MisterDapper

Ironically, those last words should have been 'dumbed down'.

But it's not really about the difficulty, and more about the time investment. Some people don't have time to sit through even an easyish battle and want to get to the story and exploration - so it's useful for them to be able to just steamroll through.

It'd be boring to you, sure. I think I'd lose interest after a short while too. But my coworker is pretty happy about it, because it means they can get through the game quicker during their downtime on our night shifts.

Different folks are invested in different aspects I the game. And that's okay by me. I'll play how I want to, they can play how they want to, and everybody is happ- well mildly less miserable.

Nope. You're not allowed to enjoy it how you want to. Just the very knowledge of you enjoying the game at an easier setting somehow invalidates the experience for everyone else. And that's rude. So you should stop doing it.

Ignis only destroyed Ardyn's physical form. But Ardyn has power beyond the physical world. Hell, he managed to return after *Shiva*, one of the literal gods of that world, destroyed his physical form.

The ring granted Ignis power, at a terrible cost. More than it demands of the royal bloodline who pay a lesser toll by being bound to protect the Crystal (and even then, look how Noctis is constantly being torn apart and healing when he uses the ring in-game and how his father has aged so much faster than his companions).

That's why the Chosen King has to bring the power of the Lucii into the afterlife with him - to destroy Ardyn and the Starscourge for good. If literally anyone could do it, then it renders the whole point of awaiting the Chosen King completely moot.

At that point in the story, Ignis is the only other person aside from Ardyn and the other gods who knows about Noctis' fate and what it will take to destroy Ardyn completely.

You ask me, that alternate ending is actually not a defeat at all, but Ignis deliberately making the worst choice - the exact same one that led to Ravus' downfall, choosing love of family over everything. "This world means nothing to me... I refuse to let Noct sacrifice his life to save ours".

Ardyn knows this is only a temporary setback as well, he outright says that his revenge has only temporarily eluded him, but he will return. And sure enough, you see him in his corrupted form leaning over the throne of Lucis in the epilogue of the alternate ending.

The Starscourge still spreads, Ardyn remains as a force for evil, and likely Noctis never ends up fulfilling his destiny.

Ignis beating Ardyn is the worst alternate ending, and actually a defeat to the heroes as a whole.

I could believe it easily. The biggest part of how Deku succeeded wasn't being given a Quirk - it was his years of obsessive studying. His biggest strengths have always been his insights and quick analysis when it comes to the strengths and drawbacks of Quirks and his surprising ability as a tactician.

I'd argue there are key differences. Xenogears was basically a combo system of light, medium, and heavy strikes that used AP, which you could strategically build up over the course of a battle to let loose longer combos at the right moment.

Legaia had a combo system where you attacked using left and right arms and high and low attacks, where enemies could be weaker at one point than others, learning to block you if you used the same strike too often, or you could miss entirely by trying to sweep the leg on a floating eyeball. Equipment could affect what combos you're capable of performing (Use one of Vahns better weapons than deals extra damage to Seru, but accept the cost of that arm using a larger amount of the combo gauge). The amount of hits you can make is set, only growing through levelling and equipment choices (and using the defend option, which will give you a little extra on the following turn only), so it's easier to unleash different combos every combat turn.

There's enough differences that they both felt functionally different when I played them.

Javi

Thing is, I'm just old enough to have grown up playing tape deck games. I've had to sit there after dying 3 screens into the LOTR game on a classic Amstrad and having to reload the game from scratch. And somehow, DAI load felt longer even than that:p

Personally, don't mind loading screens. In fact, the OG Oblivion had a brilliant satire loading screen mod.

Only time I hated a loading screen was DAI. Especially on the PS4 default 5400rpm hard drive. In the subjective eternity it took that game to load, I had time to go to the kitchen, brew a proper tea, make a snack, and get myself settled comfortably before it was even done.

Article isn't written for us. It's an offering to the Almighty Algorithm.

If you don't publish a ton of fluff pieces about the smallest things for a subject, you don't show up on searches or recs. And without the presence, there's no engagement, which is the metric of success - doesn't matter if it's good or bad.

And it worked. It got engagement. The Algorithm is satisfied.

Or, y'know, like a lot of people who speak in the vernacular, they're using Bethesda as shorthand for the company as a whole unless there's a specific need to mention Bethesda Softworks or Bethesda Game Studios.

Even Bethesda do it. On their main website, no less.

I'd be surprised your pedantry didn't use the full distinction as well if I weren't well acquainted with Skitt's Law.

Gotta love how one person is frothing at the mouth over your apparent entitlement when you posed a 'maybe', a hypothetical, an optimistic guess without a hint of demand and acknowledging the history of Bethesda giving free and discounted upgrades in the past.

Do.. Do we club together to buy them a Snickers? Or is that too close to socialism for them?

The whole point to Ardyn's perceived self-sacrifice is that it is spurned and seen as abhorrent. Yeah, he's selflessly taking the Scourge into himself - but it's corrupting him. Twisting him. When he's replaced as a measure to save himself, by then he's so far gone from the man he was that he sees it as treachery and that's what sets him down the path he chose to spit in the eye of prophecy. It's not meaningless. Even without his brother assuming the throne, his willingness to take the suffering of his people on himself still has a meaning.

Same with a lot of these. It's a weird assumption that any character willing to sacrifice themselves is wasted if they get to survive. Yang gets seemingly blasted to oblivion - but he survives and recovers and joins later. It doesn't make what he did any less meaningful.

Meaningless would be if there was a way to avoid the sacrifice altogether that was immediately obvious to all the characters present. Like, say the original Fallout 3 ending.

Once had an argument with a fellow who was insistent that the mere presence of an easier difficulty in a Souls game, regardless of whether or not he personally used it, would ruin his enjoyment of the game and invalidate his accomplishments. It's hard for a reason, he said, and accessibility would cheapen the experience for Real Gamers(TM).

... At the exact same time he was declaring this, he was also sharing a new cheese he'd found for a Dark Souls 3 boss in another thread...

It took way too long for me to realise a lot of people thought Vincent Valentine as a vampire- styled character. I always considered him more like a revenant. A reanimated body that is only motivated to return to the world of the living for the chance at revenge on Hojo.

But that's me.

Tellah wasn't really 'surprisingly' weak to me. The fact that his stats decrease as you travel with him is a good indicator that this is an elderly man suffering the effects of his advanced years.

The story and gameplay both indicate that he is in decline and this one last task is all that is keeping him going. That's the entire point of his story arc.

Rei

Except for the part where Gojo openly said Yuta has the potential to surpass him. So it's possible.

Then again, we could argue 'possible' vs 'likely' forever and get nowhere.