Why did none of you tell me about last year's GOTY?

>>715444178 (OP)
Animal Well was vastly more interesting than this retread

We did.

There were literally daily threads for months after release retard.

>>715444178 (OP)
Redpill me on this.

>>715444509
Manlet rage: taiwanese furry edition

>>715444509
Sekirovania
There are three distinct types of parry

>>715444509
it's a game about memorizing enemy attack patterns and parrying
it's essentially a puzzle rhythm game

PWNED

>>715444245
then why didn't you post in it and keep it alive?

>>715444873
Wawa

>>715444509
Phenomenal soundtrack
https://youtu.be/QhKQqo3OAtM?si=h3CGTUAZaT_7hPu1
>Taoist chants intensify

Why do they work together

Sex with Lady Ethereal

>>715446371
Ironically, Eigong's theme is probably my least favorite. I probably like Last Man Standing most. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omLv-QQtPcQ&list=PLoiPxf0ltA-LQ2IpGHs6BVt_csRJd0jXk&index=2

>>715445218
Needs her back feet deformed

>>715444178 (OP)
I really liked this game but I had to quit on the final boss. She's just too hard. At most I beat her first phase. I probably could beat her second phase with enough practice, but the fact that I heard there's a third phase just discourages me.

Overall I'd give it a 8.5/10 maybe a 9. Some parts felt frustrating like how teleporting away from level hazards doesn't respawn you with iframes, meaning it's possible to respawn in a location in the way of an enemy attacking giving you no time to react to it.

Also what is up with this game having two siblings all but stated to be fucking each other and named after two sibling gods that fucked each other, and naming the protagonist and his sister after two Chinese gods who married each other?

>>715444509
somehow manages to have both really compelling gameplay and a really compelling story/cast/setting

>>715444178 (OP)
But I did
(Nine Sols also great btw)

>>715446991
Since this game's bosses are more akin to studying for an exam rather than reacting to things and adapting to the fight on the fly - you're bound to eventually get good enough to beat her by just observing her attacks. Every attack has a distinct counter-movement that you should be able to nail consistently once you learn it. It's discouraging when she goes full anime on your ass and just kills you in two lovetaps within 2 seconds of reaching phase 3, but once you DO know HOW she kills you - you just nigh flawlessly parry everything without much issue.
Maybe watch some videos on her just so you can learn counter-movements without the panic of being there yourself.

>>715446991
She is tough but remember that she is an DTD ridden cat that fucked you over twice. You can do it!
Even though I still don't know how to reliably parry the 3rd phase slashes...

>>715446991
>quitting at the best part
fucking retard

>>715447383
>Even though I still don't know how to reliably parry the 3rd phase slashes...
Don't bother trying to memorize the direction of her aerial swing. Jump in the air yourself for the omnidirectional parry. 2 first strikes are always "white" attacks. 3rd strike... I think it's always red, but but I don't remember for sure. Double jump and then dash to dodge it. Then you'll get hit by the same combo again except the third strike will be "white" as well. Mind yourself on the way down, I think she's gonna try to talisman you right after.
It really opened my eyes how not actually that hard Eigong is once I started watching videos of her instead of panicking about getting almost instagibbed.

>>715444509
Cartoon violence metroidvania with sekiro parry combat.

>>715446774
Indeed

>>715447383
>Even though I still don't know how to reliably parry the 3rd phase slashes...
You jump in the rhytm of those slashes. Thats it. You see the flash, you press JumpJump quickly. Flash...Jumpjump. Flash...JumpJump.

>>715447045
I actually almost cried at the ending when Yi had to say goodbye to Shaunshaun or the final message from Heng before she dies. I see people compare this game with Hollow Knight, but I feel Nine Sols has actually some semblance of decent storytelling, meanwhile HK has almost no storytelling and is just mainly vague loredumping.

>>715446813
>when you get to the burning remains of the village and Last Man Standing starts playing
I basedfaced

>>715448056
That sequence should have been longer because it was too amazing to be that short. I'm thankful that there was a second one, at least.

Charged parry is something i want to see in other games now.

>>715444178 (OP)
Did they add a mode where you can skip the forced story and slow walk sections yet?

BOTY

>>715446991
Quitting is gay, but the last boss is complete bullshit
You have to memorize every pattern AND actually master the parrying, which no other boss or enemy really required. This isn't a learning curve, this is a learning parabola. If they let you get used to the mechanics before that then the game would be a 10/10.

>>715444245
>muh arg game
Meh, ESA was more fun and more interesting

>>715449025
fat biitch

>Goumang: Mind control/thighs
>Jiequan: Sadomasochism
>Lady Ethereal: Milf
>Fuxi and Nuwa: Incest
>Ji: Femboy

Why are a fair amount of the council literally built for sex?

>>715449241
Also
>Eigong: Hag
>Yi: Manlet
>Kuafu: Beefcake

>>715449210
More to love.

Why did Eigong let her student dress like this?

>>715450375

I hope that guy with silver balls is going well

>>715444178 (OP)
I bought it because /v/ said it was good. Yeah, it was pretty damn good

>>715444178 (OP)
it parred all the awards

>>715451141
game industry is entirely owned by China and they can never admit that a Taiwanese indie studio of a dozen people made a better game than the entirety of mainland China was ever able to create

>>715450375
>>715450590
Sex

>>715450375
I know it was pretty well hidden in the lore, but Eigong isn't a good teacher.

>>715455995
she had fun though, and isn't that what really matters?

Great game, I stand by my belief that parrying is infinitely more satisfying that dodge spam
I prefer happy endings so 9/10

>>715457210
This was a happy end

>>715457210
Swap Jiq with Fat and you got my playthrough.

>>715457210

The ring gag boss was a pain in the ass, took closer to 10 deaths for me

>>715458173
It's rather interesting how half the people beat its ass either first try or under 3 attempts while the other half gets hard stuck.

>>715457265
The true ending was a good ending but it wasn't a happy ending

>>715457210
i feel sorry for the wall guy, it's not a fair fight when your opponent is immobilized

>>715444178 (OP)
pardon my retardation, but this game got me thinking about what actually makes a game "hard". in the course of learning a boss fight, yes you will die many times, but the actual execution of the fight is more of a recital rather than developing actual mechanical skill. i understand parrying is also a skill, but something about it just doesn't seem "difficult" to me, even if it takes many attempts, if that makes sense. it seems like dying a lot is being conflated with difficulty in this sense.

to me, something like good platform movement in melee/other platform fighters is difficult because there is a mechanical skill component that is difficult, and the application of said skill is also difficult, ie: to do it well requires reacting well to varying situations.

>>715459035
Are musicians not skilled because they’re performing something they rehearsed? Is Jazz the only skillful music genre?

>>715446991
>third phase
from what i remember there were only two phases, am i retarded?

>>715459862
There is a third phase if you get the true ending

>>715459862
>he didn’t free the apemen

>>715459862
lol

>>715444178 (OP)
still waiting for the physical release

>>715459035
The difference is mastery through improvisation vs. mastery through repetition. The game is punishing, but it's often asking you fairly straightforward questions and relying on explicit patterns. It's similar to how a 10000 jigsaw puzzle would be extremely difficult due to its scale, but offers a different sort of complexity to a 200 piece double-sided puzzle that's entirely a single color.

>>715459839
there's no doubt they are skilled, as are nine sols gamers, though the jazz comparison isn't exactly pertinent. in terms of music, i would say live improv (a la Frank Tedesco/TheDoo/etc) is more what im referring to, and i would also say that it does add an element of difficulty that makes it harder than rehearsed music (of course rehearsed music can still be ridiculously challenging). so to me it doesn't feel like "full-bodied" difficulty without that need for improvisation/adaptability. i know im splitting hairs especially when im describing difficulty like a flavor of coffee, but im just wondering if anyone else feels the same

>>715460136
it's supposed to be even harder? i spent like an hour fighting two phases

>>715444178 (OP)
I told you repeatedly, but I guess you listened to all the faggot contrarians making up shit to force you not to play, like they do for every great new game that comes out

>>715461948
Yeah, the first phase is a warm up, the second phase punishes your bad habits from the first phase, and the third phase is when the kid gloves come off.

>>715461948
it took me six hours across two sessions to beat true ending eigong so you're handling it pretty well

>>715462675
It took me 5-6 hours but I had to put the game down for a week or so because I'd spent most of the game relying on qi-boosted charge attacks so learning how to use full control and rely on internal damage was an extremely rude awakening.

>>715446991
For the final boss, utilize the superparry. It basically cuts her health in half.

>>715450375
an Apeman husband would've calmed her down

>>715444178 (OP)
Nine Sols is a game that everynyan should play
https://youtu.be/HR4MM2rFd98

>>715461948
>>715462631
>>715462675
>and the third phase is when the kid gloves come off
More like goad you into playing it wrong
Its a nice and somewhat subtle trick, even when the game is slowly edging you towards playing it correctly, only to toss in the last phase to be cheeseable to dodging the air juggle opener

>>715444509
Taiwanese people represent eastern mythology and philosophy way better than Chinks ever could by wrapping it up in a interesting techno-fantasy setting with actually good writing and memorable characters as well as solid gameplay.
Also Heng

>>715459035
>it’s another autist that thinks every boss should play the same
Go play your roll slop and stfu

>>715460419
Based, everyone forgets the apemen lore drop because they speedran dialogue or skipped the side areas. If you didn’t take the time to free them, you basically softlocked yourself into the mid ending. Truly filtered.

>>715466489
Yi being a stoic jerk makes the height difference so much funnier

>>715446991
>also what is up with
it's hot and creatives are all perverts

>>715468010
it's mythology, incest is gonna happen

shut and post lady ethereal

>>715459035
That's why I say the boss fights feel like you're studying for an exam rather than fighting for your life. It's all about memorizing an attack and remembering exactly how to counter it. There isn't much adaptation or battlefield navigation involved.

>>715459035
the term you're thinking of is "knowledge checks"
very common in fighting games. where you just need to learn specific information of how something works that is normally unreactable otherwise, and it becomes easy once you've acquired said information
in my opinion, knowledge check heavy games are boring as shit. generic memorization and pattern recognition is fun until it quickly isn't and I do think parry heavy games fall a little victim to this, but nine sols has enough movement variety and on-the-spot reactions to what attack the boss is doing next that I still found it very enjoyable -- good games with well designed difficulty curves will be more focused on implementing dynamic variables so that each fight isn't the same and that there's enough different things happening in each instance, while still being difficult enough to provide a learning curve

>>715468185
Eigong does have a flowchart but its a pretty shallow one. Mostly around the variations of her talisman followup. Its mostly about execution and recognition not strategy.

- Regular followup (forward dash +3 ghost hits): You dash then talisman dash out of it and counter
- Jumping followup with two hits: Jump and parry both hits. Did you nail the two parrys? You get launched to the ground, you WAIT 1 second then you start charging the boundless parry. Did you fail to parry? You drop to the ground slower so DONT WAIT and immediatley start charging the boundless
- Jumping followup with 1 hit, pillar of flame then black ball nuke: I forget if it changes if you nail or miss the parry

>>715459035
Lets say you are fighting Eigong
It goes something like this
1. You are learning her attacks and you die a lot
2. You learn a few things but you keep dying
3. You have memorized the attacks well and you are stabilizing, dying less and less
Upon reaching number 3, everything from there onwards can be argued that it is pure skill, because it is all on you to properly time your parries and your attacks, to find small time windows to attack her properly and hit her with a qi blast
A parry game does rely on memorization that is true, but if you're experienced and good enough, you can beat a boss pretty quickly, but the one catch is that the animations need to be fluid and readable or then it relies too much on memorization

>>715469039
>but the one catch is that the animations need to be fluid and readable or then it relies too much on memorization
Not him but that's a thing Nine Sols fucks up on purpose just to spite you. Jieq has a very underhanded follow-up stab with his glaive that you cannot see coming without knowing the pattern prior to that. And there are numerous moves like that.

>>715468184

>>715468542
i agree regarding parry heavy games, so im glad to see you still found nine sols enjoyable. i just started so that will be encouraging going forward
>>715469039
that's a sensible breakdown of what i was getting at
>>715466885
also very sensible

>>715469730
>>715469912
Is it just me or does the game lose its steam after her fight until Eigong. Ji isn't really that hard and the Twins are more annoying that satisfying to fight.

>>715469912
Cackled.

>>715444178 (OP)
Pretty sure there've been shill threads about this crap constantly, I'm not sure how you missed those

Reminder that Goumang fucks exclusively human men.

>>715444178 (OP)
would be good if the platforming wasnt absolutely horrible. It tries to be Hollow Knight but only focuses on the combat, the rest is shit.

>>715471037
>It tries to be Hollow Knight
do you mean "is a 2D action game with light hidden collectibles"? because I don't remember HK having characters or a story or NS having anything like path of pain

>>715471482
>because I don't remember HK having characters or a story
well yeah, you havent played it nigga
https://hollowknight.fandom.com/wiki/Category:NPCs_(Hollow_Knight)

that aside
They did mention HK as a major inspiration and they did right to make one more metroid-like where the enemy design isnt a snorefest (provided youre not too tired of deflectslop), but you can definitely see a lot 9S's features/timings, stuff like jades, etc were pretty much lifted directly from HK (which isnt really a bad thing)

Toriel but better.

mommy(male) Ji...

>>715471037
The platforming was weak but I like the atmosphere of New Kunlun while you explore. It feels so dystopian and "wrong".

>>715472231
Toriel if she had Alphys's backstory

>>715470485
Ji's whole area and boss are the weakest part of the game, well maybe the lead up zone to the final boss is worse, albeit cool

>>715473184
I do think his boss fight was a bit of a let down and he needed a third phase, but how was his area a letdown? I thought it was the coolest zone in the game

>>715459862
It's tied behind the true ending. It's not really harder, it can get you if you're really nervous. The music is amazing though, check out my first victory against her where I beat her third phase perfectly in time with the final music sting
https://litter.catbox.moe/m0inq2rl7kxqxby5.mp4

>>715444178 (OP)
metroidvania slop has got to be the most forced genre ever. feels like only trannies who watched egoraptor play these types of games