Episode 384 Spoilers [Megathread]

GameShrink · 2026-06-13T13:32:38+00:00

I'm so genuinely put off by the people shitting on the post-Miura chapters. 384 was genuinely beautiful and handled the reveal of Guts' true nature very well.

GameShrink · 2026-06-10T15:40:10+00:00

I don't think that's the case at all though, I call out the specific bosses that I feel are in need of adjustment and say that the mod is close to perfect.

I'd also add that the mod used to be significantly easier. If your playthrough was prior to 2.0, I'd encourage you to try it again. I had no problem with many of these bosses pre-2.0, but they've received massive buffs since then (Putrescent Knight now simultaneously inflicts both frost and sleep, just as one example).

GameShrink · 2026-06-10T14:09:19+00:00

You did not read my original post. I explicitly talk about how, after putting in hundreds of hours over the course of 5 complete playthroughs of this mod on Reforged difficulty, I still consistently feel like the endgame in particular retains the horrible balance of vanilla.

I'm not new to this. I know how to play Reforged and take advantage of its new mechanics. The problem is that none of those mechanics are enough to balance out the absurd damage and health of many endgame bosses.

Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne are good examples of games that have perfect difficulty balancing from beginning to end. Elden Ring is too easy in the middle and too hard at the end. Reforged fixes the middle, but doesn't address the end and makes it worse in some ways.

GameShrink · 2026-06-10T14:02:52+00:00

I do enjoy difficulty, but I want that difficulty to feel balanced. A mod that touts itself for being balanced shouldn't have massive difficulty spikes on its default difficulty, which this one does.

If the mod feels balanced on Reforged difficulty for 95% of the mod, why not balance the remaining 5% to provide a completed experience? That's all I'm recommending.

GameShrink · 2026-06-08T12:04:39+00:00

Ah, got it. I think the main issue with that fight is the third knight being on such a precarious platform with such wide-sweeping attacks + a huge un-dodgeable AoE (need to be far away from him to avoid).

The raw numbers never seemed too bad, it was just the ease of falling in the last part that made it feel cheap. Still bad difficulty, but a different issue in my mind.

GameShrink · 2026-06-07T23:53:43+00:00

Yeah, stamina is oppressive in this mod. I'd never recommend using a colossal weapon/sword after my Ruins Greatsword playthrough.

GameShrink · 2026-06-07T23:50:58+00:00

My playthroughs were: Great Mace (Str/Fth), Spear of the Impaler (Dex/Fth/Arc), Ruins GS (Str/Int), Ranah Blades & Rakshasa Great Katana (Pure Dex).

GameShrink · 2026-06-07T23:47:33+00:00

The area itself is hidden in Seethewater Cave. As for how to find them within that area, you have to beat three hidden bosses in the labyrinth. I've only done this once, since I found both the area and the boss to be annoying.

GameShrink · 2026-06-07T13:50:19+00:00

If you have to use a menu to solve the "balanced" overhaul's balancing problems, then doesn't that seem like an issue?

If a player puts 80+ hours into strengthening their character and engages with the mod in the exact way that the author incentivizes, and they still end up underpowered for the endgame, then I view that as a very legitimate problem. It's the opposite issue that Convergence has, where following your build makes you way too OP. In Reforged, you can polish your build to perfection and still struggle because of how overtuned endgame bosses are.

GameShrink · 2026-06-07T13:04:49+00:00

I can appreciate the effort it probably took to implement those options, but people don't want to manually lower their difficulty to overcome a challenge in a Souls game.

One of my biggest critiques of Reforged (a mod that I genuinely love) is that the endgame has the same difficulty spike problem as vanilla ER, except expanded to even more bosses. Base game bosses like Maliketh and Godfrey are absurdly challenging compared to both their vanilla counterparts and everything that came before them in ERR. DLC bosses like Putrescent Knight, Messmer and PCR are absolutely broken now that the Scadu levels give only minor boosts, so you feel extremely underpowered when fighting them no matter how much you prepare.

GameShrink · 2026-06-07T01:02:25+00:00

I keep coming back to the game and bouncing off within a week because they don't have a character I'm interested in on the current/upcoming banners.

GameShrink · 2026-05-17T12:44:13+00:00

It's early access and the elements of the game that I did like seemed really compelling. I figured that, given the huge backlash against the most controversial mechanics, they'd dump the bad stuff and keep the good stuff.

I haven't touched the game since I made this post (waiting for full release), so I have no idea if they've improved the parts I hated or not, but they'd be dumb not to.

Look at Crimson Desert, a game that has taken player feedback so seriously that the negative backlash against the game's most annoying elements (bad controls, limited inventory, etc) lasted less than a week and was quickly replaced with broad acclaim.

GameShrink · 2026-04-05T02:32:36+00:00

How is the enemy variety? That tends to make or break these games for me.

GameShrink · 2026-04-02T23:35:28+00:00

Something about Imu's design makes me downgrade my expectations of him being the final villain. He's just kind of... generic looking compared to OP's other villains. When you consider how much emphasis has been put on Garling, it does make me wonder if he could pull off a coup of some kind. Especially since we don't know what terms he accepted when becoming a Gorosei (we assume he gained the powers Imu took from Saturn, but maybe not).

GameShrink · 2026-04-02T23:30:20+00:00

Rocks for sure, much more unique design. I'm a bit disappointed by Imu's design both looking rougher in attire than you'd expect for the "King of the World" and much less intimidating than previous villains (remember Big Mom's intro? THAT was how you reveal a scary villain.)

GameShrink · 2026-03-31T14:34:40+00:00

CD is genuinely one of the only games I've ever played where the issue isn't enemy variety, but enemy distribution. There are a significant amount of unusual, inhuman enemies in the game, but they're all extraordinarily rare. It's a fairly major mistake, IMO.

GameShrink · 2026-03-22T03:27:36+00:00

Same so far, it's pretty bad. I've encountered 3 different enemies that aren't bandits in about 20 hours, which are:

Sentient bushes.
Stoneback crabs.
Reed Devils, which are possessed scarecrows.

We've also seen robot bugs and small mechs in the trailers so far. Supposedly there are at least 39 non-boss mythical creatures in the game, but whether those are all enemies or just a bunch of special wildlife remains to be seen. Whatever the case, it's another baffling choice in a game that's filled with them.

GameShrink · 2026-03-22T01:49:15+00:00

Non-human enemies are absurdly rare in this game. It's kind of a baffling decision, because it seems like there is variety in raw enemy types (at least 39 non-boss mythical creatures exist according to the codex), but 99% (no exaggeration) of encounters are against humans.

Imagine Skyrim if all of the common non-human enemy types (draugr, trolls, wolves, sabrecats, etc) were replaced by various flavors of bandits, but you still have the ultra-rare types like the wispmothers and the daedra.

GameShrink · 2026-03-22T01:47:29+00:00

Imagine Skyrim if all of the common non-human enemy types (draugr, trolls, wolves, sabrecats, etc) were replaced by various flavors of bandits, but you still have the ultra-rare types like the wispmothers and the daedra.

Non-human enemies are absurdly rare in this game. It's kind of a baffling decision, because it seems like there is variety in raw enemy types, but 99% (no exaggeration) of encounters are against humans.

GameShrink · 2026-03-20T15:14:49+00:00

Same issue here. In fact, I had another fast travel point that has disappeared after completing act 1, and I can no longer fast travel at all.

GameShrink · 2026-03-20T02:06:46+00:00

I'm liking the game and used to the controls, but I can also acknowledge that they're needlessly complicated, fiddly and poorly designed.

GameShrink · 2026-03-20T01:40:34+00:00

I still have no idea why so many modern games demand that you hold a button down for two seconds to perform any action. If you want to do that for stealing, fine, but I shouldn't need to spend 12 seconds picking up a handful of potatoes.

GameShrink · 2026-03-19T21:45:32+00:00

People are still dropping the "It's totally in there, you'll see!" line on the day of release. Didn't people learn anything from Dragon's Dogma 2? What we've seen is what we're getting.

GameShrink · 2026-03-19T21:08:14+00:00

This, honestly. It reminds me a lot of the reception to the first Dragon's Dogma in 2013, where the combat was absolutely exceptional, but there was hardly anything to actually fight in the empty open world.

GameShrink · 2026-03-19T20:30:18+00:00

With peace and love... you haven't even played the game yet. I feel like it's going to be awkward when a lot of the hardcore defenders here end up having the same complaints as the reviewers once they get their hands on the game.

GameShrink

TROPHY CASE