"Too Hard"

[DwarvenHydra]

I've been meaning to buy this game for a while. I almost did during the last sale, but had been a bit extravagant buying myself books recently, so I didn't have the extra money. I did, however, notice that the game went from being "Mostly Positive" before the sale to being "Mixed" afterwards.

So I decided to check out what all the negative reviews from that time had to say. A fair number complained that the game was too hard. Some, arguably most, had more valid reasons for giving a negative review, but there were still a few who strictly complained about difficulty, including, notably, a self proclaimed DS2&3 veteran. So, I decided to install the demo and give it a shot myself.

My first impression was that it was definitely fun, and not nearly as hard as some might have you think, but that might have just been from experience with DS3 and Nioh, which have significantly faster combat. To test this, I decided to throw my brother at it.

Now, my brother has never played a Souls-like of any sort, being more accustomed to SSB4, and has always declined when I suggested he try something like Dark Souls. This time I didn't take no for an answer. I sat him down, handed him a controller, and gave him some basic pointers to the genre in general, like watching for how enemies signal attacks, managing stamina, etc., and let him let loose.

In some ways, he was even better than I was, as much as I'd hate to admit it. While he wasn't as good as me at managing multiple enemies at once, he did phenomenally well at making sure that the fight happened on his terms, and was very good at adapting to new enemy types. Most importantly, he had a lot of fun.

So yeah, based on the demo, I definitely wouldn't call this game hard, though I also wouldn't say that's a bad thing. It's still a fun ARPG with nice aesthetics and a satisfying combat system. Definitely gonna buy it as soon as I have the extra money.

[Vagrant]

Look-look....

Borderline-trolling comment: check
Doesn't own the game: check
Private Profile: check

I think I've been on the internet for long enough to discern what we're dealing with here....

[DwarvenHydra]

引用自 Spindle：

Boring looking and samey world, silly story, awful sjw nonsense with the wheelchair at the start, poor and slow combat.

Being difficult is cool usually, it's just difficlut in stupid and unfun ways on here.

I'm going to respond under the assumption that that's real criticism and not just trying to incite people who like the game.

Without having gotten very far into the game, I will grant samey as valid, though personally I think the ruins of the factory are at least interesting to look at, and instill a certain curiosity. Maybe just a little generic, but not really enough for it to bother me.
As for the story, I haven't made it far enough to justify even the semblance of an opinion.

The combat is actually my favorite thing so far. I agree that it's slow, but that's not a bad thing, especially given how well crafted it is. It changes up the Souls style of combat enough to be interesting, but not so much that it feels unfamiliar. I can understand if you don't like how methodical it feels, but I personally like luring out a couple enemies at a time and waiting for the exact right moment to strike, pulling away from the enemy before they have a chance to punish you. IMO, the slowness of this game is a nice change of pace from DSIII and Nioh, and if I'm honest, I think this game is the reason why my skills in Nioh improved so much despite it being almost two months since the last time I played.
Of course, that's just my personal preference, and I'm sure you're more into games with a faster playstyle like DOOM or Devil May Cry, which is completely fair. Those games are fun in a different way, leaning more towards feeling badass or stylish, and less towards feeling accomplished for doing well. Which isn't to say DOOM and DMC don't make you feel accomplished, or that Souls-likes don't make you feel badass/stylish, it's just that's not where the focus is while you're fighting.

And finally, I didn't see the wheelchair thing as SJW at all. It was a pretty good way to get the story rolling (no pun intended), and served as a reasonable motivation for the character to enroll in Creo's mech program. Honestly, I think it was worth including just for my brother's surprised reaction when he first took control of Warren. Sure, they could have done without it, but as a whole, I think the opening was stronger for it.

[Izziee]

引用自 DwarvenHydra：

I've been meaning to buy this game for a while. I almost did during the last sale, but had been a bit extravagant buying myself books recently, so I didn't have the extra money. I did, however, notice that the game went from being "Mostly Positive" before the sale to being "Mixed" afterwards.

So I decided to check out what all the negative reviews from that time had to say. A fair number complained that the game was too hard. Some, arguably most, had more valid reasons for giving a negative review, but there were still a few who strictly complained about difficulty, including, notably, a self proclaimed DS2&3 veteran. So, I decided to install the demo and give it a shot myself.

My first impression was that it was definitely fun, and not nearly as hard as some might have you think, but that might have just been from experience with DS3 and Nioh, which have significantly faster combat. To test this, I decided to throw my brother at it.

Now, my brother has never played a Souls-like of any sort, being more accustomed to SSB4, and has always declined when I suggested he try something like Dark Souls. This time I didn't take no for an answer. I sat him down, handed him a controller, and gave him some basic pointers to the genre in general, like watching for how enemies signal attacks, managing stamina, etc., and let him let loose.

In some ways, he was even better than I was, as much as I'd hate to admit it. While he wasn't as good as me at managing multiple enemies at once, he did phenomenally well at making sure that the fight happened on his terms, and was very good at adapting to new enemy types. Most importantly, he had a lot of fun.

So yeah, based on the demo, I definitely wouldn't call this game hard, though I also wouldn't say that's a bad thing. It's still a fun ARPG with nice aesthetics and a satisfying combat system. Definitely gonna buy it as soon as I have the extra money.

I'm not a great fan of Dark Souls to be honest. I have tried and tried to get into it, as well as bloodborne but I can't. It's just too...grey (or, in bloodbornes case, brown) but I really like the mechanics. I don't understand why people call Dark Souls hard either to be honest, it's not (but I've not completed it because I find it boring, but I do have DS, DS3 and BB)

However, when Nioh came out, I was absolutely addicted. I platinumed that game in fact, it was incredible. I bought The Surge on Ps4 and loved it, so much so that I bought it on PC again yesterday. After playing a little bit I do not see any issues, it runs flawlessly at around 90 fps with ultra graphics at native 1440p and a render scaling of 140% (so just under 4k) - at native 1440p I'm getting 120-130ish FPS if i recall.

The game isn't hard, it just requires you to learn each enemy, just like DS. If you haven't got a memory like a fish then there shouldn't be any issue.

Steam reviews are garbage. I love indie titles (in fact, I love every type of game and genre except for Horror since that's always so predictable and I'm not a 10 year old who screams at the screen getting scared over pixels) but it feels indies get overwhelmingly positive reviews when they are just average, and triple A get a lot of negativity when it's undeserved, and double AA seems to be held to an even worse standard for some obscure reason.

The game looks good, it has solid controls (People who say it's bad are use to just spamming a button with no thought to it and winning and unable to deal with a queuing system), it runs amazing (Granted, my system might be overkill for it but it was impressive on the ps4 as well as my PC) it has none of this unskippable cutscene crap and puts you right into action, the setting and atmosphere is incredible and the developers launch free DLC - what's not to love about that?

Is the game for everyone? Absolutely not, what game is.

I can't take steam reviews seriously. Especially those who whine about such pathetic things (or those who praise a game for equally as pathetic stuff). They should be used as a baseline by reading those who put out indepth reviews (not these childish tickbox ones that appeared on everything lately) and then judge with the information at hand that lines up with similar reviews, not the overall score of a game.

[Malidictus]

引用自 Izziee：

The game isn't hard, it just requires you to learn each enemy, just like DS. If you haven't got a memory like a fish then there shouldn't be any issue.

That's really what it comes down to. Some enemies (particularly the bosses, ♥♥♥♥ the Rogue Process) can be cheap, but most of them have fairly simple tactics to negate them all but completely. My favourite are probably the Creo World "Nanomascots." Despite having several unblockable screen-wide attacks, all of those can either be sidesteped, jumped over or ducked under. In fact, getting your timing on the duck/jump dodges can make those enemies all but harmless.

引用自 DwarvenHydra：

The slowness of this game is a nice change of pace from DSIII and Nioh, and if I'm honest, I think this game is the reason why my skills in Nioh improved so much despite it being almost two months since the last time I played.

The first Deck 13 game I played was Lords of the Fallen, and one of the reasons I enjoyed that game so much WAS the overall slowness of combat. I'm a fan of big, tough, glacial-paced warriors and will typically seek out the slowest, tankiest build in any game I play. I know plenty of people criticised LotF for being "too slow" and pined for faster weapons, better dodges, more dynamic combat, etc. Not me. I picked the heaviest armour I could carry with the most Poise, with a two-handed greatsword in one hand and a massive tower shield in the other. Yeah I couldn't dodge for ♥♥♥♥, but I could typically push through a lot of enemy blocks and especially shields. Just the way I like it!

The same goes for The Surge. As I said, I use Rhino armour - the biggest and slowest of the big and slow. It has the best stability of them all and seemingly the highest chance to stagger enemies, even more so if you use a mechanical counterweight. Yeah, it's not very manoeuvrable and attacks take forever and a day to complete, but nearly anything I tag flies off its feet. It makes for more tactical combat as well, in my opinion. You can't exploit gaps in enemy animation as easily and you need to judge what attacks you commit to VERY carefully. It's not a playstyle for everybody, naturally, but I like Deck 13's games for supporting it just the same.

Put it this way - I hate playing the small and nimble underdog. When games give me the opportunity to play as the video game boss is when I truly start to enjoy them.

[♤ S p a d e Ƨ ♤]

引用自 Malidictus：

The first Deck 13 game I played was Lords of the Fallen, and one of the reasons I enjoyed that game so much WAS the overall slowness of combat. I'm a fan of big, tough, glacial-paced warriors and will typically seek out the slowest, tankiest build in any game I play. I know plenty of people criticised LotF for being "too slow" and pined for faster weapons, better dodges, more dynamic combat, etc. Not me. I picked the heaviest armour I could carry with the most Poise, with a two-handed greatsword in one hand and a massive tower shield in the other. Yeah I couldn't dodge for ♥♥♥♥, but I could typically push through a lot of enemy blocks and especially shields. Just the way I like it!

I am unsure as to whether the pace is my issue, but I never was able to get into LotF, and believe me I tried. However I didn't try your approach, and tbh it does sound like it would fit the game flow better.

I'll try it at some point, I still have not fully given up on it, so next time I'll try the poise monster approach.

[Malidictus]

引用自 ℣ ٥'♤：

I am unsure as to whether the pace is my issue, but I never was able to get into LotF, and believe me I tried. However I didn't try your approach, and tbh it does sound like it would fit the game flow better. I'll try it at some point, I still have not fully given up on it, so next time I'll try the poise monster approach.

Yeah, I mean to try the game again at some point. The combat system can actually be gamed to an almost hilarious extent with a "tank" build and enough potions. The big Shield guys - normally my most severe problem - I found could be taken out by swapping to dual-wielding the greatsword and hitting them with Heavy attacks until they stagger. I just wish Tower Shields had some kind of a meaningful secondary ability. I never found that thing where you drive the shield into the ground to be very useful, personally.

If anything, I wish The Surge were more like Lords of the Fallen, with its encumberance system. As the game stands right now, all armour sets have access to a very fast, sliding dodge. By its very existence, that turns most fights into "underdog" style dodging matches where you can't really afford to take hits. LotF, by contrast, altered your dodge ability based on how "heavy" your gear was. Past certain thresholds, the dodge first slows down significantly, then introduces a really slow "getting up" animation. In essence, you can't wear heavy armour AND use a dodge-centric tactic at the same time. If you want to dodge, you have to go light.

The Serve doesn't have a shield item and has a somewhat underdeveloped blocking mechanic (as in, not a lot of ways to imrpove it via build), and it never penalises your dodge ability for wearing heavy armour (other than a slight Stamina penalty). It feels like the game expects me to be a LOT more mobile and doesn't quite let me have a true "tank" build. It doesn't help that Goliath class armour sets (the Heavy armour) actually offer less protection than Sentinel class armour sets (the Medium Armour).

[Spindles]

引用自 Vagrant：

引用自 Spindle：

Boring looking and samey world, silly story, awful sjw nonsense with the wheelchair at the start, poor and slow combat.

Being difficult is cool usually, it's just difficlut in stupid and unfun ways on here.

How would you know about that? You don't even own the full game.

"refund - verb

pay back (money), typically to a customer who is not satisfied with goods or services bought."

[Vagrant]

引用自 Spindle：

引用自 Vagrant：

How would you know about that? You don't even own the full game.

"refund - verb

pay back (money), typically to a customer who is not satisfied with goods or services bought."

There was no way for me to know about that, but thanks for the dictionary copy & paste.

Now why don't you move on to greener pastures?

[Spindles]

引用自 Vagrant：

引用自 Spindle：

"refund - verb

pay back (money), typically to a customer who is not satisfied with goods or services bought."

There was no way for me to know about that, but thanks for the dictionary copy & paste.

Now why don't you move on to greener pastures?

You're not the boss of me.

[Vagrant]

引用自 Spindle：

引用自 Vagrant：

There was no way for me to know about that, but thanks for the dictionary copy & paste.

Now why don't you move on to greener pastures?

You're not the boss of me.

Not ordering, just suggesting. That can of worm though... ahahahah

[[OCN] John Wick ~ Rabbit]

Nothing about this game is "hard" it's challenging yes, but bone crushing diffcult? NO! Nioh is way harder, even bloodborne is harder.