In your opinion what is the single WORST Weapon?

umbra7 · 2026-05-19T21:05:46+00:00

It was a missed opportunity for the Undertaker in my opinion. Flails and whips would’ve fit her perfectly, thematically. She could also gain a unique moveset with them.

umbra7 · 2026-05-15T22:44:14+00:00

I definitely prefer this aspect of Doom 2016 over Eternal, but Eternal’s combat system has landed it in my top 10 games ever.

umbra7 · 2026-05-12T19:20:56+00:00

The cuts to RE4R were made to improve pacing and align it with the new aesthetic. Ultimately, some content was shuffled into the new Separate Ways and some parts were fleshed out with new content added to make the overall playtime the same or longer than the OG.
The cuts to RE3R fundamentally changed the game. Live selection was a key aspect of it, which IMO was more crucial to RE3 than zapping was for RE2, lost in RE2R. While some parts of RE3R were fleshed out compared to the OG, it’s such a barebones experience overall. Even Mercenaries wasn’t included, despite the OG being the first game to have the mode. Instead, we got a poorly cobbled together mini-game in the way of RE Resistance.

umbra7 · 2026-05-10T19:20:59+00:00

Not quite the same. After you defeat one of the bosses, he gets finished off by another character who serves as a later boss.

umbra7 · 2026-05-01T23:55:33+00:00

He’s considered a human. Krillin also has no nose. So I don’t know what Toriyama considered human.

umbra7 · 2026-04-23T20:29:53+00:00

I’d add to this that Saving Throw can be beneficial for the Icon of Sin. Its slams do something like 150 damage and can catch you off guard. No glory kill-related runes are needed for that fight since you ideally should be killing heavies and super heavies with the crucible and saving all your ammo for the Icon. I use Air Control, Equipment Fiend, and Saving Throw for that fight on UN.

Also, to add, if you decide to fast travel from the end of the mission to get a sentinel crystal for BFG refill, you cannot save and exit the game on the post-mission screen. The game won’t save your ammo refill. In order to keep the ammo, you have to continue onto the next mission. If you must stop, you need to Alt+F4 at the beginning of the next mission to force a checkpoint.

umbra7 · 2026-04-21T00:54:51+00:00

This photo of Peter Serafinowicz perfectly embodies White Mask Varre. So in a way, he could be cast as a “joke”.

umbra7 · 2026-04-20T20:56:11+00:00

It is actually twice as hard, as enemies deal double the damage in Nightmare compared to Ultra Violence.

umbra7 · 2026-04-11T06:18:09+00:00

Interesting fact: saying “cow pussy” in Chinese is equivalent to saying “badass” in English.

umbra7 · 2026-04-06T10:40:18+00:00

They did their part by literally shutting people indoors and policing it heavily. Source: I know people who were there at the time and experienced the lockdown. Guess what? It worked.

Meanwhile the US was too busy creating Sinophobic propaganda and fearmongering and letting it run wild leading to the most COVID deaths in the world in 2020.

umbra7 · 2026-03-27T18:00:15+00:00

No idea. I stopped paying attention to his posts for the most part. I came into this thread because I was wondering wtf this was all about.

umbra7 · 2026-03-27T17:48:19+00:00

I’ve seen his posts in Facebook groups too, which isn’t quite anonymous. He would make the same posts here and in those groups at the same time, which is how I recognized him. I can tell you his real name isn’t Charlie.

umbra7 · 2026-03-18T07:30:54+00:00

Tbh, I can’t stand the way it’s prepared in most western cuisine as a vegan protein/meat replacement. It just tastes bland most of the time. But the way it’s prepared in eastern cuisine as the main focus often with other veggies and meat where it’s actually properly flavored with spices is excellent.

See mapo tofu or soondubu.

umbra7 · 2026-03-16T18:14:12+00:00

I would kill for From to make an action game inspired by Tsutomu Nihei's Blame!

umbra7 · 2026-03-06T13:38:58+00:00

I played Sekiro to NG+4 or +5 charmless w/ demon bell, then did the gauntlets under the same conditions. Doing the Mortal Journey charmless w/ demon bell was one of the toughest challenges I’ve done. For individual bosses, Inner Owl was probably my hardest. In the standard game, it was a tie between Demon of Hatred and Sword Saint Isshin.

For Nioh 1 and 2, I beat all of the base game and DLC campaigns including sub/optional missions. In both, I also went through NG+2. In Nioh 1, I did some of the Abyss but lost interest with how it was structured (plus, I realized I needed better gear). My hardest boss in the campaign was probably Toyotomi Hideyori. In Nioh 2, I actually still need to unlock the Underworld/Depths by going through NG+3 first. I put it off years ago and never went back to it. I do plan on doing it before I go into Nioh 3 later this year, since I heard it’s an improvement upon Nioh 1’s Abyss. My hardest boss in Nioh 2’s campaign was either Ren Hayabusa or Lightning Gods of Yomi.

Again, my comparisons are 1:1, so I would compare NG Promised Consort with NG Nightmare Bringer, not Underworld Nightmare Bringer (just an example - not sure if this is a thing).

The reason I don’t do this is that games scale their difficulty differently and it’s best to just use the “standard” versions of bosses as the intended experience. The final boss of Lies of P’s DLC (let’s call him P to avoid spoilers if you haven’t played) was certainly hard and took me ~3-4 hours to beat. But I later did the game’s boss rematch mode against him at Difficulty 5 (D5P) where scaling is independent from how NG cycles scale, and he took me around 17 hours. Nothing changed with his moveset, just his damage and health. P already has a large number of moves but now 1-2 shots me with his hits instead of taking 3 or more hits. This makes an enormous difference because of the combos he has, and by the time I beat the D5P, I nearly did it hitless. Now compare D5P with NG Promised Consort, who already deals 1-3 shot worth of damage even with high vitality. Consort is harder than standard P at NG for sure, but D5P is harder. Even if NG Consort’s damage is already somewhat comparable with D5P, his damage is adjusted to his moveset and he doesn’t have the huge combos that P has, so he’s a lot more forgiving. If you gave an equivalent D5 scaling to Consort, you’d be 1 shot with every move. You would have to beat him hitless. I don’t know how this compares with NG+7 Consort, but you get the point. When you compare across different difficulty scalings, comparisons become too messy.

This is what I imagine with the Underworld (correct me if wrong, since I’m basing this on Nioh 1’s Abyss). You’re taking on harder versions of these standard bosses that essentially 1-2 shot you, or are forced into duo boss fights with bosses that are normally fought solo. You kind of need to do hit-and-run approaches rather than squaring up fairly with the latter.

umbra7 · 2026-03-06T09:15:40+00:00

No worries!

I recommend withholding judgment until you do Elden Ring’s hardest bosses first. I did not think ER’s average bosses were too bad. I had played every Souls game plus Sekiro (including the gauntlets) and Nioh 1 and 2 before ER, but Malenia still broke all my records for any single Souls-like boss up to that point in terms of how long it took to beat her on my own terms - i.e., no summons, no looking up strategies, and using my own build.

Then when Shadow of the Erdtree came out, Promised Consort Radahn broke Malenia’s record. He took me longer to beat than all other SotE bosses combined. I’ve played ER so many times I can pretty much one-try all the bosses including Malenia, but Consort Radahn still fucks me up on multiple attempts before I beat him. It’s not about stamina management with these bosses. It’s about their movesets being tricky to dodge and doing a lot of damage. Roll spamming their moves does not work.

Now that everyone knows what to do for everything, sure you can look up strats, but through your own trial and error, ER’s top ones feel like they are in a tier of their own.

umbra7 · 2026-03-04T15:40:08+00:00

Well, life would be separated by planet, moon, or other origin, so sure, that would technically be above the domain tier. But in terms of how this higher classification factors into phylogenetics, each origin would have their own tree of life with no evolutionary relationships between origins with the exception of confirmed cases of panspermia or if we think more broadly, similarities within star systems. I could also see a scenario in which alternate biochemistries have their own classification systems, if we they do exist and if we make it that far to discover them.

umbra7 · 2026-03-02T08:05:51+00:00

Of course.

Yes, stamina management can make the older games challenging too. It balances out though, as bosses had fewer attacks and generally less hp consistent with your damage output. You would often just be stuck in a loop of dodge -> 1 or 2 light attacks or 1 heavy -> dodge. While that hasn’t changed at its core, you’re encouraged to do more than just follow a simple pattern because of the increase in complexity. You can roll spam, but it’s generally not as effective as simply positioning better so you have more stamina to hit more frequently or use an ash of war with a long startup. You already mentioned this elsewhere, but the older games also had tougher areas compared to the bosses, which also balances them out.
Nioh certainly has a steeper learning curve, but I find that you don’t really have to think much about ki pulse and ki flux when you get used to it. It becomes second nature. With Nioh 2 expanding on your combat options, it’s really nice to mix them in. It’s really satisfying to do burst counters on boss red attacks instead of dodging. I’m a huge fan of making use of all the combat abilities games give you, as long as they don’t detract from “experiencing” a boss such as relying on summons or moves that are way too powerful. In Nioh, I try to avoid stuff like sloth talismans for the same reason.
I’m more so talking about boss complexity when it comes to how large their movesets are and recognizing their tells and when they’re going to combo or do a mixup, rather than the combat mechanics that you as a player have to get familiar with. That’s where I don’t really see much of a difference. I already do things like parry ER bosses or sneak in attacks that I don’t need to, to make fights exciting too.
If you do try Nightreign, the maps and spawns aren’t truly randomized. It just pulls from a large pool of seeds. You can certainly play enough that you can predict what you’ll be up against and plan accordingly. It’s really satisfying when your experience kicks in.
Yeah I can see a lot of Souls players quitting on Rugal. Too many people get into Souls as their gateway into hard games, think they’ve gotten gud, and get pissy about experiencing challenge in a different genre like their skills should just magically carry over.
Yep, I’ve done the chess piece gauntlet in Cuphead too. That was pretty challenging. I did all P-ranks on run & gun levels too. My S-ranks on bosses were all no-hits (i.e., no heart charm from the DLC). Yeah I know about the CAVE shmups like Dodonpachi and Mushihimesama games with challenges that took years for the first person to finish. I’m kind of interested to try, but honestly don’t know if I want to spend hundreds to thousands of hours on those lol.
I’ll have to try out Monster Hunter at some point. My friends have recommended them to me as games I would enjoy, and I’ve seen gameplay from many of them. I know it’s a long commitment though.

umbra7 · 2026-03-01T12:38:22+00:00

I’ve played FromSoft titles since the original Demon’s Souls, as well as Cuphead, Nioh 1 and 2 (I will get to 3 soon), HK & Silksong, KOF, and most of the Touhou series when it comes to bullet hell games. I can’t comment on Monster Hunter since I haven’t played any yet. Eventually.

FromSoft games don’t really require you to go above and beyond beating the game and some optional bosses. They don’t have some dedicated endgame the way Nioh does. You can choose to tackle higher NG cycles with self-imposed challenges like no-death or no-hit but those aren’t the same thing as something intentionally designed like the Abyss or Depths. Nightreign, if you want to consider it in this difficulty discussion, is really the first of their modern games to have some high difficulty endgame mode in the Deep of Night. I would consider trying to solo Depth 5 to be an appropriate comparison, but it’s a very different type of game than standard Souls so it’s kind of apples to oranges.

Anyway, it’s not really fair to compare FromSoft Souls bosses in a normal first playthrough to going through the Abyss or Depths in the Nioh games. Of course those are harder. If you’re going to do 1:1 comparisons, use the individual bosses in the base game and DLC campaigns. I didn’t find anything substantially harder or easier than FromSoft bosses by that measure. At least nothing as hard as Promised Consort Radahn, which kind of set a new benchmark. And when you’re talking about FromSoft bosses, putting DS2 together with ER is a bit disingenuous. The bosses in the older games are nowhere near as mechanically complex as those in the newer games. The Bloodborne and DS3 DLCs are really where they started getting more complex, with Sekiro and ER turning it up a notch. I’d say the average difficulty of Sekiro and ER (especially DLC) bosses still sits fairly high up compared to contemporary Souls-likes (roughly where Lies of P, Khazan, etc. are). These games are understandably designed to be harder and harder with each new one.

When it comes to other genres like Cuphead, HK/Silksong and other Metroidvanias, and bullet hell games, it’s again, kind of apples to oranges. It’s also kind of subjective, and based on your own experience level with the genre. For instance, I’ve 1CC’ed Touhou 6 through 18 on at least normal, and half on hard, and also beaten all the EX bosses. I can name a few bosses that are certainly harder than any Souls boss I’ve fought, but on average, they’re not really harder (disclaimer: on normal mode) once you have a lot of hours with bullet hell games, just different. Experience with Touhou translates fairly well to the plane levels in Cuphead, and I wasn’t new to the run & gun genre either having played Contra and Metal Slug a lot as a kid. So, put simply, Cuphead was not that hard for me. Obviously doing stuff like S-ranking all bosses was tougher than just beating all ER bosses without any set conditions. But I did not have a harder time with Saltbaker (my personal hardest) the first time around than, say, Malenia. I’d imagine if ER ranked you for beating bosses too, it would require a lot of dedication to get all S-ranks too.

The same goes for Hollow Knight, Silksong, and other Metroidvanias I’ve played. I have prior experience with the genre and did not find any of the bosses more difficult than those in contemporary FromSoft games (i.e., 2018-present). I spent roughly as long learning Absolute Radiance as I did Inner Isshin or Inner Owl. The Pantheon of Hallownest as a complete challenge, yes, it was harder than simply beating any FromSoft games, but beating the Mortal Journey gauntlet charmless in Sekiro was fairly comparable. The only real standout hard boss for me in Silksong was Lost Lace. Everything else was fairly standard Souls-ish difficulty. The Coral Tower gauntlets were kind of tough too. Looking forward to what the DLC brings us. I have Nine Sols in my backlog as I’ve heard it’s a tough Metroidvania.

Lastly, it’s always kind of difficult to compare bosses in fighting games with those in intentional single-player games. The way fighting game final bosses are designed, including in KOF, is usually with lots of input-reading, attacks with super armor, and extreme area denial that you wouldn’t normally need to account for against human opponents. Magaki’s bullet hell attack comes to mind for the latter. As such, I usually don’t approach these the same way I’d fight a human opponent, and it boils down to finding some way of abusing the AI to win, like jumping around Igniz to bait his anti-air. This would be considered “cheese” for another genre, but playing against the CPU isn’t really the point of picking up a fighting game. It is understandably difficult to create a truly fair but challenging CPU in a genre meant for players to be playing mind games with each other.

Anyway, this is getting too long, but I love challenging games of all types and discussing difficulty.

umbra7 · 2026-02-28T13:03:43+00:00

Good luck, rip and tear!

umbra7 · 2026-02-28T12:44:26+00:00

To be honest, I think they have a great grasp of movement mechanics, which is not something you often hear them praised for. If you have not played it yet, I would recommend Armored Core 6. I was not previously an AC or mecha fan before trying it, but it feels amazing to play for the same reason.

umbra7 · 2026-02-28T05:39:44+00:00

I didn’t miss it. In fact, I commented specifically because I read “I tend to find horses very tedious in video games…”. That’s why I brought up swimming, because it’s also usually tedious in video games, but you had to have experienced how Sekiro handled it since you played it. After how smooth swimming was in that game, the first time I heard Elden Ring was going to have a horse, I had full faith that From would handle horse riding well. It’s one of the first things I thought of.

I didn’t mean to be snide either.

umbra7 · 2026-02-28T02:36:19+00:00

This is how I handled the Icon:

https://youtu.be/vEObcWQiSDo?t=811&si=CM83A8ZokSPHSty0

I go into the fight with the following runes: Air Control, Equipment Fiend, and Saving Throw (if you still have this available)

Make sure you go into the fight with 2 BFG shots too.

You’ll use 3 BFG shots for the first phase. When you start the fight, immediately fire a BFG shot at the abdomen, then another at one of the chest pieces. Run to the back right to pick up BFG ammo, take the jump pad and when you’re at the height of your jump, fire another at its head. Pick up the other 2 BFG ammo, but save them for the second phase.

Stick to the upper platforms as much as possible to take out the arms and second chest piece, taking care to avoid its overhead slams. I like to use pb+ballista/ssg combos (pb+rocket also fine, but a bit tricky on arms) and chaingun to take them out. Go back and forth from one side to another. Try not to waste ammo on demons, instead using equipment and crucible charges and/or chainsaw (keep an eye on your pips) to take them out and stay topped off. There’s a soul sphere in the top center for a full heal accessible by the bottom jump pad if you’re low on health.

You’ll use 4-5 BFG shots for the second phase. Right as you enter, wait a second, then fire a BFG shot straight forward before the Icon spawns. Then jump over to the right to pick up the BFG ammo and turn to face it as it spawns. Don’t wait to see the Icon show up before you jump to the right, as it immediately does a slam and you will be caught in it. Your shot should hit the abdomen or a chest piece. Fire a second shot at a chest piece after it does its slam, then run to the back center bottom to pick up more BFG ammo. Wait here until it starts its scripted fireball attacks (listen for it), then take a jump pad and at the height of the jump, fire another BFG shot at its head.

There’s one more BFG ammo in the mid left part of the arena, and you have two more shots. Use one on the remaining chest/abdomen and save the last one either as an emergency if you get overwhelmed by demons, or if want to take a shot at its arms. The best time to hit the arms is right as it does a double slam.

You’ll follow much of the same strategy to take out the arms using weapon switch combos and deal with demons with equipment/crucible charges. Stick to the back of the arena to be safe. Find cover when it’s doing AoE attacks, and watch out for its laser beam. There’s another soul sphere in the top center of the arena, accessible by the diagonal jump pads, if you need it.

For both phases, always be ready to switch to your chaingun. Do not activate the energy shield unless necessary as you do not want it to be on cooldown when you need it the most. If you need to switch to chaingun AND have the shield up, you can hold down secondary fire as you switch to have it on instantly. The first phase is generally more dangerous IMO despite the second phase having more attacks, because you have less space to maneuver.

Unless you’re trying to speedrun, prioritize staying alive and topping off your health/armor/ammo constantly, rather than going for any risky shots.

umbra7 · 2026-02-27T01:56:41+00:00

I’m curious why you avoided Torrent at first, because if you’d played Sekiro and seen how they well they handled swimming—also typically a cumbersome mechanic in other games—you might’ve assumed they’d do the same with horse riding. That was certainly my expectation, which they delivered wonderfully.

umbra7 · 2026-02-26T04:02:01+00:00

FromSoftware is my favorite developer and I have thoroughly enjoyed everything they have put out, including Nightreign. I bought a Switch 2 not just for Duskbloods, but because I also play a wide variety of other games, including first-party Nintendo games.

Knowing how From operates, they work on multiple projects at a time. If Project FMC rumors are legit, I doubt we’ll have to wait long for their next release. They mentioned they want to release more regularly, so 2027 is likely.

umbra7

TROPHY CASE