Some of the talk about Khazan has made me wonder if I might actually be good at video games.

[Talloran]

Boss name spoilers, you've been warned.

I'll keep this part short: Yes, I have played plenty of games with a reputation of being challenging, and I've done some very basic "challenge runs" of some of them. I put that in quotes because I think I've only ever attempted a level 1 run once, and didn't finish it. I'm a fan of tough roguelikes and soulslikes in general.

But I've never done anything crazy like a no-damage run in any game, and frankly I doubt I ever could. I tend to struggle against the same bosses and levels that most people seem to, hit the same roadblocks, and Khazan was no exception. Viper gave me 28 stab wounds. Maluca turned my health bar purple. Rangkus set me on fire in a drive by shooting. Bellerian taught me how Elden Ring bosses must feel when I use spirit summons. So on, so forth.

But... But five hours? On Viper? An entire day to beat Trokka? Calling bosses health sponges? Am I taking crazy pills? I know the steam forums are full of bait, but I see this stuff on Reddit too.

Like... I am the personification of the meme "Damn, I got greedy". I mash buttons like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ape even after I've memorized the moveset of a boss, no matter what, because button mashing gives me dopamine even if it gets me killed. I understand this and do it anyway, because I'm simple like that, and have no self control or discipline. I can dodge adequately, but often can't parry to save my life because my brain is square shaped and the prospect of not dodging confuses me. All of this and more, and I still cruised through this game on normal mode. My biggest roadblock was Elamein, because I'm not smart enough to understand that her shield is good at protecting her.

So... What the heck are y'all doing? Are you okay? You literally just have to dodge and deflect--you can do either based off of your mood--then hit the boss. You can hit them a lot, they tend to let you do long combos on them for free, because the game wants you to feel cool. There are abilities that let you do anime-as-heck combo chains easily for this exact purpose.

Genuinely, I'm struggling to envision what it might look like on your screen. Are you just standing there and getting hit? Do you only use light attacks? Are you waiting for permission from the boss to win? This game has "Berserker" in the title, was that not enough of a hint to play aggressive?

So either I'm better than I thought, or I'm still average and most people genuinely kinda suck. With all the complaining I've been seeing I honestly don't know which it is, and I'm not sure the boost to my ego is worth losing even more of my faith in humanity if its the former.

[Doctor Gitgud]

Originally posted by Apple.Seed:

I beat the game but, I think Ozma Health or something needs to be nerfed that is way to ridiculous.

He doesn't have much health? Maybe phase 1 drags a little too much but he goes down quick in 2 and 3 if you know how to fight him.

[Kashra Fall]

Originally posted by Rafterman:

3% of us have even beaten the final boss, so if you've beaten him, calling yourself "average" is kinda ridiculous, don't you think?

Also, as someone who beat Viper relatively quickly, and thought Trokka was easy, the bosses are 100% health sponges, and later game it gets exhausting fighting them. The "true" ending boss is actually a stupid long fight, like we are playing monster hunter or some ♥♥♥♥.

It's funny because as soon as I finished Khazan I had an urge to go back and replay Nioh, and it's has even faster combat, is even more difficult, and has really good boss fights, but they never drag on like Khazan boss fights do. It's why I've beaten the Nioh games probably 40 times and will most likely never replay Khazan. This is my favorite genre, I love difficult games, but Khazan isn't just difficult, it gets tedious and tiresome about halfway through.

That's mindblowing to me. 3.8% of players, that's it. Less than 10% have beaten the game in general O.o.

[vXViper]

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

Originally posted by Rafterman:

3% of us have even beaten the final boss, so if you've beaten him, calling yourself "average" is kinda ridiculous, don't you think?

Also, as someone who beat Viper relatively quickly, and thought Trokka was easy, the bosses are 100% health sponges, and later game it gets exhausting fighting them. The "true" ending boss is actually a stupid long fight, like we are playing monster hunter or some ♥♥♥♥.

It's funny because as soon as I finished Khazan I had an urge to go back and replay Nioh, and it's has even faster combat, is even more difficult, and has really good boss fights, but they never drag on like Khazan boss fights do. It's why I've beaten the Nioh games probably 40 times and will most likely never replay Khazan. This is my favorite genre, I love difficult games, but Khazan isn't just difficult, it gets tedious and tiresome about halfway through.

That's mindblowing to me. 3.8% of players, that's it. Less than 10% have beaten the game in general O.o.

Secret ending had 1.3 or 1.5% when I did it.

[Drake Duckson]

It is very easy to make the game much harder than it should be by avoiding some of game mechanics and/or incorrect character build. For example, if you decide that you don't like stamina management and therefore you put your first 50 levels into endurance, ignoring all other stats. Then on top of that you don't want to mix and match your gear, so you just put on whatever item level is higher. And there you have it - you do no damage, you're one-shotted by pretty much everything and you probably have no stamina regen because of heavy armour and no str/vit to wear it. Try beating Viper with that.

[Baron01]

Originally posted by Talloran:

Boss name spoilers, you've been warned.

I'll keep this part short: Yes, I have played plenty of games with a reputation of being challenging, and I've done some very basic "challenge runs" of some of them. I put that in quotes because I think I've only ever attempted a level 1 run once, and didn't finish it. I'm a fan of tough roguelikes and soulslikes in general.

...

Genuinely, I'm struggling to envision what it might look like on your screen. Are you just standing there and getting hit? Do you only use light attacks? Are you waiting for permission from the boss to win? This game has "Berserker" in the title, was that not enough of a hint to play aggressive?

So either I'm better than I thought, or I'm still average and most people genuinely kinda suck. With all the complaining I've been seeing I honestly don't know which it is, and I'm not sure the boost to my ego is worth losing even more of my faith in humanity if its the former.

Wow, a dimwit "true gamer(tm) blessing us with their presence who instead of writing the usual "Git gud, noobs!" response and pissing off into the distance just wasted his and our time by writing a wall of text not making a sliver of sense.

What is going in your mind when you brainstorm this kind of crap and more importantly what compels you to post it on public forum for everyone to see? I have so many questions and so little answers.

You come to these forums two weeks after release when people have already finished their NG++ runs trying to whatever was your intention with this post.

Is this a cry for help? Someone please check on this dude if he is alright, he might need medical or psychological assistance.

[Talloran]

Originally posted by Baron01:

Originally posted by Talloran:

Boss name spoilers, you've been warned.

I'll keep this part short: Yes, I have played plenty of games with a reputation of being challenging, and I've done some very basic "challenge runs" of some of them. I put that in quotes because I think I've only ever attempted a level 1 run once, and didn't finish it. I'm a fan of tough roguelikes and soulslikes in general.

...

Genuinely, I'm struggling to envision what it might look like on your screen. Are you just standing there and getting hit? Do you only use light attacks? Are you waiting for permission from the boss to win? This game has "Berserker" in the title, was that not enough of a hint to play aggressive?

So either I'm better than I thought, or I'm still average and most people genuinely kinda suck. With all the complaining I've been seeing I honestly don't know which it is, and I'm not sure the boost to my ego is worth losing even more of my faith in humanity if its the former.

Wow, a dimwit "true gamer(tm) blessing us with their presence who instead of writing the usual "Git gud, noobs!" response and pissing off into the distance just wasted his and our time by writing a wall of text not making a sliver of sense.

What is going in your mind when you brainstorm this kind of crap and more importantly what compels you to post it on public forum for everyone to see? I have so many questions and so little answers.

You come to these forums two weeks after release when people have already finished their NG++ runs trying to whatever was your intention with this post.

Is this a cry for help? Someone please check on this dude if he is alright, he might need medical or psychological assistance.

lmao

[Giganx]

For most soulslikes the strategy is to wait for an opening, attack once or twice and then get out. If you do that here bosses will feel like MASSIVE sponges and take you way longer to beat.

I think the people that are taking literal days to beat bosses are the ones who simply aren't adjusting. Attacking is more complicated in this game. Learn how to juggle stamina spending attacks and spirit spending attacks to create long combos for optimal damage, and pay attention to whether the boss is off balance or not. If your attack left him off balance then unload as efficiently as you can and you'll eat a huge chunk of their health.

This is a more complicated game to play than any Dark Souls, but once you know what you're doing the difficulty feels fair.

[Jakeisonfire4]

So I made a post about this just now, but to help anyone else. At Blade Nexus's there's a tab called Khazans Memories and it gives you damage stat buffs. I actually agree the bosses are way too tanky if you don't upgrade your memory damage buffs. I enjoyed my entire first playthrough despite that, I thought the massive health pool was fun, but yea it's not really anyones fault because I don't believe there is even a tutorial for Khazans Memories having damage buffs. All you do is go over every area you've completed and you get vengeance points and can then upgrade base damage, Stamina damage and damage multiplier. Hope this helps.

[Balthasar Gelt]

Originally posted by Rafterman:

It's funny because as soon as I finished Khazan I had an urge to go back and replay Nioh, and it's has even faster combat, is even more difficult, and has really good boss fights, but they never drag on like Khazan boss fights do. It's why I've beaten the Nioh games probably 40 times and will most likely never replay Khazan. This is my favorite genre, I love difficult games, but Khazan isn't just difficult, it gets tedious and tiresome about halfway through.

Typical Nioh acolyte first-class ticket to Dubtown.

Keep it up, handsome.

[Senki]

I don't think people that play these games a lot can be called ''average''

As for the rest, it's a build issue most of the time. Some people aren't leveling stamina as much as they should or not picking up the strong stuff from their weapon skill trees. I was feeling like some bosses were health sponges too until I picked up trance on spear then I became a helicopter that melts bosses.

[Maelis]

Souls vets encountered their first action game and think everything is a health sponge. Watched some streamers and all they do is one single move when they're level 80, souls games genuinely ruined their perception of how an action game should be played.

[Kashra Fall]

Originally posted by Maelis:

Souls vets encountered their first action game and think everything is a health sponge. Watched some streamers and all they do is one single move when they're level 80, souls games genuinely ruined their perception of how an action game should be played.

Been watching a guy on Bellerian for the last 5 hours on and off. He is up to almost 100 deaths on her. Why? Because he refuses to use any other Greatsword skills, other than counter strike and giant hunt.

[Monstro]

It seems to me that the main approach to bosses in this game is finding the right combination of skills and a build that boosts those skills.

I honestly don’t get how someone could spend more than an hour on Trokka. I figured out she was a pushover on my very first try, and then it only took a couple more attempts to learn how to dodge her artillery barrage during the transition from phase 1 to phase 2.

And any attempt where you’ve filled your ghost form bar and activate it will most likely lead to a win, since it basically gives you invulnerability for a short time.

Plus, the fire weapon upgrade killed Trokka REALLY fast.

I feel like spending a whole day on her means you're using a chaotic build with unclear skill choices.

[Senki]

Originally posted by Maelis:

Souls vets encountered their first action game and think everything is a health sponge. Watched some streamers and all they do is one single move when they're level 80, souls games genuinely ruined their perception of how an action game should be played.

souls games teach you to be very passive/slow and pure action games teach you to be extremely aggressive

when games like khazan come out that combine both I am not surprised that some people struggle with it and think that this game is only a souls game or only an action one lmao

[Croxio]

Personally, I don't really like having more than 2 skills at the same time. It's more complex. So I prefer to alternate between 2 weapons, each with its own style and skill, to get past the bosses.

Because let's not hide it, there are weapons that are more suited to certain bosses than others. All bosses are passable with all weapons, it's just that a boss who is aggressive in close combat is not the same as a mage who attacks from afar and moves a lot.

Originally posted by Kashra Fall:

Been watching a guy on Bellerian for the last 5 hours on and off. He is up to almost 100 deaths on her. Why? Because he refuses to use any other Greatsword skills, other than counter strike and giant hunt.

I guess I play like this guy, the GS is good for playing defensively and punishing. And you spam the charged attacks as soon as you can breathe. But with the spear they would probably have had a much easier time.