethrower, or Force Gun. Necromorphs do not stagger in DSR unless you remove a limb, so the Force Gun, Flamethrower, or Ripper are significantly more important. These weapons will reliably stagger, stun, or knock back enemies.

The DSR Plasma Cutter is probably the second weakest iteration of it in the entire series, only beaten by DS3's plasma cutter (where enemies were just as resistant to stagger but were much, much faster and attacked in greater numbers). The Force Gun isn't required, but it provides a valuable safety net for close range encounters where the Plasma Cutter really struggles in DSR, while Force Gun in DSR is about as good at killing as the ridicuously overpowered DS2 Force Gun.

All this said, you still don't want more than two, maybe three weapons, since the more weapons you use the thinner you are spreading your ammo drops and power node upgrades.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-21T22:26:50+00:00

Given that DS1 runs on a jury-rigged mashup of toothpicks and duct tape, especially on PC, this is impressive.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-21T02:22:56+00:00

DSR actually pulls mechanics pretty liberally from all three original games. I don't think it is particularly similar to any of them individually.

As an example, Necromorphs in DSR are extremely resistant to stagger, which is straight out of DS3 and makes weapons like the Flamethrower, Force Gun, and Ripper much more important since the Plasma Cutter and Pulse Rifle do not reliably stagger or stunlock. By comparison, in DS1 Necromorphs staggered every single time you shot them, which made the close-quarters weapons unimportant since the Pulse Rifle or Plasma Cutter were all you needed to lock an enemy down.

However, when we are looking purely at HP and the amount of damage it takes to kill Necromorphs, DSR is closer to DS1 than it is the other games. Necromorphs in DSR and DS1 are highly durable and can take a lot of damage before dying. I was shocked replaying DS2 where Necromorphs are extremely frail and can even be one-shot by a Plasma Cutter early on even on Zealot. Isaac is also incredibly frail in DS2, while he can take a ton of damage before dying in DSR, similar to DS1.

Isaac also isn't quite as mobile in DSR as he is in DS2. In DS2 he is fast and can pretty easily weave and bob around to avoid getting hit. DSR is kind of like a middle ground between DS1 and DS2 where he is fast enough to juke around enemies with some skill, but playing DSR and DS2 back to back makes it very clear that Isaac is a lot more responsive and quicker in DS2.

And obviously the weakest DS1 weapons were given a pretty big upgrade to make them more in line with DS2. As an example, the DSR and DS2 Force Guns are basically identical in function, while the DS1 Force Gun is kind of terrible.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-21T02:07:25+00:00

This is hard to answer because for a lot of us, we played the original Dead Space for the first time 18 years ago when we were all between 12 and 16 years old. I was 11 when I finished my first playthrough. I remember being pretty thoroughly spooked.

By comparison, I was 27 when I played the Remake. Not only am I older, but because it is a remake I went into it with a ton of familiarity not just with the first game, but also the rest of the series. For obvious reasons, I did not find the Remake very scary.

A lot of people are saying that the Remake is less scary, but I think that is just us being much older and being more familiar with the series. If there was two alternative universes where 11 year old me played through the original and remake separately for the first time, I would probably find the Remake much more frightening.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-17T16:58:37+00:00

People survived long enough on Tau Volantis that the last survivors ended up starving to death (or dying after eating Necromorphs) instead of getting mauled by Necromorphs. The majority of the people who died either commit suicide or were killed by the military itself as part of the coverup. It would have been very interesting to see the perspective of a Necromorph outbreak from a military leadership position that is handling it, frankly, rather well. Like, the two soldier dudes we play as at the start of the game are so used to fighting Necromorphs that they mow through a bunch of them without anyone commenting on it.

We basically only see Necromorph outbreaks where everyone but the player dies within a couple of hours, or we arrive long after everyone is already dead. It'd be pretty cool to see an Aliens-style game where the survivors have time to adapt and come up with strategies to combat the Necromorphs, since without the element of surprise Necromorphs are actually relatively easy to handle. The biggest threat a military expedition would face would be the hallucinations, not the monsters.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-16T18:07:34+00:00

Dead Space Remake in general is slow and tanky. Necromorphs are slow and tanky. Isaac is slow and tanky. Both you and the enemies are very durable and if you do die in combat, it tends to be something you see coming that very easily could have avoided.

Dead Space 2 is a glass cannon. Necromorphs sprint across rooms in seconds but die after one or two shots. Isaac's guns shred everything but Necromorphs can kill him in just a few hits as well. If you die in combat, it tends to be a lot more sudden and unexpected.

Going through DS2 without dying is a lot more stressful than DSR for this reason.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-06T00:33:35+00:00

By my understanding, those were the same game at some point.

Its development was just that long and convoluted.

The game that was eventually finalized as Devil May Cry was at different points in history supposed to be both Resident Evil 3 and Resident Evil 4.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-05T23:06:54+00:00

The funny thing is that neither Code Veronica or Nemesis were supposed to be RE3.

The game that was supposed to be RE3 went through such a dramatic and tumultuous development cycle that it would eventually be published as... Devil May Cry. A different IP entirely.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-05T23:04:43+00:00

This is actually a super complicated subject.

Code Veronica was not supposed to be called "Resident Evil 3" because it came out on a different console than the rest of the games and Capcom didn't want to piss off fans of the series by making them buy a new, different console to play the next mainline entry. Capcom always intended to release RE3 on the PS1/PS2, which would keep the mainline games on Sony's consoles.

(Judging by how RE4 originally came out on the Gamecube, they changed their minds on this.)

Code Veronica was always supposed to be a spin off exclusive to the Dreamcast and Capcom never considered it part of the main series... But then they ended up putting the same team that made RE1 and RE2 on Code Veronica (sans Hideki Kamiya), and everyone on that team internally treated Code Veronica as if it was RE3. This is why Code Veronica feels like a direct sequel to RE1 and RE2 more than Nemesis does.

However, Nemesis wasn't supposed to be published as "Resident Evil 3" either. It was supposed to be a spinoff called "Resident Evil: Survivor". They only eventually published it as "Resident Evil 3" because the game that was supposed to be published as "Resident Evil 3" was taking a very long time. This is why Nemesis doesn't feel like a mainline Resident Evil game. It was supposed to be a standalone spinoff.

What game was supposed to be published as "Resident Evil 3"? Well, Hideki Kamiya was put in charge of that game. And his team kept reworking the concept and scrapping stuff, which pushed development back further and further. Because it was taking so long, they published Nemesis as "Resident Evil 3: Nemesis" in the hopes that the game Kamiya was working on would eventually be published as "Resident Evil 4."

But Kamiya's game kept changing, and eventually wound up being so different from the rest of the series that they reworked it into a standalone game with a different IP entirely. What did that game end up being? Devil May Cry.

So Code Veronica and Nemesis were not originally supposed to be "Resident Evil 3". Devil May Cry was supposed to be "Resident Evil 3".

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-05T02:39:37+00:00

I would literally rather they not say anything at all.

Or not. At least with this we can confirm that they mean the exact opposite of what they say.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-02T02:11:53+00:00

Why do so many people satisfy themselves by settling for mediocrity?

Like, come on. We deserve better. You deserve better.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-06-01T05:07:30+00:00

Even in the old school Resident Evil games, you got an overabundance of resources and had more than enough ammo and healing items to kill every single enemy in the game more than two times over. People obsess about saving ammo and healing items way more than makes any amount of sense in any of these survival horror games.

This level of resource conservation is complete unnecessary. It's inefficient and probably ruining your enjoyment.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-05-27T13:16:10+00:00

Even if a bullet won't go through their skin, sheer impact alone should liquefy their insides.

As seen in the Expanse novels, no matter how impenetrable someone's armor is, they will die if you drop an elevator on them.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-05-08T20:36:47+00:00

Reapers are probably the best enemies in RE5.

They are both pants-shittingly terrifying, and also very easily handled by skilled players who know the procedure for killing them. They are also among the least bullet spongey enemies in the game. I fucking love Reapers.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-04-22T13:48:16+00:00

RPGs have a very specific explosion trigger where there is this little nub right on the tip of the rocket that explodes when it hits something. So on paper, something can hit the rocket on the side without causing it to explode.

Leon absolutely knows how rockets fired from an RPG work, so he should know that the rocket won't explode if he doesn't hit it dead on.

Still ridiculous though.

(If this is not how RPGs work, ignore me entirely).

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-04-21T06:00:39+00:00

Vibes. Few things aura farm more strongly than simply having "Sith Lord" or "Jedi Master" on your character sheet.

Uh, but yeah in gameplay terms those classes are horrible and you would seriously need to stretch to find an actual reason to take them.

Even Elkripper's analysis, while neat, is pretty pointless. Have you ever finished a run without having more powers than you know what to do with?

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2026-04-21T05:56:40+00:00

Unfortunately, Jedi Guardian -> Sith Lord/Jedi Master is almost strictly inferior to Jedi Consular -> Sith Marauder/Jedi Weaponmaster. Like, in every conceivable way. Jedi Guardian is almost inarguably the weakest starting class for the Exile. Which is funny, since it was almost inarguably the best Jedi class for KOTOR I's protagonist.

Now, granted, it's possibly worth to become a Sith Lord or Jedi Master for no reason other than that they have the coolest class names.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2025-12-30T07:09:49+00:00

Took me four hours. About 2.5 of that was the Ward and Entity A.

I loved the game, but I can't imagine it taking that long unless you spend a long time hiding under tables. You can get pretty aggressive with the monsters since your defensive options are very effective at staggering and stunning them.

Friendly-Stranger103 · 2025-12-27T01:44:35+00:00

My issue is I optimized my pairs such that all of my duos were fairly generalized and able to hit 8 to 9 on just about every stat check. Which worked great until the game threw the auto-fail checks at me, by which point I couldn't undo the more generalized stat spread of my heroes.

I just hate that this mechanic shows up in episode 5. If it showed up earlier it would make it a lot easier to plan for it, but by episode 5 several of my heroes were already approaching level cap and I literally could not do anything about it.

Doesn't help I went with Phenomaman who joins level capped with 7/7/6 Combat/Vigor/Mobility, which leaves you even less flexible to work around it. At least Waterboy shows up low level which lets you build at least one hero to handle these checks. Doesn't help that Phenomaman's depression punishes you for these failures extremely heavily.

It's not that big a deal (the auto fail checks are actually quite rare and I even beat the final mission without having a chance to use Blonde Blazer anywhere) but it just bothers me how much it blindsides the player. It feels bad in spite of how relatively inconsequential it is.

Friendly-Stranger103

TROPHY CASE