There are two types of Dark Souls players – those who love the meandering, twisted and interconnected worlds, and those who like fighting the difficult, humongous and fascinating bosses. Generally, I’m the first type. Exploring an intricate castle, wasted imagined world or haunted village streets is far more my style than taking on a terrifying nightmare boss made real. But Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption forgoes all of this exploration, instead focusing directly on what many consider the “soulsborne” genre’s well, soul, the boss fights.

I first saw Sinner on the PAX show floor in 2017 and it was one of the more interesting titles on display, that, by judging from the interest it got on the show floor piqued the attention of quite a few others. Its combination of graphical similarities to the dark souls series, high level of polish for a game not from a large publisher and core mechanics meant the show floor booth was always busy.

What we have now in the finished product (out on PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One – where its available on Xbox Game Pass where I also tested it) at the time of PAX had only a few bosses to try out. But now, the full playing field of enemies has been revealed. Across eight fights you, a lone soldier, will take on some truly abominable enemies. There’s svelte knights, warped magicians and a good range of enemy types. For the most part you’ll be taking on these enemies alone, though occasionally they will call out for help from some lesser enemies to keep you distracted.

You’ll be taking on these monstrosities in combat ripped straight out of the Souls series, complete with stamina management, strong and light attacks, and a limited number of heals. The controls however used different face buttons, but I immediately remapped the controls to the second option, which moved the light and strong attacks to the same place as Dark Souls.

I think the polite way to describe the Sinner’s aesthetics is “heavily inspired” by From Software’s Souls games. It features the same grey tone, similar treatments of materials and a very similar camera system, which now allows free camera movement.

So if the combat is a mechanical clone, and the aesthetics are very similar, how does Sinner stand apart from Dark Souls, and what does it do differently? In two main ways.

Firstly, as already mentioned, is the total lack of any Levels between boss fights. Instead you start in a featureless hub world, without any other NPCs or other distractions. It’s just you and some headstones connecting you to each boss room. Those who have played Furi will be familiar with this set up, though even that had some connective tissue in the form of corridors to walk through between boss fights. This raises some interesting questions; How do items works then? How does lore work? What about leveling up?

Let’s take each of these in turn.

Items refill for each boss fight, and have a set number of each item. So, for example, you can’t save up poison resists for the poison boss fight. The lore, such as it is, is very minimal. That’s entirely appropriate, given the focus on boss fights, but for those looking for anything approaching the indirect lore that is common in the Soulsborne genre should not get their hopes up.

The second main way that Sinner stands out is its leveling system, if it can be called that. In fact, it’s more of a de-leveling system, where with each boss you fight, you have to sacrifice one part of your moveset. So while the bosses are all about the same level of difficulty, your ability to face them decreases as you take them down. One decreases your health, another your attack, and so on. So with each fight you need to be more careful, more cautious given your newfound weakness. It’s an interesting system that means each fight is kept fresh, and the last one isn’t a cakewalk – especially given that you can fight the bosses in any order.

Dark Souls fans are notoriously ravenous for games developed by From Software, and other developers making games in the same genre. But the same fans are also notoriously picky. The brilliance of the Dark Souls games, Bloodborne (and soon to be Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice) is hard to live up to.

But Sinner is a fantastic entry, if short entry into this genre that shouldn’t be passed up.

By focusing on one core feature, the boss fights, it’s developers have been able to keep the game’s scope manageable, keeping the whole package high quality.

I’d love for Sinner to be successful – with this game developer Dark Star have proven they can do bosses, and it would be fascinating to see what they do with a bigger budget and wider scope. So while I haven’t been converted from a world exploration Souls fan to a boss fight Souls fan, Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption makes a good case for why they are enduringly popular with so many. Who knows, perhaps with time, I may come around.

The post Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption (PlayStation 4) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Let me tell you a story. A naïve, youngish man had heard about this Souls series, who got excited to see Demon Souls pop up on PlayStation Plus. After downloading it with excitement, he got in and started making his way through this creepy world and died. Then he started again, and died, followed by a couple of hours of dying and throwing his controller down in frustration. Following this he spent the next few years hearing about how amazing Dark Souls is but feeling as if that boat had sailed. Along comes Dark Souls Remastered and new chance to jump on that boat.

Dark Souls Remastered has you create a character to wake up in a cell, in what appears to be the worst world to be a human. This world has been through some stuff, starting with being a foggy world ruled by dragons. An age of fire came where many prospered including humans, but the age of fire has started to fade, and people are dying. Your character is one that is losing its humanity when you take over, and you stumble your way through the world.

Not too much more story is unfolded, at least for the first long while. Instead the next stage has you stumble out of this prison and give your first major goal of ringing a couple of bells. The first one of these took me over 20 hours thanks to the many undead enemies between me and it.

The hardest stage of the game to enjoy, and get through, is learning the game’s systems. It will take a couple of hours of experimenting and dying before things start to click. This is mostly because of the clunky combat system. Attacks are slow to initiate and hit, sharing the same stamina bar with blocking. Learning to balance these, especially as someone who is used to fast paced combat is no small hurdle. If you run at enemies and swing willy nilly, you will die a lot, as I did.

Venturing forward can be hard too, because you will travel quite a way between the fires that you use as checkpoints. This means that if you die, at times you may find yourself needing to cover quite a bit of ground. This at first is quite a chore and demotivating but after a while it becomes a system you learn to use, that’s punishing and rewarding. The hardest part of this is that the souls you collect work as experience but can’t be applied until you reach a camp fire or backtrack to one. If you die, your souls get dropped on the ground, and you must make your way back to retrieve them, with all those enemies back in place.

This wouldn’t be so hard if it wasn’t for the enemies all respawning. Because running uses your stamina bar, you can’t run for long, paired with tight corridors it can be tough to get those souls back without fighting your way through the enemies again. You must do at least as well as your last attempt to keep all that experience, because dying drops your new bounty of souls, and the previous one disappears.

This means you will keep repeating the same runs, until you finally get to your new campfire. Hard learned lessons include not discovering that you must ignite them AND sit by them for it to be a checkpoint.

The one thing about the game I hate, but laugh about now, is the unfair deaths. Take for instance a bridge I am running across at enemies. A dragon flew from behind without warning and burned me alive. I had no reason to think he was there, and I hadn’t learned I had to ignite the fire and sit by it, so this was a tough lesson. Another moment I finally got past a section that was plaguing me, and I run up an enclosed circular stair case, to immediately be slammed by some super powerful, optional boss that instantly killed me. As I have improved, those moments have become funny, but at the time I wanted to scream.

The other annoyance, which may be in part due to the game’s age, is some elements of the combat such as swords hitting objects. The number of times you must fight in enclosed spaces where you can’t swing your sword because it hits a wall giving your opponent an opportunity to take you out was, and still is, infuriating. You lean to coax enemies out, but if you have been having a good run and that kills you, it feels unnecessary.

Yet despite the game’s many flaws, I found myself returning night in and night out, excited to try to get further. The game gave me every reason to be grumpy and quit, but it’s so darn exciting to get a little further, especially when you finally topple a boss that has troubled you.

Now I finally get to understand what “the Dark Souls of…” means. A brutally difficult, sometimes unfair, game that is frustrating, repeatable, and fun. I am far from beating it with thirty-ish hours at this point, but now this game has become a gaming ambition. Even with its flaws, I hope one day to beat it, but for now, I need to rest my soul.

The post Dark Souls Remastered (PlayStation 4) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Nintendo debuted a new Nintendo Direct Mini video presentation today spotlighting a selection of first and third-party titles coming to Nintendo Switch early in 2018.

Following a strong holiday season, Nintendo Switch owners will see a variety of new games and content arriving in the next few months, including DARK SOULS: REMASTERED, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Mario Tennis Aces and Kirby Star Allies for Nintendo Switch, and a certain green-clad brother bringing a new mode to Super Mario Odyssey.

DARK SOULS, the first title in the genre-defining action role-playing franchise, is coming to Nintendo Switch as DARK SOULS: REMASTERED, including the Artorias of the Abyss DLC as well as improved framerate and resolution from the original DARK SOULS game for an exhilarating return to Lordran. This marks the franchise’s debut on a Nintendo platform, and now for the first time ever, this revered (and challenging) game can be played on the go. The game launches on the 25th of May, 2018. 

Mario Tennis Aces will bring a new level of skill and competition to Nintendo Switch when it launches on Nintendo Switch. Mario steps onto the court in classy tennis garb for intense rallies against a variety of characters in full-blown tennis battles. New wrinkles in tennis gameplay will challenge your ability to read an opponent’s position and stroke to determine which shot will give you the advantage. And this time the game adds the first story mode since the Mario Tennis game on Game Boy Advance, offering a new flavour of tennis gameplay, with a variety of missions, boss battles and more. The game launches for Nintendo Switch this autumn.

Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong and Cranky Kong return for Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze on Nintendo Switch. This title includes all the fun and challenge of the original game, plus a brand-new beginner-friendly mode that lets new and novice players play as groovy surfing simian Funky Kong. Funky Kong can double jump, hover, perform infinite rolls and even perform infinite underwater corkscrews. Thanks to his sturdy surfboard, even spikes can’t slow him down. The game launches for Nintendo Switch on the 4th of May 2018.

Players will be able to download a free update for Super Mario Odyssey in February 2018 that adds a new mini-game called Balloon World. 

Once players download the free update and complete the main story, Balloon World will become available. To get started, players just have to talk to Luigi. In “Hide It” mode, players have a limited amount of time to hide a balloon. In “Find It” mode, players have the same period of time to locate balloons hidden by other players from around the world. Players can move up in rank by finding hidden balloons and becoming expert hiders. The free update will be released in February with new Snapshot Mode filters and new outfits.

The post NINTENDO CONTINUES MOMENTUM INTO 2018! appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Dark Souls is finally over.

The second piece of DLC for Dark Souls III marks the end of a long journey that has spanned two console generations, four games (excluding Bloodborne) and millions of dedicated players. The Souls series has spawned its own genre, with many attempting to take the crown from Fromsoft, or, at least, bask in its shadow.

But now the progenitor of them all has decided it is time for the final curtain call. The Ringed City DLC is the last piece of Dark Souls content, at least in its current form, and what a send-off it is. After the good-but-not-great Ashes of Ariandel, Souls fans were anxious that the series might just go out on a whimper, but The Ringed City is a spectacular return to form, addressing nearly all the complaints about the first DLC. It makes its mark not only on Dark Souls III, but the series as a whole. It is perhaps, the single best content drop of any Souls game.

What it is not, is a good entry point for new players. In fact, it’s almost impossible for it to be. You can only access the DLC from two very late-game bonfires, and the recommended level is even higher than Ashes of Ariandel. The Ringed City is undoubtedly for experienced players, those who know the ins and outs of lead director Hidetaka Miyazaki’s creations, and his very mind. Because to fully understand what FromSoft have done with this DLC requires the slow accumulation of knowledge about not only level and enemy design, but how mechanics, lore and design have come together to define Miyazaki’s opus’ unique and quirky design.

The first area in the DLC is the epitome of this synchronicity. Called The Dreg Heap, it’s a tumbled down veritable bubble and squeak of broken, yet still recognisable, areas from across the Souls games (yes, Dark Souls 2 included). It’s Miyazaki throwing everything he has left at us, as always expecting us to fail, and with perseverance, overcome.

Throughout, the new areas are full of self-reflection that break the fourth wall and make jokes between the developer and the player. It plays and pokes with the formula that was becoming a little too repetitive in ways that are delightful, in the strange way that dying to some abominable creation in Dark Souls can be amusing.

The Ringed City is a large area that will take you longer to explore than Ashes of Ariandel, with the attendant increase in the number of secrets to explore. It features one of the best boss fights in the series, which harkens back to the original Demon’s Souls.

But just getting to those boss fights will be tough. At the end times the world is crumbling, its land is decaying and it seems the remnant strength of the entire world has retreated to this trash heap of leftover worlds and ideas. At times the world approaches the level of unfairness, the delicate, thin red line that the series has so far largely managed to avoid.

While not directly a part of the DLC, The Ringed City and rebalancing patch brought an unlocked framerate on PS4 Pro. While it is a nice option, it generally sits at around 45FPS, so an option to lock at 30FPS would be welcome, and that may finally fix the frame pacing issues that have plagued Dark Souls III and Bloodborne since release.

In a sense, it’s a shame that the innovation, the boundary-pushing given such free reign in The Ringed City is limited to just this content drop, and wasn’t reflected throughout Dark Souls III more broadly. Yet it is more than welcome here. It is a fitting farewell, bringing together everything that has made the series great since Demon’s Souls was released for the PS3. And not only that, but in a final burst of creativity it gives long-term players a package that is almost perfect.

“Finishing” Dark Souls is emotional. For eight years the Souls series has stood alone. They have been sources of deep frustration, cheap kills, but also profound satisfaction, pride and relief. And while each Souls game will live on through speedruns, replays and a still-vibrant PvP scene, the knowledge that everything new is now old, that what was to come, is, must come as a disappointment to players.

And while this is true, I believe it is better to go out strong, with some of the best at the last, rather than the series crawling along in a series of limp sequels trading on the good name of its predecessors.

It is as if, at the end of a play with many acts, the cast has been brought out to bow before the crowd, be engulfed by their cheers and applause before disappearing again behind the red velvet curtain.

This is the end of Dark Souls. The journey of our Ashen Ones is over, their fire, now extinguished.

The post Dark Souls III: The Ringed City DLC (PlayStation 4) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

What gives a Souls game it’s, well…soul? That’s the fundamental question came to mind while playing Dark Souls III. The latest creation in a series that is now five games old, Dark Souls III is the culmination of years of experience and refinement of what has made the other games so memorable.

Dark Souls III doesn’t vary away from the pillars of the Souls series: the World, the Combat, the Lore and the Difficulty, and in looking at the ways in which III decorates these pillars we can see what Hidetaka Miyazaki’s latest creation is all about.

In my previous two times with the game before launch I was worried that the drab and monotonous greys of Bloodborne would overwhelm Dark Souls III. Thankfully, this worry was misplaced. While it is true the first few hours feature a rather boring and unoriginal castle-top walk (seen in almost every Souls game), the landscape soon opens up with a much larger colour palette. Gone are the endless rows of coffins and gravestones of Bloodborne, though everything does retain that games unusual sheen and gloss.

In moving through the standard areas Dark Souls III sticks to the tried-and-tested formula of normal enemies, mini-bosses and main bosses. Progression through the game is almost painfully prescriptive, with the exception of a few key areas. You’ll be going through normal enemies, unlocking shortcuts, defeating mini-bosses, exploring more, opening another shortcut and defeating the main area boss. Where the game breaks with the established formula is where I enjoyed it the most. There does exist a general feeling of linearity that encourages a push through the content and discourages exploration. Even so, I struggled to sometimes keep the entirety of a region in my head like I was able to in Dark Souls I or Bloodborne as the world is simply denser, due to both increased geometry count and topological design.

Bonfires were sometimes far too close together, and there were just far too many of them. There is even a couple of times where I could see the previous bonfire from the second. That said the world is more connected than Dark Souls II and there is a greater use of verticality in the spatial layout of the areas. You’ll be unlocking elevators, opening doors from a specific side and finding keys to gates just as before.

Firelink Shrine makes a welcome return in a form much more similar to Demon’s Souls’ the Nexus. Here you can upgrade gear, interact with NPCs and level up. The blacksmith now gives you the ability to choose your preferred balance of health and mana estus flasks, though more on that later.

Dark Souls III clearly benefits from the now current generation hardware. There are some spectacular vistas and the level of general environmental detail is far above that ever seen before, even in Bloodborne. There are a few awe-inspiring moments where the world opens up before you and genuinely takes your breath away.

The world feels lived in and real in a way that was clearly lacking in the empty stone rooms of Dark Souls II. There are innumerate details that make Lothric appear coherent and logical, signifying a return to the non-dialogue narrative of previous games. Environmental storytelling is evident throughout; where oddities occur, so very often does an illusory wall or other hidden trick.

Nevertheless, the world of Dark Souls III is fulfilling in the observation of the realisation of Miyazaki’s vision rather than the wonderment of an originality of construction. There are too many clichés and borrowed ideas to truly be able to distinguish III from its predecessors. It becomes all a bit of a trope – the poisonous swamp, the castle battlements, the skeletons, the dragons. You get the feeling that this was the perfection of the idea that has been refined over and over since 2009’s Demon’s Souls rather than a wholly new creation.

And for those fresh to the series there will be much to delight. But for those more intimate with the inner workings of a Souls game I expect an overwhelming sense of familiarity.

The game’s narrative is, as always, defined by the obtuse ramblings gleaned from NPCs as you save them, support them, or eliminate them. But even in comparison to other Souls games I found the story to be shrouded in layers of meaning and unmeaning, so I look forward to seeing how the game’s community plumbs the depths of the infinite variations and sequences of events that lead to unexpected NPC interactions and story arcs.

That said, it is clear from the beginning that the main task given to your chosen unkindled is to take on all the Lords of Cinder to claim their thrones – which are always looming over you in the Firelink Shrine – an ominous presence that reinforces your sense of purpose every time you visit the shrine to level up or purchase a new weapon. You slowly attempt to defeat each Lord of Cinder until… I’ll leave the spoilers there.

Combat is sped up and is now much more reminiscent of Bloodborne. Going back to the original Dark Souls feels positively antiquated, slow in an almost unbearable way. I welcome the faster pace, more like The Witcher than the slow turtling Souls games have been known for.

In the game’s opening area there is a foreboding sense of the world being wrong. Writhing snakes and other gruesome oddities transmogrify normal hollows when least expected. The world is not as it should be, not even for the world of Dark Souls. I was disappointed to see that unfortunately this sense of foreboding does not extend to most of the rest of the game. Bigger enemies bursting forth from smaller ones becomes trite pretty quickly, and the slaughter of these poor hollows soon become routine. Still, their design is constantly creative and it is good to see such variety instead of endless hordes of shining knights.

Bosses are creative in a way that was lacking in Dark Souls II. Fights are multi-stage and can change dramatically as they progress. The AI is much more intelligent and capable now, and dramatically reduces the opportunities to quick roll away and heal. The bosses were well placed and relevant to the areas they were in. While there were a couple of dud ones, the creativity in encounter design was a delight with which to engage.

Your weapons remain as essential in taking on these challenges as ever before. Each weapon now has access to what is referred to as “weapon arts,” a special attack or ability that is activated by, in two-handed mode, holding down, on a PS4, the R2 trigger. Some raise certain stats, some form a new and powerful movement and others for off-hand weapons such as shield carry passive abilities.

Using a weapon art uses up some of your FP (magic) meter, though playing a melee quality build this never really concerned me. While the weapon art attacks are animated beautifully and were occasionally useful, they felt like a gimmick tacked onto the existing combat mechanics. In boss fights especially, the subtleties of the new system was replaced with the urgencies of utilising well-honed muscle memory built up over the last four games – memory that was devoid of the new system and as such consequently ignored.

It is fundamentally necessary to move beyond the tired cliche of “it’s so hard, but in a good way” when describing the last, and most impressionable pillar of a Souls game. As I mentioned in my last media preview for Dark Souls III, knowledge, or rather the lack of knowledge, is the true ability to overcome in a Souls game. Difficulty then is, with the already huge amount of information available on the game, relatively self-selecting. Going into the game without any foreknowledge will give you the experience that the developers originally envisaged, but it can be substantially easier than that by watching let’s plays, reading guides and wiki entries.

That’s because in the end you are battling yourself, and your patience. And as ever before Dark Souls III brutally punishes impatience and egotism. Curiosity is rewarded however, though it always exists in tension with the knowledge surprises may be around the next corner. The power fantasy of the Souls games always teeters on the edge of failure, and this gives players the exhilarating rush the series is known for.

Unfortunately, there were quite a number of technical issues that plagued my time with the game. There were severe framerate drops, together with a sometimes awful amount of stuttering. Texture pop-in as experienced during my two previews with the game was still present and the whole game crashed when I summoned other players while online (fixed in an update).

The PC version may address these issues as it has relatively low minimum requirements but I was unable to test that version. PS4 players who pick up this game at the start may face these issues until such as time as From Software addresses them. Given the game has already had two patches before its Western release I do have confidence that they will be addressed.

What is more unlikely to be addressed though is the camera, which is somehow still not as good as it should be this many game into the series. I had a hard time simply keeping up with what was happening while watching this game, mostly due to the unpredictability of where the camera would take you. Combined with the more aggressive enemies there were a few times where a death felt un-earnt and cheap.

In reviewing and rating Dark Souls III, I need to interrogate my own biases and recognise that I am a willing passenger on the hype-train that Bandai Namco and From Software have created.

Being overwhelmed by the availability of content that I have wanted may put blinders on to how the game as a whole is structured. Playing through blind, it is easy to become focused solely on the personal experience of the game, without particularly experiencing or understanding the entirety of the game’s offerings. So take my review in context with others. I cannot speak to how the game will hold up over time.

Dark Souls III is a thoroughly modern Dark Souls, the continuation and refinement of everything that has made the series great. It does what the best sequels do – build upon the successes of the past and sandpaper back the rough edges of the elements that needed improvement.

That said, I hope this is the last of the Dark Souls games. From Software have demonstrated they are amply able to experiment with variations in 2015’s Bloodborne, and it is my hope they continue to reach out past the standard fare knights and dragons. Otherwise the Souls series may face the same issues as many of Ubisoft’s games in repetition.

To veterans of the series, Dark Souls III was never going to give you that first-time experience – but nothing could. Because From Software has been relatively conservative with any changes there is much head knowledge that is transferred between their series. Instead of feeling like heirs of each other, the Souls series has begun to feel more like siblings to one another. Different, but clearly from the same genetic heritage.

So while Dark Souls III doesn’t provide the series with any clear or controversial differentiation, it does not need to. It remains a fantastic, rewarding, punishing and fulfilling journey through a wonderland of insane disturbances and delights.