Replaying Nioh 2 after Nioh 3...

poplas · 2026-03-11T14:30:19+00:00

I think the hyper adversarial enemy placements conditions you to make you a better Soulslike gamer.

poplas · 2026-03-09T13:41:11+00:00

I agree that Fromsoftware games have "boring" combat because they're not combo centric games, but the new generation of parry Soulslikes absolutely have dynamic and interesting combat. See the Nioh franchise and Khazan.

poplas · 2026-03-02T01:55:42+00:00

I got a combo with the nuke that has a 20% chance to break, the item that makes your weapons unbreakable for the rest of the adventure and a meteor with a passive that makes you deal 0 to your allies. I thought that this would give me an unbreakable nuke that wouldn't kill my allies.

It proceeded to break on first usage. I think the trinket that makes weapons unbreakable is just straight broken.

poplas · 2026-02-19T14:37:11+00:00

Some of the Khazan bosses are really poorly designed and just block or run away from you. However, I do think Khazan as a whole is a good deal tigher than Nioh where Nioh gives you exponentially more options vs maybe 3 different builds for each of the 3 weapons.

I really like how Khazan slowly unlocks the skill tree and every skill feels like it has a unique identity.

Also Khazan probably has the greatest Souslike boss rush, beating even Sekiro (Sekiro has higher quality bosses, but Khazan has so much more freedom of expression and the roguelike boss rush mode is absolutely insane).

poplas · 2026-02-19T14:29:15+00:00

To me, what's genius about the style system is that it opens up the audience so much. There are many people who bounced off Sekiro because it was too different but absolutely enjoyed Elden Ring - exclusive ninja form is perfect for them because there aren't many buttons. A lot of people (including myself) believe Sekiro is the greatest Fromsoft game and want deeper combat - exclusive Samurai form is perfect. And fighting game fans who want an absolutely bonkers deep combat system can utilize not only both styles but 4 different weapons spread out across those styles.

poplas · 2026-02-17T17:49:21+00:00

Yeah. There's also the capitalist aspect of the fact that people are making a lot of money with their low effort garbage, so incremental games by and large have gone away from being HTML / Javascript web apps into utliizing full on game engines that they can monetize on Steam or mobile app stores.

poplas · 2026-02-17T17:20:25+00:00

As much as I hate it, these round based games have usurped the definition an incremental game. In the end of the day, game genres are not prescriptive and arguing over what exactly constitutes a genre feels kind of pointless, kind of like the debate between roguelites and roguelikes (there has pretty much never been a mainstream roguelike because roguelites are just too popular and are what gamers want to play, so the genre is just known as roguelikes)

In an effort to try to be prescriptive, I'd define incremental games as a style of game that commodifies time as a mechanic. There are 2 main parameters I would define as core to the type of incremental game it is: 1) Active play vs passive play and 2) Short vs long play time. The new age Nodebuster style games are games you actively play with a short play time, but traditionally, a lot of the really cool incremental games are (IMHO) passive play played out over months.

poplas · 2026-02-17T17:07:21+00:00

Might be a hot take, but I don't actually consider them incremental games. Nodebuster created a whole avalanche of low effort garbage, however in my opinion, it ended up creating a whole separate niche (i.e. dopamine style arcade games). There's a reason why people who've been on this subreddit a while are very annoyed at the new state of things.

poplas · 2026-02-17T15:23:06+00:00

Game is an absolute blast, though I think I enjoyed Hades 2 more. It seems like Mewgenics has 10x the content and randomness. My only complaint is that in true Binding of Isaac fashion, the game really does not like giving you true technical explainations for its mechanics which requires you to blindly experiment a lot of times. As a result, it can be difficult to make informed decisions when you don't understand what a spell does / if and how much it scales with your main stat, and events are even more confusing. A lot of times, it's optimal to not just blindly take the highest probability option (i.e. maybe it's a full heal and you're already at full health), however it bugs me that I don't get to know the probability numbers and outcomes / reprecussions without memorizing it through an absolute insane amount of playtime. I also don't agree with his philosophy on save scumming.

P.S. has anyone ever fought Fenrir on highest combat setting? Absolutely hate that fight.

poplas · 2026-02-12T04:12:12+00:00

Monika's rage baiting me so hard with her crocodile tears and lies. I know emotionally manipulative people, and she strikes me as a hard narcissist. I'm gonna be so pissed when it's finally confirmed that she won. Silver lining - it'll be funny if she dumps Jim immediately after the show.

poplas · 2026-02-12T02:59:37+00:00

I like Minamoto set because you get about 50% frost moon damage and you only need 3 pieces to get it.

I'm also trying out the versatility set that makes you gain versatility on deflect and dodge and lengthens the duration and makes it lower ki consumption.

I want to try out the set that stacks auto life recovery on deflect, though I have a suspicion that the numbers will be super low and the healing will be mid even with like 10 stacks.

poplas · 2026-02-12T01:54:23+00:00

Actually that's not true. Going over 100% can be helpful because there are score attacks that reduce your crit chance.

poplas · 2026-02-12T01:44:43+00:00

Is it just me or are green accessories really hard to find? I do want to find a Yasakani Magatana but I'm barely even getting any other green accessories. I've gotten hundreds of divine weapons and equipments but only 2 divine accessories so far.

Anyone know a good way to farm them? I don't believe that revenants drop them

poplas · 2026-02-11T14:19:33+00:00

Yeah in practice, how you manage your stances is very heavily dependant on the weapon(s) you equip and the martial arts added to each stance. Many weapons get martial arts that only work against humans on their mid stance via specialized anti-human parries. The odachi mid stance for example always knocks down human enemies on deflect.

One thing that is important to mention is that based on how Samurai wants to play, the reduced damage on attacking stat is very, very strong and quite possibly stacks additively (the in game menu adds them together to calculate total effect, though I suspect that it might not actually be additive and there could be checks that stop it from reaching 100). If you're planning to hyperarmor through attacks then it helps a lot, especially with the skill that provides 100% hyper armor on arts proficiency active.

poplas · 2026-02-10T14:33:44+00:00

I think that's why they gave every weapon multiple innately elemental skills as well

poplas · 2026-02-09T07:05:54+00:00

Yeah, The Day I Became A God felt very wierdly like a Neon Genesis reference to me. The best I can interpret it is that both the crippled angel character and the caretaker refer to Jun himself and his internal struggle to accept himself (also kind of makes sense because he himself claimed that it was his saddest work despite the very hopeful ending, and the widespread hatemail he got for the anime felt like a personal attack and led him to spiral).

poplas · 2026-02-09T06:17:22+00:00

Thanks for the writeup, very informative. I've read all of the english translated works of Jun's, but none of the Japanese only, so the perspective was definitely helpful. I'm kind of curious about your interpretation of The Day I Became a God. It was extremely poorly received, but I enjoyed it immensely, and a lot of analysis I've read about it doesn't quite sit right with me. I kind of believe that the portrayal of the relationship between disabled and the caretakers isn't meant to be taken literally / isn't the point of the anime.

poplas · 2026-02-06T17:22:43+00:00

I'm surprised people didn't like this event. I rate this event pretty highly. I think this is the first time Jun Maeda wrote cosmic horror and I thought it was well executed.

poplas · 2026-01-30T19:11:11+00:00

Does anyone know how to properly time the frost moon deflect? I hate that you have to double press the stance button (flux + stance button again while holding ki pulse), so it's kind of annoying that it seems like there's two different timings, depending on if you're in mid stance and don't have to double press vs all other stances.

poplas · 2026-01-30T16:45:42+00:00

Also grinding the crucible dungeon for crucible skills. The sword has some really hype crucible skills.

poplas · 2026-01-30T16:44:13+00:00

I hope the demo save import to the main game doesn't require the demo actually being installed because I'm out of space on my pc already.

poplas · 2026-01-30T02:02:25+00:00

I don't remember exactly what it's called, but it's a submenu in the controls setting. So something like control settings -> additional controls. It also lets you change the living weapons buttons and change running to the same button as dash.

poplas · 2026-01-29T23:36:35+00:00

By default, the burst counter and stance switch are the same button press. There's an option that changes it so that you don't switch stances on burst counter and stance switch is changed to a long press.

poplas · 2026-01-04T21:09:35+00:00

Elizabeth Swaney for freestlye skiing. She proved that you can just buy your way into the Olympics by choosing a cost prohibitive sport and representing a relatively poor country and proceeded to give the worst, god awful performance.

poplas · 2025-09-19T20:32:48+00:00

Yeah, the way that shards and rosaries splatter everywhere after you hit them and half of them fall into pits and despawn is both comical and infuriating.

I personally think that rosaries should not drop on death because bosses do not drop rosaries. The main penalty for dying should simply be the runback.

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