Noonan

I've put in 10-12 hours at this point. Getting better as it goes, which is nice to see. Combat is a bit too easy IMO but that's a very minor complaint.

I need to find one more ability before I can enter some Pit area.

Dan

you can do custom difficulty where you can change parry timing , health bars, etc. if you want to make it harder. That is unless you’re already playing on Immortal.

I finished the game over the weekend and it’s a (very early!) GOTY contender for me, not that I play as many games as some of y’all do.

The platforming is top-tier in some areas. As satisfying as parts of Celeste and Ori, but less difficult.
Boss fights are great, too. Letting them hit you with their super moves, or hitting them with an Opportunity attack plays some fun animations. The bosses have solid variations; some are tough but fair, and there’s a couple that stood out as the most fun. It’d be cool to have a boss rush mode.

I only had one small area that I had to ‘skip’ but when I went back and tried it later, I got it on my third attempt. Without being too specific, the area relies on a couple enemies circling around but if their timing gets messed up from too many tries, the section becomes impossible to pass. That… shouldn’t happen.

Some folks have run into quest-breaking glitches, though. That would suck.

Noonan

I had a bug that I had to search a solution for. The moonstone guy; when you first meet him the game would lock up every time I'd talk to him before he'd give me the amulet and finish the interaction. Restarted the game, nothing. restarted my console, still locking up. I found a comment on Reddit that fixed it. I had to turn off my controller and turn it back on. That somehow triggered it to finish the interaction.

My comment about the difficulty was a bit premature. The Forest Queen (I think that's her name) is a good challenge.

Dan

I heard about that moonstone guy issue, but didn’t run into it myself. Are you playing on PC or PS5?

Noonan

Ps5

Dan

Yeah, lots of people reporting bugs on the PS5 version specifically while PC/Switch/Xbox have less issues. That one seems exclusive to people using the DualSense controller.

If you haven’t already done a quest to retrieve a captain’s parrot… be careful. That one may bug out, seemingly if you switch to the next screen too quickly after getting it.

Theres also a bug (only on PS5?) where the music in the game will cut out completely.

And there’s a set of double doors (below the forest, at the top of an area called Sunken Harbor) that require a specific ability to get through, but the doors can glitch and both be open at the same time… if you proceed through them without that ability, you can very easily end up in an area where it is 100% impossible to progress anymore.

Noonan

I think the only types of doors I can't open currently are the rubble doors with a yellow glow. I don't have an ability to get through those yet. I did notice that those little purple bomb enemies will blow those up if they're close enough but I assume there's an actual ability that will let me open those wherever needed. I do have the shift to swap the blue and purple platforms.

How far into the game would you say I am? I just got to the Forest Queen boss and I assume would be heading to the Pit after she's down.

Dan

if I had to guess… barely 30%. It depends how much you’ve deviated and found other such blocks, but Forest Queen is one of the earlier bosses from what I remember, and that area is still pretty close to The Haven.

I’ll just say… every time I thought the map couldn’t get bigger, it did.

Noonan

Thanks! Glad to hear how large it is. Although, the map already seems large. But that's probably because I've been playing a ton of smaller studio metroidvania games which are only 8-10 hours to complete.

I've opened up as much as I've been able to find in earlier areas when I get new methods of traversal. I've fought 3 or 4 of my clones, one fight with 2 of them.

Noonan

Took out Forest Queen after 4 or 5 attempts. Good difficulty for an early/mid boss IMO. This one really shows how important parrying is.

And now I can get past those yellow rubble walls I mentioned earlier!

Dan

Come to think of it, you may be further along than I thought. I believe there’s only one (maybe two?) abilities left for you, but if you haven’t been ‘below’ the forest at all, then I think you still have a fair amount of the map to open up.
Theres definitely a few more boss fights. Forest Queen seems to be a favorite though.

Noonan

I've explored the full Harbor(?) area below the forest. Met a fisher guy who's waiting for his family near some frozen wave. I have the map and the only areas left are parts that need a double jump of some type which I'm sure I'll get soon. Also met the Captain looking for his parrot or whatever.

After I took out the Queen, I was able to destroy the last seal to get into the Pit of Eternity, or whatever it's called. That's where I'm exploring now.

Noonan

The snake fight was fun but seemed easier than the Queen. Can now double jump. I assume all I'm missing for abilities at this point is whatever you do with those blue glowing triangles I see in places.

I have 2 of the constellations but I plan on doing a map run-through now that I can double jump to explores areas I couldn't get to before. Some of the platforming got pretty crazy. Glad I played Ori right before this or it would have frustrated the hell out of me.

I find it funny that I'm probably more than half way done, the game gives trophies (PS) for boss kills, yet my rarest trophy is still the one for killing 5 enemies with spikes. That's like the easiest trophy to get it. One of the first I unlocked without even trying.

Noonan

There's a platforming section that I have to get through for the last constellation that's driving me crazy. There are two up north on the map. I got the one to the east that had some crazy platforming but the one to the west is stupid. You have to drop down then jump and dash your way through tight spaces with spikes everywhere. It doesn't seem much harder than other things I've already done but I couldn't for the life of me get through it last night.

uteotw

Yup, did the exact same thing in pre-ordering Mirage, have played every AC since the first one, but I'm done doing that with Ubisoft.

Noonan

Finished at 26 hours. Damn near perfect game, IMO. They hit all the boxes for a good metroidvania including the difficulty. Major bosses took me 4-5 attempts. Some were 2-4. Other than the couple bugs I hit on PS5, I can't find a single thing to criticize. I can understand if people don't like the art style but that's subjective.

I didn't get the platinum because some of the platforming for coins were too much for me to deal with. I don't care enough about trophies to put in that extra effort to unlock amulets I'd never use.

I know most here wouldn't pay full for an Ubi game but this one is worth every penny and should be supported/applauded.

Michael Corvin

Good to hear. Looking forward to playing it in a few months once I get my backlog caught up.

The Questyen

Just finished it and the gameplay is indeed really fun but one of the most uninteresting boring plotlines in any game I can remember. Not a single interesting character, side quest, or storyline which is hard to do.

Noonan

Yeah, I guess the story was nothing new or original. I tend to ignore the story in these types of games. It's all about the gameplay for me. Story wasn't terrible or poorly planned out, just not exciting and very straight forward.

deadlax

started this game on the middle difficulty and it is definitely a bit more challenging that i would have expected with the parry.

Decker

Right on time!

Decker

Now the digital version is 40% off at $29.99 in the PSN Store.
Returning my unopened physical copy and buying it digitally; saves me $5.50 (no sales tax, 10% Costco discount on PSN credit).