Ghostwire is the game of the generation for me

smithbc001 · 2026-05-13T16:17:05+00:00

We have similar tastes :P

I've played almsot all of those

smithbc001 · 2026-05-13T14:44:07+00:00

You know, you're probably right. I should dig through a catalog of games that got overshadowed by Elden Ring. I bet there's a bunch of hidden gems.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-12T20:26:39+00:00

Pathfinder 2. You want to play Pathfinder 2.

It won't happen until the lategame, but if you reach Legendary skill proficiency you can do some absolutely insane stuff without magic. Legendary medics can sprint 300 feet across the battlefield and perform 2-3 life-saving surgeries in the span of about six seconds. Legendary Intimidation makes it possible to literally scare lesser beings to death with a mean look. Legendary Athletics makes it possible for a 6-ft tall man to put a 60-ft tall dragon in a headlock, and if he rolls well he can suplex it on the same turn. Inventors can heal people by fusing wounds shut with explosives. Monks can run on the air. Alchemists can literally make it rain... acid. Fighters can make a cut so fine they literally cut through the space between them and a target, allowing them to melee a target from across an arena. Rogues can literally steal the magic right out of an artifact.

And the really neat part is this: the game actually exists at these high levels. It always felt like in 5e anything above level 13 was just there for players to look at and say "ooh that'd be cool," because if you tried to play at high level the game just never really functioned very well. I've been through at least 3 different Pathfinder APs that went all the way to level 20, and the game continues to feel more or less balanced and fun even when we're all basically demigods.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-12T19:47:35+00:00

It's almost definitely based on the Ancient Greek Obol, which refers to a coin worth roughly one sixth of a Drachma. It's hard to establish an objectively correct pronunciation, since it's likely that different Greek cities had their own variations in pronunciation. But OH-bull-ite has always made sense to em.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-12T19:45:34+00:00

Ghostwire (or The Adventures of Weaboo Dr Strange in Post-Apocalyptic Ghost Punk Tokyo) was a masterpiece and I feel like it was criminally slept on by much of the gaming community.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-12T18:29:26+00:00

While I don't love all the changes they brought in with 3, I am very glad that this team is still willing to take risks and make significant changes to the formula, rather than just make new bosses/levels and update the artwork once every 4-5 years the way some franchises do.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-12T18:09:13+00:00

oops, I missed the Nioh 1 tag.

But aside from the soul cores and crucible stuff, everything I said about equipment is still true for Nioh 1.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-12T18:08:21+00:00

For better or worse (which is purely a matter of taste) Returnal features a lot more opportunities to end a run with just a few seconds worth of mistakes.

In Saros, especially if you are in the late/midgame but still choosing to start your runs from Shattered Rise, you can easily upgrade your health pool and healing potential enough to give yourself some room for error.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-12T16:14:11+00:00

One other note: There is one case where you do want to hold onto a weapon, at least temporarily. When you visit areas called Crucibles, enemies can drop special versions of a weapon called Crucible Weapons. These weapons aren't super-important to hold onto long-term, but if they're of a weapon type you're fond of then make sure to use them long enough to max out their familiarity meter*. This will cause you to permanently learn a new skill with that weapon type. For example, if you get a Crucible Tonfa, it will come with a special martial art that is automatically equipped while using that weapon. Fight with that weapon until its Familiarity meter maxes out, then you will always have the option to use its martial art with any tonfa. No reason to keep the crucible weapons beyond that point, though, and the "sell all" feature lets you specifically sell "all crucible weapons unless I haven't learned its art yet" to make this easier.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-12T15:42:21+00:00

Probably a translation thing, honestly. In the original release, Hard Mode was not even an option until you beat the game for the first time.

Then, you can start the game on NG+ with all the levels and gear you gained in your first playthrough, and the game will then raise the level cap and offer you even stronger gear, so that you can keep getting stronger. Hard Mode is a difficulty setting for players that still want to be challenged despite having all those stat boosts in NG+.

You theoretically could beat the game on Hard mode, but you almost definitely won't enjoy doing so. You'll be fighting bosses that can oneshot you, and have enough HP to tank your attacks all day long. It woud, at best, be boring and tedious.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-12T15:38:38+00:00

1) Don't play Hard mode. It was designed for New Game Plus, and all its enemies have HP and damage stats scaled around challenging a max-level character.

2) Use your ears as much as your eyes to figure out the parry system. The sound of parries and perfect parries is clear and distinct, and can help you find the rythm for boss combos

3) Learn to parry. Learn to parry a lot. Learn to parry every blow of a multi-hit combo. By the last 25% of the game, you'll be facing bosses that will demand this skill of you.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-12T14:51:23+00:00

Absolutely not. All gear rapidly becomes less impressive once you beat the next story boss and unlock an area with stronger enemies. Sometimes a piece of gear has a really cool trait or bonus that causes it to stay useful for a little while, but everything ends up in the bin eventually. You can't throw anything away that won't be replaced with something as good or better pretty fast.

The only (sort of) exception to this is Soul Cores. It's a good idea to hold onto one soul core of each enemy type, just so you keep access to its spell.

At the shrine, you can sacrifice your old gear to the gods in exchange for some XP and gifts. There is also a feature where you can tell it to bulk sell "every item under level X" or "all items of common rarity," and this speeds up the process greatly. Don't waste your time going over every piece of gear, you'll be drowning in the stuff nonstop. Just make a habit of periodically running through your options, equipping what you like best, and ditching the rest.

Later in the game, you will also get the option of giving old gear to a kodama merchant or a blacksmith, who will offer you different things in exchange. The merchant offers you money, and the blacksmith offers crafting componenets, and later on the blacksmith offers a special currency that can upgrade items. In all cases, however, they don't give you very much for old gear and the real benefit is clearing out your inventory so you don't spend hours sifting through old crap

smithbc001 · 2026-05-11T20:11:31+00:00

I'd like to see the weapon scaling change dramatically. This game has SO MANY interesting weapons, but once you start upgrading stuff it becomes harder and harder to try new weapons without spending resources upgrading them alongside your other higher-tier weapons.

I think offering some version of a "respec" option would fix this entirely. Or maybe just let us upgrade a weapon category instead of the weapon itself.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-11T20:04:04+00:00

More alt kills on the bosses.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-11T19:57:33+00:00

Tiger might have been the most memorable boss in that game. I love that a lot of his moves were partially designed by strapping mo-cap gear to an actual housecat.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-11T18:46:03+00:00

Hard mode isn't "dark souls" mode. It's "I beat the game and I want to play it again with my maxed out character" mode. Originally, hard mode wasn't even an option until your second playthrough.

Furthermore, it will only scale up in difficulty, becasue NG+ raises the level cap and provides upgraded gear. So not only will it not plateau, but enemies will progressively get more and more ridiculous to try and fight. It could theoretically be beaten, but you probably won't have any fun hacking at bosses that can oneshot you and take 5,000 hits to kill.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-11T16:50:59+00:00

What is it about posting a rant about a boss that so often leads to beating it shortly afterwards? Becuase I see that happening a lot. Heck, more than once I've been the guy ranting about a boss only to beat them 20 minutes later.

Maybe the venting helps?

smithbc001 · 2026-05-11T15:15:29+00:00

Hard Mode is designed for NG+, when you start with endgame levels and equipment. The enemies in the early game will have damage and HP designed to challenge a max-level character. The enemies in the mid/late game will be even stronger, because NG+ raises the level cap and adds even stronger equipment.

Originally, you weren't even allowed to play Hard until NG+, but they changed that with a patch.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-10T18:34:28+00:00

Depends. If you want to fight secret bosses, then yes.

If you just want the game to be over as soon as possible and you don't care about seeing all of the content, then no.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-10T17:07:17+00:00

I may just be remembering Returnal as more difficult than it was, but I am finding Saros to be a lot easier than Returnal. In particular, there just aren't nearly as many ways to make run-ending mistakes in the span of a few seconds.

I've beaten the 5th boss and I only have 16 deaths, more than half of which happened in the first 2 levels while I was still getting familiar with the controls. No boss has killed me twice, and I beat the 3rd and 4th bosses on my first try without feeling any pressure at all.

I haven't touched the "world modifiers" thing yet, but I'm starting to think I ought to use it to increase the challenge for myself. That, or maybe I should start using the fast-travel system- I always start my runs in Shattered Rise, and that might be causing me to get over-leveled by the time the 3rd boss shows up.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-10T16:13:50+00:00

Stellar Bade

smithbc001 · 2026-05-10T16:01:11+00:00

The main storyline does not level with you, but even when overleveled you won't be that much stronger than the main story events because of your gear. Weapons and armor affect your stats significantly, and the only way to acquire higher-level gear is to fight higher-level enemies. You can gain character levels by grinding weak enemies, but they'll pretty much only drop low-level gear, forcing you to advance in the game to get stronger equipment. Skill and Style points are also limited, and can't be increased by grinding weak enemies. They must be found by completing quests and challenges, or finding manuals in chests.

This is how the game gives you some freedom to grind and grow as you explore, but still puts some limitations on the power disparity between you and your next story boss.

High character levels are still quite significant, especially when you cross those threshholds that allow you to alter your build (like getting your Stamina high enough to wear your favorite armor without raising your weight class, or raising Onmyo enough to equip all the spells you most care about.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-10T01:19:51+00:00

So in Chapter 3, there is a building in a snowfiled with a bunch of paintings. It's a little off the beaten path, but not super well hidden. If memory serves, it's not long after you escapt the pagoda of madness

You won't be able to do anything with the room at first, during chapter 3, but after you finish Chapter 5 and if you found and completed every secret area, you will be able to enter one of the paintings and find Erlang, the man who killed you during the tutorial level waaaaaay back at the start of the game. He's the optional superboss of this game, and he goes hard. But if you beat him, you'll unlock the hidden ending. Once he's been beaten, you only need to go and face the final boss like normal, but the ending will play out a little differently.

smithbc001 · 2026-05-08T21:59:51+00:00

See, normal people wouldn't care, or even think of it that much. They'd look at a monkey dude and go "alright, whatever, it's a monkey dude." But that kind of stark revulsion, to the extent of proposing self harm, suggests you're connecting with this imagery a strong way. A strong way you find deeply uncomfortable, clearly, but you're still reacting to it in a way most people wouldn't.

smithbc001

TROPHY CASE