Stranger of Paradise FFO

Demo is out and fixed. Aside from the style and voice-acting, I'm only hearing extremely positive things on this game though, which is pretty cool! Anyone here try it yet?

I haven't, since I don't have a PS5, but... A lot of these animations look ripped straight from Nioh.

I can't try it but the combat seems an interesting mix between Nioh and FF.

Kingdom Hearts 3, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Final Fantasy XVI (combat designer is from Capcom) and this Stranger of Paradise are different yet similar action-rpgs by the same company. I'd like to read a proper analysis with some comparisons when all of these games will be released, but it's always difficult to find useful information aside from story and narrative elements.

Looks near identical to Nioh. Not a fan of this. I hate that strafing combat.

I just finished a quick playthrough of this - don't have much Nioh or FF experience to compare this to, but the lock-on/strafing mechanics do resemble Nioh's. It has similarities to Nioh but I think it plays like it's own thing. It's very much a Soulslike with it's own version of Bonfires, Estus Flasks, shortcuts etc. Not a fan of this action sub-genre but, I did enjoy the gameplay.

Combat was mostly enjoyable. Standard attack button is R1, with your Magic attack on R2. Using Magic attacks consumes your MP gauge. You refill the MP gauge by depleting your enemy's "break gauge" (stun meter, basically) and then performing an execution-style finisher (which I think grants i-frames). You have a dash on X, and a double tap makes you roll after your dash. There is a block button on L1, but you aren't really encouraged to use it (more on why in the next paragraph).

Weapons are tied to the "Jobs" system. Jobs have certain weapon types available to them (some have 1, others have 2), and also have their own skill trees. You can swap Jobs on-the-fly with Triangle. There are certain cancels you can do after attacks to change jobs faster and as part of combos - I didn't get too much into this, but it's probably useful (and is actually part of the in-game tutorials). Circle functions as a sort of parry button, which has pretty lenient timing. It's quite interesting actually, as your parry is tied to a gauge. You can hold your parry stance for longer, at the expense of using up more of your parry meter. If your parry meter empties (parry too much, get hit during your parry recovery frames etc.) you get stunned and are totally vulnerable for a period of time. The parry also allows you to absorb projectiles, which was cool. For example, one enemy is basically a sentient ball of fire that spits flames as you. If you absorb them and fire them back at the enemy, it "overcharges" them and forces them to self destruct like a bomb, dealing AoE damage to other enemies. It's a nice touch.

There are 3 weapons to try out in the demo - a greatsword, a mace and a lancer. As you'd expect, these attack at different speeds and excel at different ranges. Each weapon was the primary weapon for a different Job type. The Mace belonged to the Mage class, and was the most interesting. As it's a one-handed weapon, you can pair it with a shield, and your Magic attack button allows you to cast spells of different elemental types. Enemies have their own resistances and weaknesses, so it's up to you to figure out what works best. I'm not sure how intricate the status effects get, but you can set enemies on fire and do a bit of damage-over-time, so there is something at least.

There's a whole lot of reading and system explanation to absorb. A bit too much for me. I got bored of paying attention to the tutorials and tool tips and just tried to figure out what I could. The normal sort of RPG/action RPG stuff is in though, with different types of clothing and weapons (each with their own stats), a levelling system, bonuses for using certain equipment sets etc. For you RPG fans this is probably just a normal day at the office, but to me it felt a bit like I was expected to read a user manual while playing. I don't mind deep mechanics and systems at all, but I don't really like to hear about them all at once while I'm just trying to feel the game out.

AI companions are mostly just there to take aggro away from you. They do a bit of damage to enemies, but I didn't feel they were very useful in that regard. From what I can tell, I don't think you can level or customise them in any way, but that could easily be a thing saved for the full game. Is having permanent companions a novel concept for a Soulslike? I know DS has co-op of some kind, but I don't know anything about it.

Graphics and performance - mixed results. I played in Performance mode (prioritising framerate) and the game looks like dirt, truth be told. I've seen PS4 games that look much better. I think the resolution is 1080p in this mode, but it looked worse than that to me. The framerate was mostly stable, but there were weird microstutters that occured when moving the camera around in certain areas, and the game would completely lock-up for fractions of a second at a time. I quickly started the demo again in the fidelity mode just for comparison, and the framerate seemed okay - wasn't locked to 30fps, so it's targeting 60fps even in the higher quality mode. Resolution was certainly not 4k, game looked like slightly prettier dirt. Lack of effective anti-aliasing really hurts the presentation, and texture pop-in was evident throughout. When the boss uses flame attacks, there is a "charred" texture that layers over the floor, and it flickers repeatedly when you look at it at certain angles. The game is clearly not optimised and not ready for release. "Forgivable" for a demo, but I'd feel disappointed if I'd paid money for this.

I know the game is taking some flack for it's art direction, but I'm not too critical. It isn't great, but it's more important that it plays well. Even as an FF novice, an FF protaganist called Jack just sounds...weird. He looks a bit like Brad Hawk from Urban Reign though, so maybe I'll feel this burning desire to stick up for him.

Hope this ramble was somewhat coherent! I think I'm going to have to lean towards not recommending this currently, but there's a good game in there. If the visuals and performance are improved by the time of release, I could be interested in picking it up. Combat was honestly fun, but at the moment it feels like a bad PC port. Maybe I'm spoilt, but my experience with PS5 titles so far (and PS4 titles enhanced on PS5) is that this is no-where near a "next gen" experience. I definitely wouldn't pay the new-gen, inflated day-one price for this.

Some Team Ninja can only make Souls games now, great. I pray to god we never get NG4. If I saw Ryu with a stamina bar I would puke.

>soulslike
>break mechanics.
Bye.

> Team Ninja can only make Souls games
Yep, seems that way. Are Team Ninja still a thing? I didn't see them referenced anywhere in the demo - just Koei Tecmo.

> No good for Birdman
I've just remembered the break mechanics in Nioh (was it the Ki gauge? Can't remember). Seems pretty similar here - if you didn't like that, you probably won't like this.

For what it's worth, I think I liked this more than Nioh, but I want to see how the full game turns out. Obviously graphics aren't massively important (performance is, though) but if Sony want me to start paying £60+ for game then I want it to make my PS5 feel like a worthwhile purchase. I'm not supporting lazy, unoptimised titles at that price point.

New trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heLn5URnZCc

Release date is on March 18, 2022. Also seems like there is a new demo.

Anyone mess with demo 2?

WHAT DID I JUST WATCH?????????? pic.twitter.com/nEdAzwfD40

— Kacy ⟣ 🧡 (@sumnnine) October 1, 2021

 
Funniest thing I've seen in years.

Played the demo yesterday. I have to say I'm not in the mood for this kind of game anymore. I really, really like the mechanics. From the almost-royal-guard-esque parry to the burst mechanic and breaking stances and job-switching; it's all super strong and fun. But I'm absolutely buried in loot and RPG mechanics that I just am not in the mood for anymore.

Agree with Roy here. I’ve played the demo quite a bit and l love what it has to offer but I also can’t be bothered with the overall package. I couldn’t finish Nioh 2 because of the loot piñatas and other nonsense, I see this being the same way.

Despite my last post and previous thoughts, I picked this up anyway. Having an absolute fucking blast with the combat, so much that I don't even want to touch ER right now.

Oh for fucks sake hahahah

@Infinity_Divide

Glad to hear about the combat being great, I really loved what I've seen in gameplay videos, but I'll have to wait for it to get patched before getting in it.

As someone who held off playing Nioh due to loot and RPG stuff, how this one fares in comparison?

Playing it on hard mode right now. I've never played ANY FF games before, but I'm loving it because I can feel some Nioh nuance here and there.
Here are some points I wanted to make.  

- The scenario and characters are absolute bonkers.
Like, I genuinely don't believe that the writers wanted to write a serious story with this material.
Literally, every cutscene is filled with "WHERE IS CHAOS", "I'M GONNA KILL CHAOS", "THIS IS NOT CHAOS" and the protagonist's blunt dialogue delivery is just...
I thought Gene from Godhand has the most quotable dialogues in all action games. Now Jack has taken the crown.

- Let's start with the negative aspect first.
Maybe this is the limitation of the JRPG franchise, but the inventory/gear management is WORSE than Nioh in terms of cumbersomeness.
Like, a lot of enemy drops a shit ton of items when they die, so your inventory gets cluttered with garbage weapons and useless armors when you are about to reach a second main stage.
And since the stats really matter in this game, you have to micromanage every armor part and weapon when you get a new fancy one.
(It's not like Nioh where you can level up one weapon for multiple stages and change to a better one much much later)
Oh, and you also have to manage the second full-set of your character and the other two NPC helpers. Good luck.

- That said, the job system and the "heavy attack" swap system are -maybe not the greatest thing ever- pretty solid.
Job is like Style in DMC in the sense that it can be swapped anytime for your own playstyle benefits.
And your weapon choice and the default heavy attack change depending on the job you "equipped".
Here's an interesting thing. As you grind a bit, your job level will grow up and you can unlock new types of "heavy attacks" that can be chained from normal attacks.
For example, if the normal-normal-heavy combo ends with a down-slash in the default setting, as you unlock new moves, you can change the combo to end with a more powerful spinning slash.
And you can unlock a new set of jobs by max-leveling multiple jobs. So, at least in terms of a customizable combo system, this game is a blast. Although it can be grindy if you want to try out different jobs.

- Companions are like the cat from MH. They are helpful as a small additional damage dealer, but many enemies (especially bosses) will focus on you most of the time. (Compared to the summonable from Elden Ring, there aren't many ping-pongs here.)
You can order them to be aggressive, and it's helpful when you are in dangerous situations. But one thing I dislike about this ordering system is that sometimes the input somehow doesn't work. (it makes an error sound)
The UI doesn't show me when I can order them to attack, and it gets doubly frustrating when they aren't doing anything but circling even though they are clearly in a good position to attack.
Maybe I'm UI blind? Or did I miss the tutorial for that? I don't know. but it isn't as intuitive as other mechanics in this game.    

- Soul Shield mechanic shows a cool compromise of reactive part and proactive part of this game. To use special skills or heavy attacks, you need some mana gauge.
And how do you gain your mana? Well, you can hit the enemies with normal attacks, but you also gain by parrying the enemies' attacks with Soul Shield.
Soul Shield is tied to the player's "posture" meter, but unlike any other just-timed parry system, you can lengthen the parry window by spending the posture points. But it drains the posture meter fast, so if you can just-time it, it's beneficial for you.
Also, You can't always rely on Soul Shield parry, because when the posture meter is completely drained and then you get hit, your character will be exhausted like in Nioh.
And yes, Soul Shield is never a good option when your posture is zero. So you can't rely on this mechanic for a long time.
The dodge and normal attacks don't take any cost at all, and if you have parried successfully, your mana gauge would be fully charged.
So you have a choice to be extremely aggressive or disengage with lenient mobility options after you used all the posture meter.
This is the best form of one-button parry system I've ever seen. I wish more games implement this.  
Also, did I mention that Soul Shield can steal some enemies' bullets so that you can use their arsenals for your own benefits? So cool.

- Enemies track you, but it is not as offensively harsh as Elden Ring enemies. Positioning absolutely matters, and I really love that most enemies have clear telegraphs and "reasonably" fast attack speed.
Except for two edge cases I found. I would consider that as a typical Team Ninja jank.

-Tonberry is the edge case, and I can see why Tonberry is a meme in FF series. This enemy sucks.

- I really liked the duo boss in the earlier stage. I won't mention the name to prevent spoilers, but this boss is the epitome of good multi-boss design.
They come in one by one, but as the phase changes, they come together with a different set of active timers, so it's like a slow-burning of the chaotic energy. It gets frantic really fast.  
I won't say in detail, but there's also the main gimmick that makes you care about the target prioritization. It's really creative.
Also, I think it's because I'm playing it on hard mode, but I had to use almost every main combat mechanic (so far) in this boss fight. Took many hours, but it was so satisfying to utilize everything to blast through the boss.

Also, I forgot to say, the dungeon design is nothing special. This is why From and Team Ninja should team up in one day.

Curious about the dungeon-design, do you mean visually or mechanically? Because I remember Nioh 2 having some great level-design, but it was hampered by every level looking exactly the same.

I still haven't homed in on what makes Soul's level design so good though. Because some of them are absolute trash imo, but some are just mindbogglingly good.

>Dungeon design
Well, both visual and gameplay elements are quite underwhelming.
The art "style" isn't bad, but there are no noticeable landmarks in most of the dungeons, and I feel like the lighting is off. Sometimes, they look too dark or shadowy even though conceptually there should be more visible lights in that areas.
The gameplay element in the level design department is quite underwhelming because the level structures aren't as convoluted as any Dark Souls, or even Nioh's main levels. Even though there are some shortcuts, I wouldn't say there were many branches to explore around ignoring the obvious main path. Enemy placements are also monotonous. From what I've experienced, there are no ambushes using the blind spots, or showing interesting behaviors. They are standing right in the arena, visibly, standing still.
Also, the level gimmicks are either half-baked or don't provide interesting exploration elements.
For example, Maybe it is because there weren't many contents to incentivize the explorations like the hidden Kodamas, but even considering that I felt like the dungeons in this game are working like arena after corridor after arena. It's serviceable as stages for action games, but I wouldn't call this an interesting "adventure".

>Souls design
Yeah sometimes FROM make shit levels, but their greater ones (like Painted World, Cathedral of the Deep, Research Hall, Grand Archives, and Mensis Nightmare)are really special for how they can combine elements below to make you feel like adventuring dungeons.

-Iconic object to show the theme of the level and can make the player sense the direction.
-A slow-burning dread that tells something is going wrong with the place. (They don't show the disgusting/shocking stuff until you go deeper)
-An unexpected path-finding (Team Ninja's levels are mostly crystal clear about finding the main road.)
-At least some good amount of verticality
-An environmental hazard that provides some interesting situation
-Valuable items hidden in every side branch, nooks, and crannies.
-A surprise element that shows the interconnectedness or the twist of the dungeon (The giant elevator staircase in Research Hall comes to my mind)
-At least one or two unique monster placements.
-A strong art direction that somehow can unify the contents above in one level.

Maybe I should have clarified that From's concept designer and Team Ninja's combat designer should work together because come to think of it, Team Ninja isn't sucked at level design. Nioh 1's Spider castle, Ninja hideout, Nioh 2's Owl forest, and the Daidara Bocchi war zone come really close as great souls-levels. It's just I expected more from FFO, because after all, it was originally an RPG series.

Quick post about my thoughts so far:

-I’ll start by saying I agree with just about everything Maddison said, great posts.

-To start with my biggest and most predictable issue: the loot sucks and is a total chore. To be honest, I don’t even really know if I’m doing anything correctly in regards to equipment. I’ve started just auto assigning gear because I don’t want to deal with it. Even though I’m severely shooting myself in the foot, I get more time to actually enjoy the game this way. The amount of loot is fucking absurd. At around the 4 hour mark I had roughly 300 pieces of gear! I’ve said this about Nioh and I’ll say it again here; I really think it would be great if TN did something like a classic mode where the gear is somehow toned down and stats across the board are more evened out. Not sure how or if this would work at all, but this game would transform if it was went so bogged down by constant loot.

-Game is a total meme and I love it. Jack is borderline parody and the rest of the writing is what you come to expect if you’ve played KH3 or FF7R. Weirdly enough, the music is great.

-There’s a lot of systems and mechanics that work together and it’s really wonderful so far. You have a parry/block  as Maddison said, when you use this you gain MP back, which is needed for all special attacks and spells, but it does cost “posture” and when you’re out, you’re fucked for a few seconds. There’s a lot of special attacks and magic is incredibly useful so you always want to be trying to build this up. Regular attacks from the mage’s weapon will also build MP. You can also parry to absorb certain enemy attacks temporarily, so you can take an enemy attack and use it on a different enemy a couple times.

-You get absolutely pummeled with new jobs and attacks, there’s always a lot to toy with and try out in new levels. So far I’ve tried every job and I’ve found them all quite good, I especially love the marauder and of course the mage. Doesn’t seem like there’s really right or wrong job combinations so far, everything I’ve tried I’ve found a way to make it work.

-The game encourages you to job switch on the fly and cancel certain animations. It’s just a little pop up, but I felt it went a long way in helping the player get on the same page with the game. Switching between evading/soul burst is a good idea and there’s good ways to use them in a lot of different situations.

-Magic is really enjoyable so far not just because you get to target weaknesses, but they have other uses like differing AOEs, long stun times, DoT, etc. Probably my favorite thing I’ve done so far though, is use a spell an enemy is resistant against to my advantage. Was fighting a flying enemy who I was having trouble hitting with melee attacks, so I used aeroga because the hitbox is tall. Even though the enemy was resistant, my spell ended up pushing it into a tree, causing a collision, and it fell over and I finished it off with my axe. It was awesome.

From my understanding the game is quite short, which is good to hear. Can’t wait to play more.

I will keep track of this topic, really interested to read more about you guys' inputs. Infinity, would you say that you're having more fun with this game, compared to KH3? After being disappointed at how it's basically a lesser KH2, it would be very encouraging to hear if this game was better (in its own ways, of course, since I'm guessing they play a bit differently).

Well, as you said, they are very different. But if I'm going just strictly my enjoyment and moment to moment fun, FFO blows KH3 out of the water(and I didn't even hate that game or anything, I just took nothing from it). My personal biggest issue with KH3 was how they messed with magic, and I love the magic implementation here. All forms of melee seem really useful too.

If you like combat systems where you get to just tinker with stuff and experiment, while also fighting some brutal enemies, I think this game is great.

>But if I'm going just strictly my enjoyment and moment to moment fun, FFO blows KH3 out of the water
That's what I wanted to hear, glad to know you had more fun with this.

>magic
Yeah, the above notes do make it seem that magic is really interesting to use.

It's been a while since I've added a modern game to my list, so this will be the first time I do so in a long time. Thanks for the input. As I said, I'll keep track of this topic to read more notes about it (as well as Ghostwire Tokyo).

@Infinity_Divide , I'm curious, did you play around with the DLC (the first and the most recent one)? If so, how were they?

You mentioned that you had fun with this title. Would you say it's one of the few good games from the current era?

>DLC
Didn’t play them. I typically dislike DLC since it feels too disjointed from the rest of the game that they’re supposed to be part of.

>few good games from the current era
I’d say few great games, even. As of now it’s easily my GotY and about the only action game from the past few years(besides streets of rage 4) that I actually play regularly.

>dislike DLC
Understandable.

>great games
>games
Oh? Apart from it, was there another game released during the current (PS5) era that you found to be great?

>GotY
Is that so? Says a lot about the game. Now I want to play it even more.

>SoR4
Ah, yes, this title. I forgot to add it to my backlog. It looks like it's available on PC (the only means I have to play it currently), and it seems like mine can run it just fine. Will be trying it for sure.

>other games from the era
I suppose if we're talking since the PS5's launch there haven't really been any aside from Bayo 3. I've warmed up to Sifu a bit though.

>GOTY
It's not saying much in the current climate though. I had hopes for Callisto Protocol but seeing the game have a melee focus killed my interest.

>SoR4
It's the best game that nobody talks about on this forum. It's my favorite western game ever.

>SOR4
I own this, gotta get into it at some point. Too many action-y games on my plate right now.

>SOP FFO
I should also give this a shot just because it's Team Ninja, apparently PC has performance issues though.

>Bayo 3
Oh? Thought it didn't qualify to be a part of the 'great' games from this era.

Just read your notes. Like Raeng said, it might be a divisive title. Maybe.

>Sifu
Heard Raeng saying good things about it, yes. It is also on the list.

>not saying much in the current climate
Yes, sadly, this is very much the case. And it will keep getting worse. Wonder if there's any hidden gems in older hardware. Ever heard of Guardian Heroes?

>had hopes for Callisto Protocol
Don't think I've heard of this, but yeah, it's just disappointment after disappointment (with maybe one or two good to great titles thrown into the mix, as opposed to the great variety that the PS2 era had). I believe I was curious about Babylon's Fall, and... well, need I say more?

>favorite western game ever
That's certainly high praise.

Procrastinated on playing Stranger of Paradise for a while, and now thoroughly regret waiting. I can't stop. The need to play more of this game is like a hunger, a thirst. It's a banger, in other words.

It seems much like Nioh at a glance, but the feel of combat is very different. You don't have a stamina mechanic limiting your offense or movement, nor any ki pulses to make you pause after attacking, so there's a greater sense of immediacy. While you can block or dodge normally, your preferred method of defense is the soul shield, because it both staggers foes and increases your MP. Attacking immediately after a soul shield makes Jack lunge forward quickly to gap-close. Fighting has the same sort of speed and aggression as Ninja Gaiden, albeit to a lesser degree.

MP is the one limiting factor on your aggression, and it's very important. The bulk of your power and utility comes from weapon and job abilities, all of which cost at least 1 MP from your maximum stock of 6. You have to be gaining MP constantly to keep up with the constant expenditure, and the only ways to do that are by hitting enemies with normal attacks, executing broken enemies, or using the soul shield, hence the soul shield's high value.

The use of environmental features in combat is great. Weeds on the ground can be burnt and puddles electrified, dealing damage over time to passersby, while water will put out such fires. You can knock pillars or stalactites onto enemies, or knock enemies off of ledges to damage or kill them. There's a particular emphasis on wallsplats, which deal a large amount of break damage to the victim in addition to a long knockdown. One job even gets a bonus to wallsplat damage. Controlling positioning is highly rewarding, as are any abilities which can knock your foes around.

Bosses on the other hand eschew environmental stuff and are no-frills showdowns. These dudes are relentless, firing off huge AOEs and rushing you with gap-closers from across the stage. The soul shield incentivises you to meet them head on and there's a tense flow of building and spending your MP and building and spending your break gauge, responding to one attack while ensuring you're prepared to respond to the next. Bikke wasn't the greatest, but so far I think these are Team Ninja's best bosses.

Curious notes, as a lot of what you mention is what I'm finding in Wo Long currently, which is interesting. Might have to get SoP down the line.

I'm curious how you like the DLC, I heard from Tai that they are a lot more 'stat based'.

The more I hear about this game (the main game, that is), the better. Seems like a really great ARPG which apparently managed to translate various things from FF (turn based) into Action really well (like KH did). If I owned a PS5, it would probably be the first game I'd play on the system.

I am also curious about the DLC. Heard about extra job classes, but, as Roy noted, I heard that the bosses were HP sponges. Especially the one at the end of the Interdimensional Rift or whatever it's called. Some kind of robot. Heard someone abused some invincibility exploit and still took 8~ minutes to beat the boss (with high stats to boot, unless I'm remembering wrong).

Rorc summed things up pretty nicely. I haven't played this in a bit so details aren't coming to me, but I would strongly recommend this game to anyone who likes ARPGs or just intricate combat systems. You assign skills sort of like God Hand which uses the same meter as magic, and as Rorc pointed out, it encourages aggression and use of soul shield. Magic is great too, they apply status effects and interact with the environment.

Can't comment on the DLC.

>stat based
Not quite done with the story (running 2 parallel saves lol), so don't know how much the DLC changes, but I have done a bit of testing in the main game. What I found is that armor level and job level matter but not very much, and weapon level matters a lot. Having armor 50 levels too low resulted in me taking significantly increased damage, as much as x2 from some attacks, which is harder but eminently doable. In practice it amounts to dying in 3 hits vs dying in 4 hits. The boss's most powerful super-easy-to-dodge attack was the only one capable of OHKO'ing me. Even a 50 level gap made no obvious difference to the break gauge costs for blocking. Job level is a lot harder to test than gear, but I was able to produce a 10-15% difference in damage taken and received by equipping different jobs. Jobs stats aren't very relevant to base game since any job you stick to will reach the level cap of 30 quickly.

Weapons are a different story. Depending on weapon type, being 10 or 15 levels behind the 'mission level' was enough to cause drops of 25-50% in damage output. A 50 level gap was making weapons of any type deal single digit damage against a boss who you're expected to hit for 100-200 with basic attacks. I'm not sure how much enemy defense stats factor into this, but it's clear to me that keeping your attack stats up to par is essential. Seems likely this is the cause of spongy bosses, but I'll have to see for myself.

>abused some invincibility exploit
Maybe not even an exploit. One of gear affinity bonuses is to become invulnerable while using Lightbringer (devil trigger), and it's entirely feasible to build MP fast enough to activate Lightbringer consecutively. Of course I'm at the final stages of the story and still don't have high enough affinities on gear to access that ability, so it seems to just be there for postgame.

Some random notes/thoughts before I settle in to finish the story:
--Buffs are very prevalent/important. Passive benefits from job trees are all exclusive to their job, the only things that transfer between jobs are the activated abilities, which means attacks and buffs. Plus, nearly every advanced and expert job focuses on a unique buff of some kind. This makes getting guardbroken a major setback, since all your buffs are lost. It takes time and MP to set them up again, and the loss of defensive or healing buffs can be deadly.

--Wearing a shield reduces the break cost of blocking by about half, regardless of shield stats. Pretty powerful, explains why only 2 out of 10 weapon types allow shields. I ended up with sword+shield as one of my two weapons, and it's very good for avoiding breaks when your gauge is low. Shield-based special moves also all get autoguard during some part of their animation.

--Perfect block, which is confusingly referred to as "parry" in-game, negates break cost entirely. It's a handy trick to avoid getting broken in a tight spot, but much like soul shield I mainly use it offensively. There is a dedicated slot to equip attacks for use "after parry", allowing you to perfect block and then counterattack instantly with a power move. Even better, put an ability with autoguard in that slot to plow through danger.

--My biggest complaint so far is I don't like Lightbringer. It's basically a devil trigger that gives you increased damage, refills the break gauge, completely removes the timing element of soul shield, and then refills the break gauge again when Lightbringer ends. It dumbs down the defensive side of combat to where you just brainlessly hit the soul shield button to negate everything but grabs, and it neuters break gauge management, and it doesn't really add any value either. Honestly feels like it's designed as a crutch for bad players. The good news is that it is very expensive to use, and you get significantly more power from spending your MP on more interesting stuff, so I have mostly stopped bothering with it. Apparently you get a replacement for it at endgame, hopefully it's not one that plays the game for you.

Going by footage and these notes, it does seem like WoLong and SoP share a lot of the same DNA. Makes me even more curious to dive in at some point. Hoping for the complete edition to go on sale at one point.

Finished the main game, played quite a bit of postgame, and dipped into the DLC.

First, addendum to my previous comments about equipment damage scaling. I somehow missed this at first even though it's explicitly mentioned in one of the many tutorials: break damage from attacks, both incoming and outgoing, is modified by your average equipment level. If you have exactly the same Attack power stat, but are wearing a level 57 shield instead of a level 200 shield, you will have a lower average equipment level and therefore deal less break damage. This does not effect HP damage, nor does it effect break cost of blocking or soul shielding, so it's still viable to ignore this mechanic as long as you're not playing an Agility build (Agility is focused on break damage). However, break damage is generally a little better than HP damage. As a result, and maybe this was the intent, you can maintain a baseline level of effectiveness at any point in the game simply by equipping appropriately levelled gear regardless of any other factors, with your character build and gear choices improving on that baseline.

And now, a tl;dr review of the base game. It feels like more of a budget title compared to the Niohs, being shorter and less visually impressive. However, I think the Nioh games are a bit bloated, so a more compact experience earns my favor. With the exception of 2 filler stages near the end (to finish their FF anniversary checklist), it's tightly paced, and all the stages are carefully crafted. It's got my favorite boss roster of Team Ninja's games, even if they couldn't resist the urge to slip in a crappy fight against a guy on a horse (thankfully the horse dies at the end of the first phase). The combat weds NG's speed and ruthlessness to the freeform cancels of a more stylistic action game, an addictive combination. Tons of options too; your playstyle can be radically different depending on your weapon/job choice or the combo moves you prefer. Difficulty-wise it's not the hardest game out there, by the end I was feeling a bit too strong. But it's challenging enough to remain consistently engaging, I had more than my fair share of deaths during the run. Even the story is surprisingly good. Don't get me wrong, Jack is a glorious meme for most of it. But it's sincere; they give a good slow-boil and build up the characters for some pretty strong payoffs. Edgy antihero done wonderfully.

Postgame is called Chaos difficulty, aka NG+1, and it's pretty much what you'd expect. Enemies are a bit beefier, but if your gear is up to par then it's not a gigantic leap from Hard mode. A lot of lazier stuff I was using to bully Hard mode doesn't work on Chaos, at least not without a concerted effort to make it work. The game feels balanced around Chaos difficulty, in the sense that you're expected to leverage powerful synergies that are completely unnecessary on Normal/Hard. You're free to skip around to whatever levels you want, picking whichever give the rewards you want for your desired build. Strictly speaking, you could bypass Chaos entirely if you wanted to go straight to the DLC, but I was in no rush, this game's hella fun.

The first bit of DLC is Bahamut difficulty, aka NG+2. The main difference here is nearly every enemy in the game has new moves or tweaked behavior. On normal enemies this is generally minor, such as the Bomb enemies no longer self-destructing in response to fire attacks, removing the easiest and quickest method of killing them. Bosses each get multiple new moves, generally aimed at making the fight faster and more challenging. Chaos Advent mixes sidesteps and backhops into his melee strings and has a very fast Thunder spell that you need to always be watching for. Bikke gets a rushing unblockable that hits multiple times and tracks. The Black Knight feels like a completely different fight, virtually all of its attacks are altered to be more difficult to deal with and the clones it summons now kamikaze at the first opportunity. Bahamut difficulty also adds a shop feature and a list of custom difficulty tweaks called Trials; the more Trials you set yourself, the more shop currency you earn. Only fought the first DLC boss so far, Bahamut himself, and he's awesome. A strong contender for best boss in the game. Very fast and aggressive with huge range on most of his attacks, and only gets more aggressive and more powerful as you deplete his health. He's not a damage sponge either, although he's so relentless it can be hard to get your own attacks in at first.

> Gear level
In 'rpg propper' this was a terrible inclusion at the time in my eyes. Was pretty big into World of Warcraft, and people started ranking players on gear-score. Sadly, a lot of older gear pieces were 'better' (specific stats, special abilities and such) but saw you have a lower gear rank, forcing (ironically) high level players to wear worse gear to be allowed in groups.

In this game it sounds like an easy way to stay on top though. Just keep your gear-score appropriate and go at it. Do missions also have a "recommended gear score"? Sounds like this system kind of was reused in Wo Long.

> budget title
Sounds fair, IIRC it was made by the B-team that also made WoLong. While the A-team made Nioh2 and now Ronin.

> chaos diff
Does it change anything in terms of mechanics or enemy layouts? Or is it just "enemies are now higher level". One of the things that always burned me out on Nioh and Wolong was replaying the same stages with the same enemies constantly. Wolong especially went fast that way.

> Trials
Sounds VERY interesting. Any notes on what these things are?

> length
Curious, how long did a run take you?

>length
After watching the end credits and returning to world map, my in-game timer was showing 25 hours. This was after doing most of the side missions and also a bit here and there letting the game run while I did chores or ate dinner or whatever. There are 16 main missions, I'll roughly estimate a little over an hour for each, plus 2 short combat gauntlets that occur at certain points in the story.

>Do missions also have a "recommended gear score"?
Yes. When selecting a mission, it shows both the mission level and your current average equipment level (of loadout 1) and if you are 10 levels below the mission level, there will be a red warning sign, although a 15-level gap is where the difference starts to become obvious.

>Or is it just "enemies are now higher level".
Chaos difficulty is exactly that. The DLC comes with a free set of level 200 armor after finishing the base game story, which is enough of a level boost to skip Chaos and go directly from story to Bahamut difficulty if you're so inclined; you won't miss any content by doing so. Bahamut/DLC1 doesn't make any changes to enemy layouts either, and the only brand new enemies it adds are 2 bosses. It simply adds new abilities to existing enemies (which changes combat more than you might think), and adds some new enemy layouts in the form of a handful of new side missions.

Player-side mechanics do change a fair bit after the story. Every item rolls a random job affinity (think Nioh set bonus), and in postgame rare item drops can have 2 random affinities, doubling the amount of bonuses you can stack and leading to strong synergies. After Job level 30 you start getting 'master points' which are allocated to any of 50 different passive stat buffs, and can be freely re-allocated if you wish. These new buffs and synergies make for significantly stronger and more focused builds in the postgame, that change how you play in major ways. For example, I'm running a parry-focused build. I recover a bunch of HP and MP and get an attack buff every time I perfect block, which means perfect blocking eclipses other defensive options. Soul shield is reduced to a more niche tool used for specific situations. You could also easily do the reverse and build around soul shield, or any of a plethora of other styles of play.

>Trials
These are simple debuffs to you or buffs to the enemies, 16 to choose from. Things like a smaller break gauge, reduced MP generation, increased debuff duration, HP regen for enemies. There's one that makes you lose max HP from damage similar to NG2/3. One negates armor effects, leaving you naked except for your weapon and your equipment level. No single trial is terribly exciting, but except for the armor one each has 5 levels of severity, and you can choose any combination to customize the difficulty to your liking. You have a trial rating which starts at 1.0, the easiest trial gives +0.2 rating, while the armor negating trial gives a whopping +4. Your total trial rating is then used as a direct multipler for the amount of Dragon Treasure (shop currency) earned from missions.

Very interesting notes, Rorc. I've not much to comment since I'm still not familiar with Nioh or other similar games, but still, Chaos is probably the only PS5 title I'm actively looking forward to play one day (I forget if it's also available on PS4, if so, then there would be no reason to go for a PS5). So, even if I don't participate, know that I'm keeping track of this topic, so I'm reading every bit of mechanical info that you (and others) post.

Also, did you play the second DLC? I heard mixed things about it, particularly about the 'final boss' at the end (some kind of robot, I guess?). Heard things like taking too much to kill it even with cheese strats.

>PS4
I'm playing on PS4 Pro. Pretty solid 60fps. Plenty of places where the framerate dips slightly, but the only time I've felt it negatively impact responsiveness is when I have 3+ glowy buffs up AND a boss is doing a very flashy attack. Even then, only for a second. I can tell they sacrificed for the PS4. Certain objects like railings have really short draw distance and fade in as you get close. Opening up the job tree or equipment menus causes the game to hang for a moment as it loads. They clearly made the framerate and responsiveness during combat top priority and it paid off.

It's also out on Steam now, though I've no idea the quality of the PC port.

>second DLC
I've only dipped my toes in, been on a trip so haven't played in a few days. Every instance I've encountered of a fight taking too long has turned out to be my own fault, so my suspicion is that complaints along those lines are probably just a skill issue. Will update as I get through it.

Finished DLC2 now, and whew that last boss, it's a doozy alright, your loins better be fully girded before walking into that one

The Rift Labyrinth makes up DLC2. Rift Labyrinth is pretty much a whole new game mode, and it's all procedurally generated content. You start in a hub area, with a random set of portals, each leading to a short Rift mission. These are pretty short, usually completable in a few minutes, and can have a number of random modifiers such as faster enemies, easier/harder enemy spawns, or a time limit. It's all base game stages and enemies, they have their Bahamut difficulty movesets. The enemy distributions are highly random, I struggle to think of any combination of enemies I haven't seen yet. A new feature is "chaos monsters" indicated by a crown icon next to their name. These have significantly buffed stats, increased Stagger resistance, and new moves; they drop much more XP and loot than normal enemies.

The Rift has its own rules distinct from the main game. The average equipment level mechanic does not exist in the Rift, there are no mission levels and your average equipment level isn't displayed. The way enemies scale in the Rift is a mystery to me, but even a gap of 250 levels in gear doesn't make a drastic difference in power. Affinities and secondary effects become the main driving factor in gear; the 'Optimize' feature is useless here.

At all times in the Rift, you lose max HP when taking damage similar to NG2/3. Additionally, there's only one save point to rest at, in the main hub area, and it does NOT restore lost max HP nor does it restore your Potions like in the main game. Instead, Potions are now just one of a list of consumable healing items, and you need stronger ones such as Hi-Potions and Mega-Potions to restore lost max HP. There's a shop in the hub area that sells these consumables, which uses a special Rift currency. There are also a bunch of monster NPCs in the hub area, who each have short storylines and can be used as summons in combat during Rift missions. I found these generally charming and fun, which is good because the story about Gilgamesh sucks tbqh.

You advance in the Rift by getting 'dimension points'. Each mission awards points based on your performance, dying kicks you back to the hub and makes you lose points. Each floor of the Rift is slightly tougher, and requires slightly more points than the previous floor to advance. Every third floor is a boss fight. The first 6 of these bosses, on floors 3/6/9/12/15/18, are all Gilgamesh. It says something about how good the Gilgamesh bossfight is that I was merely annoyed by this repetition instead of pissed off. He gets slightly harder with each rematch, and it's not until 18 that he displays the full breadth of his movelist. He's a fantastic fight, and I feel the need to mention that he has an attack named "Final Fantasy" .

DLC2 is where powercreep starts to show itself. In the base game story, I felt like I had to hold back just a little from fully exploiting the tools on offer in order to have a good challenge. Then, in Chaos and Bahamut difficulties, I felt like I had to use everything at hand to get every advantage I could. Towards the latter part of DLC2, I was starting to feel like I needed to pull my punches again. I've got three different damage negating abilities up at nearly all times, and can generate mana almost faster than I can spend it. It felt a bit much.

Then I walked into the floor 21 boss and I died in seconds. So I came back in running all my damage negation abilities in the most exploitative god mode way I could...and still got my ass kicked. What a boss. My jaw was on the floor more than once while trying to beat it.

The final battle of DLC2 is called Death Machine, and it lives up to the name. The instant the fight starts, this thing is skating around the arena at high speed firing twin machine guns at you. It kinda reminds me of the way Fatman zips around at lightning speed in MGS2, except if Raiden was a melee specialist with limited ranged options, and instead of planting bombs underneath shipping containers, Fatman just shot them straight at you out of a cannon in between bursts of machinegun fire.

Although Death Machine is a tough bossfight, it's not a long one. I clocked the fight at around 3 minutes, which is a little on the short side compared to the other bosses. I'd call it a glass cannon; even with my defense focused build, I found that all-out attack was by far the most effective way to win. The first phase especially is a "die slower than your enemy" situation.

>playing on PS4 Pro
>issues aren't super frequent
That right? Thanks. Now there's no reason for me to buy a PS5.

>focused on responsiveness and frame rate during combat
Good sign.

>Steam
I noticed, but I very much doubt that a PC with an integrated graphics card can run this game even with MIN settings.

>doozy
So I've seen. I forget which video I commented on, where the person said that he had to cheese his way through just to stand a chance.

>Affinities and secondary effects become the main driving factor in gear
I wonder if they'll keep up with this in DLC3 (if it's out yet).

>lose max HP
Sounds pretty punishing. How rare are Hi-Potions/Mega Potions?

>final Gilgamesh
Once you unlock him, can you fight him again (once beaten, of course)? If not, I wonder if having to repeat this will get tiring after a short while.

>had to hold back
Says a lot on how OP you can become for these parts.

>Death Machine
This is the boss I've heard some mixed things about.

>3 minutes
Interesting. I'm pretty sure that in the video I commented on, the guy took 7 minutes to beat him, but I can't recall if that was unrestricted or not. Either way, that doesn't sound too unreasonable. What do you think about this boss relative to Gilgamesh, and Bahamut (whom you've said he was a contender for being the best boss)?

>How rare are Hi-Potions/Mega Potions?
At first, rare. By floor 21 though, I had enough money to buy as many as I wanted up to the limited carry capacity of each. That's one of the reasons the Rift started to feel easy. Then again, I also dodged most of the really hard missions offered because I was more concerned about getting through the DLC story to unlock more stuff, and deaths set you back slightly on progress.

>final Gilgamesh
When you beat Death Machine, you unlock 2 side missions on the world map. One is a fight with Death Machine, the other a fight with Gilgamesh. There doesn't appear to be any way to re-fight the weaker versions of Gilgamesh after the first time. Maybe if you manually return to those earlier Rift floors, but I doubt it.

>boss comparisons
Gilgamesh is easier than Death Machine, but he has a much more varied moveset and is more of a typical duel bossfight. I imagine Gilgamesh is probably more well-liked of the two among players, but for me it's a tough call, both are very cool. However my favorite bossfights, pre-DLC3, are probably Bahamut, Marilith, and Cray Claw. Playing on Bahamut difficulty, the hardest bosses besides Death Machine are Bahamut and Astos.

>took 7 minutes
Something similar happened to me 3 or 4 times during postgame and DLC, not on Death Machine but at other bosses, where my damage sucked and the boss was taking 2x as long as it should. In each case, it was the fault of my build choices, and was solved by changing my gear or stats around. This really kicks in starting with DLC2, because equipment stops scaling upward and while Job levels keep going up, the bulk of their power is likely gonna be capped out before Death Machine.The decisions you make about what stats and abilities to focus on become paramount.

An example of what I mean is job point distribution. You can put your mastery points into any of 50 different things, and it's not immediately obvious but your top priority should be the five core stats--Strength, Stamina, Intellect, Spirit, and Agility. I had 20 points in random minor attack increases like "Ability Damage+" and I was struggling to deal good damage to a boss. When I moved the same 20 points out of that stuff and into Strength and Intellect, my damage output increased by about 30%. Add some improved tactics as I learned the boss's moveset, and I cut the fight time in half compared to my first few attempts.

Once I'm done tooling around in DLC3, I intend to dive in with a fresh save, see how the game holds up in the face of a more knowledgeable player. I suspect I'll be able to clear the DLC content with significantly lower levels and weaker gear, by making more efficient setups.

>I wonder if they'll keep up with this in DLC3 (if it's out yet).
Yes and yes. DLC3 takes place on the new 'Lufenia' difficulty, which abandons mission levels. By default, missions on Lufenia difficulty scale to equal Rift floor 30, and there's a new Trial that increases the scaling to equal even higher floors. As far as I can tell, normal enemies are unchanged from Gilgamesh difficulty. Bosses are different story, more on them in a sec. The story, "Different Future" Adds a new full-length stage to the game, and it's about the same quality as the base game level design, good but not great. Enemies are recycled from the base game, but there are 2 new-ish ones, Holy Elementals and Gigantuars. Not sure if they can appear in the Rift.

Now the bosses. DLC3 is the Boss Update. Like the first two DLCs, this one includes 2 brand new bosses, and they are very tough and quite tanky, one of them being the tankiest boss in the game. But that's not all! When playing on Lufenia difficulty, every single pre-DLC3 boss has a significantly altered and much more difficult moveset. I want to say they used Death Machine as the standard for difficulty, but even Death Machine got buffs. Lich, the caster you're supposed to rush down, now spams close range lasers when you're trying to melee him. Gilgamesh gets a really nasty unblockable that hits a gigantic area for a ton of damage that I'm still not entirely sure how to properly avoid. Bikke is an interesting case as his only change is one new move, a backhop followed by a powerful gunshot. The trick is he can cancel nearly all of his other attacks into it, which makes a previously boring fight much faster and more engaging and one of my favorites. I've only beaten a handful so far, but they are across the board awesome. Finally, I lied and there's actually one more new boss, a TLB to close out the whole game. Surprising to me is that when you finally beat the TLB, you don't just get a "Thank you for playing" screen, you get a fully voiced speech thanking you for playing. With the Lufenia boss changes, SoP cemented itself as my favorite set of Team Ninja bosses (disclaimer: I've only played the demo of Wo Long), and some of the best bosses in the whole genre IMO.

So, DLC all complete. It's fairly light on "content", 7 new bosses and 2 new weapon types but only 1 new stage, a great many of the changes are minor additions of various kinds, a new move here, a new smithing feature there. DLC1 is mainly a "Very Hard" mode, DLC2 is mainly the Rift game mode, and DLC3 is mainly an epic boss gallery. If, like me, you finish the base game hungry for more, you'll have a great time with the DLC. If you find the base game just "decent" I have to imagine you'd be similarly unenthused by the DLC.

>That's one of the reasons the Rift started to feel easy.
Makes sense. By how much does your max HP get decreased with each attack? A significant amount to make these potions valuable? Or small decreases, but it's just easy to get hit in general?

>wanted to get through the DLC
Understandable.

>another fight with Death Machine
Basically the same thing in terms of function/stats?

>the other a fight with Gilgamesh
Final Gilgamesh, I presume.

>no way to re-fight the weaker versions
Perhaps resort to saving on a different slot? Either way, I suppose it's not much of a loss if you can fight Final Gilgamesh either way.

>both are cool
>including Death Machine
Glad to hear it isn't just a slog.

>Cray Claw
Never heard about him in any context other than FFV (where he's one of the earliest bosses IIRC, so it's interesting that he's now among someone's favorite bosses in another game).

>easy solution to bosses taking too long to beat
Neat.

>cut the fight time in half compared to my first few attempts.
I'd take a wild guess and say that your tactics did most of the work (if the increase in damage was just by 30%). Which would be great for me.

>dive in with a fresh save, see how the game holds up in the face of a more knowledgeable player.
As ever, I'm curious about your thoughts on this, but take your time.

>I'll be able to clear the DLC content with significantly lower levels and weaker gear
Especially for this bit. Would love to hear more.

>DLC3 came out
I see. Shows how much I kept up with it (which is to say, not at all *however, don't let this be an indication that I'm not interested in the game*).

>Different Future
>good but not great
Not a total loss.

>tankiest boss in the game
Oh.

>even Death Machine got buffs.
Wut.

>Gilgamesh gets a nasty unblockable
Hopefully there's a way to avoid it. Or prevent it.

>Bike
>one change leading into major differences
Seems like the bosses in this game are pretty mechanically varied. So this would mean there should be plenty of replayability value (if only because they presumably offer something unique, which spices things up a lot).

>best bosses in the whole genre
That's some high praise. Really, if I had the means to play this game, I would be doing so right about now.

>how much does your max HP get decreased
In the Rift, about 15% of attack damage is also max HP damage. A single Hi-Potion will restore max HP by about 25% of your normal total, so if you had 4000 max HP on the stat screen it would restore 1000 lost max HP. However, damage is quite high generally speaking, getting smacked for well over half your life in one hit is not out of the ordinary. Which means first, that that 15% builds up faster than you might think, and more importantly, losing max HP inches you closer to possible OHKO territory.

All of that is in a slightly new light now, though, since I just learned something crazy. Each floor of the Rift has a bar that fills up when you complete missions and drains when you die. Filling it takes you to the next floor. Dying enough to empty it "resets" the floor. It turns out that what this means is you lose all of your Rift consumables except for the basic Potions, including the currency used in the Rift store, setting you back to nothing. You also lose some progress on the monster NPC quests, which reduces the passive bonuses they provide.

>boss rematch
Yeah, no changes from the normal fight. Those side missions are only there to let you to re-fight final Gilgamesh and Death Machine for fun. The base game has one of these for each of the Four Fiends as well.

>Cray Claw
Cray Claw has a gimmick where it intentionally moves in so close that its pincers reach past you on either side and obstruct your movement, and even has an attack where the pincers latch onto a wall behind you to try to trap you in. It's also really memorable because of the sequence leading into the fight. There's a big open area with a giant beam cannon firing at you every few seconds, and you need to run back and forth across the room and eventually destroy the cannon to reach the boss door. Then you start the bossfight, and the first thing Cray Claw does is fire the SAME beam that the cannon was using.

>tactics did most of the work
Enemy break gauges follow similar rules to the player, recovering slower while performing actions and not at all for a second or two after getting hit. Learning how best to sneak in hits lets you keep them from recovering which speeds up fights considerably.

>tankiest boss
Partway through his first phase he sets up a magic barrier, which you have to break down before you can attack him directly again. He of course spams projectiles at you the whole time. He has 2 forms like most SoP bosses, but this barrier is essentially a short third phase in between the usual two. That's on top of him having above average health and being a "projectile spam" type of boss.

>Hopefully there's a way to avoid it. Or prevent it.
I can avoid it sometimes, but it's scarily fast for how big it is, and I haven't got a consistent solution yet. Bro literally teleports behind you and unsheathes a giant katana.

Do you all play with companions, or without? I've done the first two missions so far, and I did most of them without, sans the Bikke fight, since he's got minions. On one hand, they're really useful for the obvious reasons of splitting attention and dealing damage (especially in group fights), but on the other hand, I find that things can get really chaotic (heh) and hard to follow with all the extra particle effects flying around.

Anyone know why the Assault Hook attack for the Pilgrim sometimes doesn't work? Fighting the Black Knight, and I find it's really useful for gap-closing after his rush attack, but every now and again, the attack just bounces off, and I can't grapple over to him.

>Assault Hook
It shouldn't bounce off on its own. When you first press R2 to start the move, the staff extends out and attaches to the target enemy, as far as I know it will attach to any enemy. At this point, if you don't touch the controller, nothing else will happen, it will just stick in the enemy and Jack will be stuck in his attack pose until you press up or down on the left stick. Pressing up pulls Jack toward the enemy and pressing down pulls the enemy toward Jack. If you press down to try to pull an enemy that is too large/strong (such as a boss) it will instead detach the staff and deal a small amount of damage. It sounds like that is what you're experiencing.

>companions
I've played around with them, and found that I definitely prefer the game solo. It's not like a Dragon's Dogma that emphasizes teamwork and party composition. There's a little bit of that, and you can genuinely build around supporting your party if you enjoy it. There are small touches like, if you try to charge up a spell while a boss is distracted, they will forget your allies and go full aggro on you. But mostly the party are simple damage bots that slightly lower the difficulty of the game with their presence, so I play with them off.

Have not tried the online multiplayer, so no comments there.

> Assault Hook
Ah, maybe I was pushing back on the left stick without realizing it. Though I've almost exclusively been using the one that pulls you in.

> Companions
Yeah, definitely doesn't feel like most of the game was built around them, despite all the group encounters.