Blog, Blog, Bloq

 Recently, I've been back on the Genshin Impact grind. And the experience is reminiscent of why I left. But I keep coming back for one reason. The Open-World is crafted well, and it makes me want to keep exploring the depths of the surrounding areas. Especially with these latest regions in Sumeru and Fontaine. The multiple layers of the regions contain a large amount of secrets. And I just find it extremely fun to run around a world, just taking in the sights and mysteries within.  I am going to discuss some of the other details that make these types of game work for me. And also how some Open-World games are just not understanding how to keep a player's attention, I think that is what separates Elden Ring from Assassin's Creed Odyssey or Tears of the Kingdom from Forspoken.  Elden Ring and TOTK make me want to stay in the world and question the structures in the surrounding areas. Piquing curiosity is essential to the formula that AC and Forespoken just don't understan...

 I recently went back to Elden Ring in my attempts to finish the last few remaining achievements in the game that I needed. This included the Elden Lord Ending, Frenzied Flame Ending, and the Legendary Armament achievements. Nothing too crazy, but the bulk of the work came with knowing where to cut time. Luckily, Elden Ring is one of those games that has a fast track to the end of the game if you know what works and did a bulk of the work on new game. Which is where I was at before I decided to sprint to the finish. While I wasn't concerned as much with the Elden Lord and Legendary Armament, I was a tad uneasy with how Frenzied Flame would go. Surprisingly, it was easy. The ending requirements were almost identical to Elden Lord with the exception that I had to go into the sewers below Leyndell. Which is running through and fighting Mohg, the Omen. Not as tough as regular Mohg, but you still have to fight Mohg. Then afterwards, you roll into an altar to reveal a secret passage wher...

 For most of January, I finally got around to playing Elden Ring. One of the hottest games of last year that most certainly had lived up to the hype. While the game has fantastic storytelling, world design, and overall exploration. I found myself being at a disadvantage many times due to the playstyle that I go with in FromSoftware games. That style is the good old fashioned, "Big weapon that hits hard while dodging everything" strategy. For most bosses this did not pose an issue because many of the enemies in this game can be taken to task by the colossal weapons. So, my weapon of choice for much of this was Greatsword, the weapon based on Gut's Dragonslayer from Berserk. A mighty weapon that made the Radahn fight very enjoyable for me. Just two people big sword swinging, and I even managed to get a riposte off on him. This lets you know that even the biggest fighters could fall to this strategy. Yet there were a few fights that necessitated the use of back-up weapons or...