We've spent the last couple days in Cologne at GamesCom to browse some merch booths and play a couple games here and there, so I forgor 💀 to make a post in time.
I walked past Valor Mortis in the Indie Area, but I didn't clock that it's this upcoming first-person soulslike, so I didn't give it a try. I've got the demo downloaded, though, so I will give it a shot soon and might give a review here.
I've actually not managed to play a lot of games this year, but my standout would probably be 1001 Threads of Mizan. It's a 3-person cooperative third-person action-adventure game with focus on combat in huge open areas and against giant bosses. It felt a little like a mix between an RPG with the three characters having distinct moves and roles sorta, Monster Hunter in that you fight against one giant enemy cooperatively, and maybe sorta a little bit of soulslike mixed in there? Though the latter is in big quotation marks since it's just a dodge and a parry that reminded me of it. The standout feature, next to the Arabia-inspired setting, is the seamless integration of a flying carpet mount that you use in the fights as well for traversal and combat. Felt really cool to play. Definitely some Shadow of the Colossus vibes in there too.
Also not a soulslike, but Qwick is really really awesome. It's a small indie game based in Austria that came to be of an internal gamejam students at TU Graz that has you speedrun through levels as a little candle that must not melt by the end of the level. It's very charming and the dev we talked to was really excited that we scoured them out to give the game a shot given it's very small and barely advertised outside a bit of short-form videos on TikTok et al.
Have any of you been to GamesCom this year? What was your highlight?
Edit: Oh, and we also got these:
14 Comments
Coelacanth@feddit.nu · 8 pts · 1d
I'm not at Gamescom, and I haven't played a single minute of video games this weekend. I have played Valor Mortis though, although during last year's playtest and not the current demo. I think it has potential. The sort of Soulslike-meets-Dishonored combat has some juice, you just need to spend about an hour with it getting used to the first person perspective. I did find the voice acting weird (why do some have French accents and some don't?). But given it's a demo it might not be final.
v4ld1z@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 1d
I remember you telling us about that before, I remember!
Coelacanth@feddit.nu · 2 pts · 4h
There wasn't too much parkour in the playtest but I'm hoping for more of that and more interesting level design. It's the Ghostrunner developers after all! But besides that it's a solid foundation for an interesting game.
v4ld1z@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 2h
Wait what I didn't know thay
Skua@kbin.earth · 5 pts · 1d
A bit of Seamless Co-op Elden Ring with our resident sad_detective_man! I'll have to get back to you on the Gamescom stuff once I have watched it
morbidcactus@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 1d
It's been so long since I've kept up on games news unfortunately, this year I feel kinda out of the loop for releases.
This week I've been playing Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, I'm a sucker for Chinese mythology inspired games (developer is in Chengdu and the game takes place in what is now Sichuan province) so the setting is great.
One thing they did really well was how interconnected the world is, lots of shortcuts and paths that loop back on themselves, also a huge fan of how the skill trees works even down to weapon upgrades being respecable (and apply to the entire class of weapons). Some of the mechanics are interesting, the mp mechanic in particular stands out (bunch of ways to generate, timed dodges are one way but also some others that can be specced into).
v4ld1z@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 1d
Honestly, I've not really paid a lot of attention to the game because it felt too male-gazy to me, but I've heard the comparison in level design to DS1 quite often actually. Would you say it's that good?
morbidcactus@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 23h
Haven't finished it yet but so far I'd say it's decent, especially for a first go at it from the developer. Personally, found a huge variance in difficulty, some bosses were quite challenging, others weren't at all. There's a lot of build variety, buffs and status effects seem to break things fast, which is part of the fun of soulslikes to me.
I get that concern for sure, kinda glazed over the game myself until earlier this year.
v4ld1z@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 23h
Might see if I'll get a pirated copy sometime then.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu · 3 pts · 4h
It's on my radar too, would be interesting to hear what you think of it. I too have heard great things about the level design and exploration, which is the main draw for me.
Also I believe the studio got bankrupted and the original creators left or something like that, so don't feel too bad about pirating it.
v4ld1z@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 2h
Oof. Something something average game developer experience in the 2020s
Coelacanth@feddit.nu · 2 pts · 1h
The original creators said they're making a sequel from a new studio, unsure about whether they were able to buy the IP though or if it would be a spiritual successor.
But yeah, it's rough out there. Especially in this case it was so stupid, too. Chinese game and the Chinese fans got upset about the portrayal of some historical Chinese characters and factions apparently, and thus it got review bombed and tanked in its most important market.
Panties@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 1d
I've been playing Grime, I love it so much! The exploration reminds me of hollow knight, the combat reminds me of Dark Souls, with how deliberate I have to be with my timings and stamina management, but without the frustrations. The bosses are not super hard or tanky, I enjoyed them immensely. A bit sad that I'm close to the end of the game, but there's Grime 2 which is hopefully also good!
Coelacanth@feddit.nu · 1 pts · 4h
GRIME is great, I can just never get into it. I've played about 5ish hours spread over the past year, in sessions mostly of half an hour at a time. I don't know what it is, maybe the platforming or the backtracking but I just can't get hooked. Maybe once fast travel is unlocked it feels better but I can't even get there haha.
Also I didn't realise how much platforming there'd be.