First Akumu run, some things feel different.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

First, I want to say that I'm past the scariest things in chapter 6, and I'd say it more or less feels like nightmare difficulty. Maybe it's that I've played through the game so many times, but I think I was expecting something much more unfair.

So, a few things feel different to me.

Is the village in chapter 2 darker now?
Got my fire bolts really fast. Is the gel rate any different?
Bombs are...tight. Like a sliver. Was it like that on nightmare?
Is the beginning of chapter 6 easier now? Felt like fewer Haunted compared to other runs.

I think that's everything.

[stonersunshine]

I don't think it's darker

Gel rates aren't different but if you are playing with keys then there's a chance you got lucky with gel spawn or are unused to getting the amount of keys since you now know where they are. Outside of that if you are full on ammo then gel is more likely to drop, if you mostly use the bow then you will see more gel.

Bombs are tighter, I stopped disarming them. Haunted can absorb the blast so if you position one between the bomb and yourself you can blow it up and avoid the potentially long range needles.

Did you kill all the fire house Haunted? I don't believe there are less but they spawn based on which zombie you kill, you may have not been killing as much which could lead to less zombies depending on how you went about it. Bad system in my view, should be time based and it's a head scratcher why it isn't.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

It feels MUCH darker. I played nightmare just one time, so it may be a change made to nightmare that I'm forgetting, but I want to say I'm about 90% sure that it gets severely dark at a certain distance if the environment is not supposed to be well lit. My girlfriend said she read about it but I can't find it on Google. Have to ask her.

I remember being a little worried I wouldn't get to the fire bolts in time to kill Laura when I played nightmare. I denied myself all other upgrades for the majority of the run as a result. I don't know, maybe I did get lucky this time somehow.

I did not know that you could do that with bombs. That's why I love this game. It's so intricate that I still learn things about its mechanics. I've disarmed the vast majority of the bombs so far. It gets easier with practise. First bomb took me two tries. Second bomb took me about ten. Got gradually easier from there and it's to the point where in most cases, I'll risk it even after a tough section. Not much else is as thrilling, haha. I still regret leaving behind ALL the ones from the ruins in chapter 6. Think I've got every other one, though.

I kind of abused the flash bolts and didn't really kill any in a room till the door was open (then killed all of them because I'm a mental case). I remember them spawning in anyway on survival and nightmare, at least for the second room, and not being stunned, using up the majority of my trap parts. Took maybe ten bolts for the entire section this time. Maybe I got lucky.

I'm on my favourite chapter now, chapter 10. I don't see it getting much harder on akumu. We'll find out in a bit, though, won't we?

[stonersunshine]

I'm not bad at bomb disarms but it's too risky for me so I worked out other ways around and you need that trick at one point if you aren't disarming.

Not sure how much you upgraded flash but that whole section takes 5 mins so that could be the right amount.

Love 10 but 11 tends to be the bother for me.

[wyatt]

If I finish Akumu mode will that unlock the achievement for Nightmare mode as well? Feel like that would save me a lot of hassle.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

I have ten seconds on my flash bolts. Chapter 10 is over for me. I've heard 11 is hell, so I'm excited and a little scared.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

Originally posted by wyatt:

If I finish Akumu mode will that unlock the achievement for Nightmare mode as well? Feel like that would save me a lot of hassle.

I don't think I would play it that way, thinking of any of it as a hassle. Unless you're really confident, I would play nightmare first. If you're bored from repeat playthroughs at that point, I'd just come back to akumu another time. But to answer your question, I'm almost certain beating akumu takes care of all othe difficulty level achievements.

[wyatt]

Just finished my 3rd playthrough for Quick and the Dead achievement (slightly over 4 hours). I have to do one more for No Gel upgrade on top of the replays for Nightmare and Akumu. More than 3 plays is overdoing imo. There's also the dilemma of getting bored and not wanting to push through it, but the game won't be fresh in my memory to play effectively at a later date.

I could get all 3 at once but I'm not that hardcore.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

I've probably beaten this game maybe ten times. I don't think more than three is overdoing it unless you do it all immediately. Personally, I'd play nightmare now and then revisit the game later for the no gel achievement, then play akumu following that. Or reverse nightmare and the no gel.

Nightmare is actually the way the developers intended the game to be played, and akumu is based on that. From survival, nightmare alters enemy arrangement and AI, and item placement, as well as damage. Survival, like normal mode on the RE1 remake, is intended for your first time through the game, which unlocks the harder, 'real' way to play, hard mode in RE1 and nightmare mode in this. Note, hard mode in RE1 is unlockable on the original GameCube version, not the remaster. So, akumu mostly just adds that one-hit kill gimmick to nightmare. It changes the bombs as well, so be ready for some tight disarming timing.

I'm just afraid of you getting frustrated, but if you don't think that's really in your nature, you can skip nightmare if you like. The truth is, so far, because I'm so familiar with the game, akumu doesn't feel that different to nightmare. But going by accounts on the internet and the statistics of 300-500 deaths at the end of an akumu run, I'm assuming I'm kind of in the minority there. I'm guessing I've died about 20 times by now, and I'm starting chapter 11.

My point is, there's no harm putting the game down for a year, coming back, doing another run, and then doing akumu. I'm playing the game since release and just taking it slow. If you haven't played the DLCs yet, that might be a good break from the main game. They're fantastic. Well, the Kidman ones are. The Executioner one is middling, but I like the final secret chamber of absolute brutal death that you can unlock in it.

[stonersunshine]

You'd be surprised what the brain remembers after a long time but also Akumu is built with the understanding you've played nightmare so you'll be in a position of ignorance anyway. 300-500 deaths is a number inflated by people that didn't know what they were doing jumping right it. 3-4 hours wasted being dead, that's roughly the time value of those deaths. Playing nightmare first, even a no upgrade version, would prepare you and prevent frustration. Basically if you are doing two playthroughs for no upgrades anyway making it on a higher difficulty could save time wasted dying to traps on akumu you should've known about.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

Agreeing on that. Humans develop muscle memory and never completely lose access to regular memories. I have utilised this to great effect as a teacher. Playing nightmare now could realistically help to prepare one for akumu in a year. In fact, that's kind of what I did.

[wyatt]

Since you all recommended I play Nightmare first, I just finished that. Definitely a different experience than what I was expecting. I still feel I could have played Akumu and put up with the extra headache. My playthrough was pretty much a practice run for Akumu (conserve as much as ammo while taking the safest approach, didn't bother with health related upgrades as getting hit is considered 'failure'). I ended up with having so many items at the end I didn't pick up any bullets from the lockers (minus gel). I managed to still have a full inventory of bullets even after the safe bosses battle in Chapter 15. If the bomb disarming is even worse I might just skip that altogether as I had about 200 trap parts at the end of Nightmare and used bolts sparringly. I may use a bit more for my Akumu run to make some parts easier with fire bolts. Not looking forward to Chapter 6 and 12 again.

It was a fun run I'll admit and I think I can jump right into Akumu and do it 'right' this time. That just leaves No Gel upgrade and see what the DLCs have to offer.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

I've barely touched health upgrades in this game in general. I do have an approach to games that often assumes taking damage is optional, and that I should be puzzling out the 'correct' way to do it, which means not being hit, which means I'm very accepting of having low health and dying after one or two hits in a given section.

I disarmed maybe 80% of the bombs I came across in Akumu. But there were entire sections' worth of bombs that I just left alone, so I could be wrong about the amount. In any case, when I got to the two Keepers in Ch. 15, I had a decent bit over 100 trap parts. I put them down very quickly with the magnum and I think an explosive bolt or two. So you can safely say I had an abundance of trap parts for the overall game, though I ran low quite a few times. Ch. 11 did a number on my bolts for the cable car ride.

Chapter 6 was easy for me on Akumu. The first bit can be done easy with upgraded flash bolts (mine were at 10 seconds). For the next bit, I made a beeline for the box on the right, shot that haunted with a handgun, shot an explosive bolt into the next box, shot a fire harpoon into the box all the way on the left (shot from the stairs), shot the bomb next to the molotov haunted on my way to the walkway where Joseph and enemies can fall down, shotgunned the haunted on that walkway, and sniper-rifled the haunted in the last box. Then you can run to the chainsaw fight for a checkpoint.

The rest of the chapter seems straightforward to me.

Chapter 12, only the spider is annoying. You can use high-powered weapons to get rid of it fast, use the spot on the back-right as a dodging area (you can't hang out there or it'll home in on you but it seemed to work for dodging by tucking in and coming back out), and you can use almost any bolt on the worms it pours out. I think I had a surplus of freeze and used that.

The DLCs are mostly really good. If you're going for 100%, Kurayami is frankly just bad. Similar to Akumu, it's a gimmick that they couldn't have spent more than a few minutes making. The overall experience is very doable, but the gimmick did nothing to enhance the gameplay for me.

The Executioner is rather middling, if you ask me, though some of the tougher unlockable chambers I found very enjoyable, notably the final one. It's widely regarded as frustrating, though, but if you're the sort of chap that goes in for Akumu, I think you'll be all right.

[stonersunshine]

I said to do nightmare and no upgrades at the same time to save time but if you're going for 3 playthroughs that's cool. Now you know how many parts you get you know you can spam bolts on any hard parts of akumu and knowing the trap layout really helps too.