tmyakal

I used Elden Ring as an example, but all of Fromsoft's Souls games have had similar ways of adjusting difficulty. Bloodborne still had summons, still had tons of optional areas and alternate paths, and even had the cum dungeon if you want to cheese it on levels and skip the grind.

And it's not like From is the only company doing difficulty this way. Most Mario games are pretty straightforward for casual players, but advanced players who master the controls can often find secret levels or alternate collectibles. It's an added, optional challenge a player self-imposes to make the game harder. Or Celeste and the optional strawberries and post-game levels.

I was all-in on Hollow Knight. Beat it multiple times, including Path of Pain and the Nightmare King. But I'm struggling with Silksong.

I went back and started up Hollow Knight again just to sanity-check myself, and, yes, it's definitely an easier game. Many fewer enemies can hit for 2 health; there's more variety in paths in the early game, so if you hit a wall in one direction you can try another; and you get access to upgrades that actually feel impactful relatively early instead of skills that use up my magic pool that I can't spare because I need them because I'm always one hit away from dying.

My pet theory is that Silksong is actually just exactly what they originally pitched: DLC for players that have mastered the highest skill points in Hollow Knight. And maybe that would be fine if I were coming straight into it off of the back of Godhome. But it's been years since I was playing those areas, and my skills have atrophied. It's okay for a DLC to expect mastery from the start, but a standalone game should have more of a curve.

Celeste is a game about reflexes and dexterity. They implemented tons of accessibility features, including ways to make platforming easier.

There doesn't need to be sliders or options menu settings. Elden Ring handles difficulty settings beautifully: upgrading your flask is optional and increases both the frequency and amount of healing that can be received. Using summons is optional and can make some fights an absolute cakewalk. Same with all the different crafting items. If you want, almost every dungeon in the game can be skipped or revisited if it's too hard.

All Team Cherry had to do was change the timing or location for access to certain tools in the game.

Umbrella Academy was directly inspired by Doom Patrol. The original comic was created because the writer wanted to write Doom Patrol but couldn't get DC to sign onto his pitch, so he just made up his own universe to play in.

I enjoyed the first season and some of the second, but it really didn't need to run for twenty years.

By what definition? I don't think a Chrysler has been manufactured in America since 2016.

Neither of them should've been punished? He was her boss, and decades older than her. He should've kept his pants zipped up.

I imagine jobs reports are going to be fucked for the foreseeable future.

No, the reports will be fine. They'll be excellent. Beautiful, even. They just won't be accurate. The administration has made it clear that they'd rather have good numbers than real numbers.

I just interviewed for an internal posting at my company. It's for a division that we all know is going to be laid off within five years, but I need to get out of my current role. The interviewer told me he got 53 applicants. When the same job was posted for a healthier division eight months ago, they got four.

So, yeah, definitely a few more jobseekers running around these days.

My brother spent a decade hating DS2. I talked him into taking another crack at it with me recently, and once I explained Adaptability to him, the game went from "compete bullshit" to "mostly bullshit."

I think if you marry young, it starts at 1% and grows from there. My wife and I are approaching middle age, and we're only unknowingly taking to ourselves about 20% of the time.