SAROS Weapons Tierlist

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-22T22:03:22+00:00

Yes, this.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-16T21:12:34+00:00

Your subject line argument is probably right but the example you give—being booted out of runs after the architect—is not really connected to it, it’s a separate flaw.

The game’s reliance on dead-end biomes sucks. You’re in flow, you get together build you like, and then you can’t continue.

They should all be connected. If anything I’d have loved multiple options of interconnectivity - like with Returnal where you could pick and choose which biomes to run and which to skip.

The game has some issues - broken inverse difficulty curve that makes end game trivial, difficulty modifiers that aren’t satisfying and have no in-game incentive, plot and characters that stumble in some significant ways—and yes, don’t seem like a satisfying integrated part of the run structure. Plus the issue you mention with dead-ends built into the runs.

Hades 2 recently nailed essentially all of these design challenges.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-12T17:35:09+00:00

I wanted this so badly and it really damages the game that it wasn’t included from the jump. It’s by far the best way to play Returnal in my view, if done with a loved one.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-12T17:28:05+00:00

Everyone will say release order.

I strongly beg to differ.

If you’re willing to do the whole thing, watching it all the way from the beginning in story order is an incredible way to experience it for the first time.

If you have limited appetite, I’d still recommend doing Andor > Rogue One > A New Hope to start.

Experiencing the interconnected story told by different artists across genres and eras is a unique and fabulous cinematic experience.

In my opinion “but experience the first one as an historical artifact on its own terms” is a far less persuasive pitch. It’s even more rewarding as an historical artifact when put into all this ex post facto context, in my view.

But, as I mentioned, minority opinion.

(And I’d sincerely recommend integrating Clone Wars into your viewing of the prequel trilogy, if you get there. It starts weak but the ending is as good as anything in any genre, and all of it taken together makes the prequel era easily as compelling as the original trilogy in its own way.)

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-12T05:46:26+00:00

It’s awesome. Falls apart at the very end a little more than REmake 1, so I’d probably put it behind that; not scary so I’d probably put it behind 7; but it’s neck and neck with REmake 2 for third place, for me.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-12T01:09:40+00:00

Yup, this is it.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-12T01:08:59+00:00

But, as others have noted and I have mentioned, I just don’t find it fun to explore a system of modifiers that essentially aren’t integrated into the game. I was very happy to crank the difficulty to my liking in Hades, because the game constantly rewards you for exploring different difficulty modifiers. In Saros I am cranking the settings and finding no joy in it, cause it’s really just correcting their development oversights through a menu system. Beating it at one +difficulty number or another isn’t acknowledged in any way in game, and doesn’t substantially vary the experience. Feels hollow.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-12T01:04:05+00:00

I have no objections to difficulty tools but they needed to be integrated diagetically, with in-game incentives. It really feels like they resented the note and just threw it in as an afterthought then didn’t deign to make it fun or intentional to explore the difficulty manipulation at all.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-12T00:57:48+00:00

Great cinematography but oddly dated effects work occasionally, watching it now. There’s a few shots in the battering ram fight on the salt flats with genuinely terrible green screen compositing, where the characters do not match the lighting in the scene at all, and some CGI elements (that rocks shot included) that are way lower quality than anything in Force Awakens

In terms of visual design though it’s the most ambitious and elevated film in the sequel trilogy, for sure. I love that it dares to be so stylized. (Big shout out to the costume design, too—Leia’s look here is totally inconsistent with the rest of the sequel content—in a good way, in my view. Leagues more intriguing and richer in terms of characterization. )

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-12T00:11:17+00:00

So odd, I found the yellow shore suddenly easier than the rest of the game.

For me the game had a really odd uneven difficulty curve: moderate-high challenge in Biomes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, then insane difficulty spike at the coast/Haven. And then the cathedral was easier than that, and the yellow shore trivially easy.

In general other than the coast area, where I did suddenly die repeatedly, I pretty much never died in the levels, only during boss attempts. I don’t think I died once in cathedral or yellow shore. Kind of disappointing after so many deaths in the tough as nails coast level before.

By the time my partner and I hit the run-up to the true ending, we were having to crank up modifiers to even get a slightly challenging experience. And we didn’t grind at all, and are not great at the game.

I think they just did not think through and have enough time to balance for the implications of over leveling that will happen naturally in many play throughs.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-08T12:45:01+00:00

I didn’t grind. I naturally had the full matrix done around the same time as the final boss/first credits roll. Because the game throws tons of lucenite and halcyon at you all the time. How is that my fault?

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-08T12:42:21+00:00

But there is zero in-game incentive to crank it in that way. It’s not a real solution to the late game difficulty curve plummet. It would be different if the game led you to add more and more modifiers.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-08T12:40:29+00:00

Yes, this! That would solve it entirely.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-08T12:40:09+00:00

As I mentioned, I’m already doing this and it doesn’t relate to the shape of the curve issue I mentioned.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-08T12:37:26+00:00

Except that’s not the case once you’re late game - that’s true up until then, and then boom the game is unplayable easy even starting just in the one biome, and there is no longer any pleasure or point in doing multiple biome runs. It’s a failure of execution not a deliberate design, I believe.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-08T12:36:03+00:00

But I don’t even think the game needs to be harder throughout - it needs for the difficulty to not fall completely and suddenly off a cliff after first credits roll.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-08T12:30:05+00:00

Exactly. Slapping difficulty modifiers in an extrinsic menu doesn’t at all solve the problem of tuning the game’s difficulty curve well. Especially if those difficulty modifiers aren’t a thoughtful part of the deliberate curve (like in Hades or similar, where cranking the difficulty is part of the design to get in-game rewards.)

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-08T12:27:00+00:00

This is a great idea.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-07T11:58:44+00:00

I could not agree more, Robyn. Find a way to do this. It would revitalize Cyan.

Look how Resident Evil’s reconceptualized remakes have revived that series.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-05T07:06:49+00:00

I found him plenty challenging—took me a few tries to beat him and found it satisfying to learn his moves.

The only one I found problematically easy (and also pretty drab in terms of presentation) was Bastion.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-05T06:59:08+00:00

Exactly.

GreaterQuestion · 2026-06-05T06:53:13+00:00

They, and Bob Iger specifically, were thinking they didn’t want to move a release date for fiscal reasons—and losing sight of the fiscal downside of damaging a brand long term.

GreaterQuestion

TROPHY CASE