There are bosses and then the are bosses.  The final colossus is the size of a small town, and will make short work of you before you even reach his feet.  First, getting to him.

SotC uses a neat mechanism to find the colossus.  Hold up your sword (when there’s sunshine) and it will point in a general direction towards the boss.  This works for 1-14.  15 and 16 are in the same line as previous colossi, entirely possible to take the wrong turn.

Getting to 16 requires finding a door, shining light, and then taking Agro along the path.  *spoiler* Things don’t go very well and Agro falls into the water *spolier*.  This was my first time dying in the PS4 version, and I recall the finicky controls of yesterday causing many a death in earlier games.  Following that, you need to climb up a small cliff to finally reach the boss.

Let’s be honest for a moment.  This guy gives goosebumps.  He takes up the entire screen and he’s a mile away.  It’s still something to see how large he his, likely could fit all the other 15 colossi under his armor.

The fight is in 3 stages.

First stage is more about not getting killed by fireballs.  You need to stand behind protection, run and dodge-roll to cover.  The last part of this is the hardest, as he’s quite close and the things come in screeching for your head.

The second stage is the climb.  He’s a tower and it takes a few seconds to make your way to his midsection.  This part is pretty darn cool.  It’s in the middle of a storm, and the rain/cloud effects are something to behold.  Feels like the sky is crying.

The final stage is the bugger of them all, and is burned into my psyche from all those years ago.  It requires a lot of precision and patience.  First, a prick on his back to make his hand come behind.  Then you reverse jump onto the hand.  He’ll bring it up, allowing you to run up his arm and then stab his shoulder.  This causes his other arm to come towards you, and another reverse jump.  So far, pretty obvious if not somewhat challenging.

Now the tricky part.  You need to stab that hand in order to make him lay it flat, then use your bow to attack the opposite shoulder.  He’ll then cringe in pain, bring that hand over, and you need to jump to the shoulder on the way to the head.  This is the frustrating part, as for some reason jumping doesn’t always work here.  It could take 10 minutes to get to this part from the start, and you’d fail and fall to your death.  I didn’t die (thankfully) but it did take a dozen or so tries to get the jump to work.

After that, the soft spot is on the head and it’s game over.

Ending

The game flows directly into the ending after that final strike.  You learn who Dormin is, what the sacrifice cost and the future of the world around you.  It leads well into ICO (the horned-kids and all).  I won’t go into it much, but it’s one of the better game endings out there.  And it looks amazing.

Replay

There’s a new game+, which allows you to do it all over again and stack more HP/stamina for each playthrough (that gets ridiculous after a while).  There’s mirror mode where everything is swapped vertically (your character is left handed).  This is more of a hard mode.

Finally, time trials – normal and hard.  This puts you against the clock on each colossi.  Beat enough, unlock items.  These items can improve power, stamina, change the way fights work out, or add markers to the maps for extra mini-collection quests.  I’ll spend some time here I think.

Overall

The game went by quickly, more so because I remembered the answers to all the puzzles.  For anyone who has never played the game, it is an amazing ride and worth every penny.  For those that have, the PS4 remake looks amazing.  Right up there with Horizon and MHW, but it tends to evoke more emotional response due to the efforts in music/lighting.  It’s a near masterpiece in what gaming can offer.

My level of originality is not, ugh, good.  Yay!

Colossus 11

aka. Dumb Bull.

We reach the point in the game now where each colossus has a special gimmick to get the fight started.  #11 is a rather pain to get to, honestly.  I mean it looks great but he isn’t living on the corner road.

In this battle you need to climb a fire tower, and have him charge it, which will drop a fire stick.  Use that stick to force him over a cliff side and break his armor.  I made the mistake of jumping after him.  Bad call.  He gets up much faster than you and there’s nowhere to hide.  Back up to the fighting area again, repeat the fire tower work.  Cept this time, you can jump on his exposed back.

Colossus 12

One of my favorite fights in the game.  A giant fireshooting turtle with teeth on his head. Serious.

This one is not challenging, you simply climb his back, then hit the teeth to steer him towards a tower.  Jump on the tower, he lifts his paws, then jump on his belly.  The hard part is just getting from the starting point of the fight, to his back in order to start the climb.

Colossus 13

Back to back awesome fights!  Hands down the coolest fight in the entire game.  A giant flying snake that can also hide in the sand.

He has 3 main sections to the body, top and bottom.  When he’s in the air, you need to shoot the air sacks underneath to make him come down.  Then ride your horse next to his fins, jump on them, climb, wait til he turns, then go to town on 3 spots on his back.  If I recall, it was possible to do all 3 at once, but I was only able to manage 1 per try.

The effect of being in the air, so high and fast, is really quite impressive.  It does an amazing job of showcasing the game.  Amazing fight.

Colossus 14

The Domino boss.  It would be hard to keep up with #13, so #14 really does seem disappointing.

Fromt the start, you just climb from tower to tower, waiting for him to charge it twice and knock you to the next one.  The hard part is knowing where the startin point it (exactly where the fight starts).  It’s cool to see the set pieces tumble, but it feels overly long.

Colossus 15

This reminds me of the Ewok Adventure, seeing him climb up to face you.  Truly impressive scale.

I dislike puzzles that have an ultra specific solution, rather than a pattern.  This boss suffers from that sadly.  Clearly you need to move up along the walls, but how?  First floor isn’t too bad, he stomps and causes a platform to tilt. The next level though..that took me over 15 minutes.

He will swing his sword at you (slowly) but you need to be at a very specific spot to trigger the next part.  There are 8 alcoves that are possible and the effect only triggers in a specific portion of one of them.  That part done, move up to the top bridge and have him smash it down.  That exposes his head for ~90% of his HP.  Then the 2nd trick.

Drop to his shoulder, stab to make him drop the sword.  Then jump all the way to the ground, wait for him to smash you and jump into his palm.  That’s the last spot.

When you know exactly what to do, it does look really cool.  When you don’t, it’s incredibly frustrating as it is not at all obvious as to what you’re doing wrong.

Last Fight

This is a bugger of a battle. Next post will cover the fight against a colossus the size of a small town.

Didn’t have much time this run.  Late day at work, had to run some errands, fit in a workout. I did get the chance to watch a bit of Hans Zimmer Live (Netflix), which was really an experience.  STAY from Interstellar…still get some goosebumpbs from that one.  I still have parts left to watch.  And re-watch.

Colossus 9

In which the game decides to add complexity and beauty.

The road to this guy is a retread but the last little bit is in a sandstorm.  I recall this from the PS2 days and it feels different here.  Mostly to due with how the fog of war effect is much more noticeable here, since in most cases you can see the horizon.  PS2 had a much smaller draw distance.

The turtle-like boss can shoot fireballs at you, and they hit well enough.  You need to draw him over 1 of 2 gas plumes on the ground.  Then shoot 2 of his feet that are pushed in the air, run to his belly, then wait until he turns over and climb on his back.  It’s a neat effect to be on the side of the creature, then on the back.  The rest of it is rather simple.

Colossus 10

Woo does this fight look cool.  The ligh from above comes into the cave, and with all the flying dust, it gives a great visual effect.

My horse got caught on a ledge, so I walked in on my own.  I was trying to figure this out on my feet without any real luck.  Actually, with a fair amount of damage taken from the undersand strikes.  The game has an automated hint system that kicks in every minute or so, and this one mentioned that my feet were not enough.  *click*  Horse time.

Sure enough, leading the horse in front of this sand worm let me shoot his eye (not exaclty easy controls), who then proceeded to crash into a wall for an easy stun.  2 such events was enough to bring him down.

It’s near this point that you really start to notice how dirty/grey the hero has become.  It’s such a gradual effect that you don’t appreciate it at first.  He’s starting to blend in more with the sparse land and has lost the freshness.  I’m sure it’s entirely visual and not mehcanics, but he appears more weary.  Half expecting a limp to show up.

I’ve been including videos in these entries because the game looks and sounds so different from most anything else.  It’s a barebones mechanical system of combat (sword and bow) but because the production values are so high, that gameplay scarcity just amplifies everything else.  I still find myself stopping in the middle of a field, or a climb to just look around.

I have a fascination with puzzles.  Making order out of chaos.  Games are order, wrapped in chaos, that you need to filter through.  My goal is often to make games boring, but having a ton of fun getting there.

SotC is that exemplified.  Once you know the trick of taking down a colossus, the execution part is a matter of practice.  With the updated control set in the PS4 version it is much easier to have the character do what I want him to do, when I want him to do it.

Number 6

This is the first colossus where I think you can actually die.

You need to jump over some barriers then hide behind a small wall.  Eventually he’ll drop his head and you jump on his beard.  The art here is neat, since it seems to slow down time a bit during certain parts.  If you can make those first 3 walls, the rest is rather simple.

Number 7

An interesting eel-type monster, he moves extremely slowly but can hit you with some electric shocks.  There’s not much trick here, other than patience.  You need to wait until he swims up to you, avoid the shocks, grab the tail and then make your way to the head.  I can’t recall if it’s possible to make it in 1 go, and as long as you avoid the shocks, it’s pretty straigthforward.

Number 8

This one is a bit of an odd one.  More of a lizard that climbs the inside of a cylinder and will eventually shoot you with some gas bombs.  Avoiding those isn’t too hard.  The challenge here is hitting 2 of his 4 legs when he’s on a wall with your bow, then dropping to the bottom and attacking.

The challenge is only at the start though, since you’re 6 stories up and dropping all the way down in 1 go is a bad idea.  Once you are on the ground floor, getting back to the 1st floor is easy.

Halfway Done

The cutscene after the 8th is a bit longer, and the young lady appears to wake up during the dream sequence.  If I recall, the first 8 were also the “training wheels” portion of the game.  You learn the basic controls, the speed of the colossus, how to aim with a bow, how to use the environment to your advantage.  Rarely do you need to use more than 2 of those per fight.

I know the sand worm is coming up, and that was the most painful fight for me.  Well, #16 is like fighting a battleship with a toothpick… but that’s a different matter.  Looking forward to more!

Was away in Florida last week.  Sunny.  Spent it with the in-laws and we were able to rest up a bit.  Did a fanboat tour of the Everglades, that was pretty neat.  Guide did a super job. Went to a large Bass Pro Shop which was cool.  Horse track, restaurants, boardwalk… all the tourist stuff.  It’s interesting because it’s different, yet also familiar.  Makes me miss the cottage…and coming back to weather 50 degrees colder was a punch in the gut.

Shadowy Past

Ugh, sorry.

I played the original SotC on the PS2 on a small-ish TV. I must have put 40 hours into that game.  It was the focal point for the argument of “games as art”.

I picked up the PS3 version (with ICO) a while ago to play on a very large screen.  It didn’t click as well that time.

PS4 version recently came out, and more of a remake than a remaster.  Controls have been tweaked (great).  The graphics/art have been overhauled.  It feels like watching a movie.  Video comparison below.

(Quick side note.  I ordered the game at 9pm from Amazon and it was delivered to my door by about noon the next day.  How can anyone compete with that model?)

The thing that’s most impressive is the draw distance.  I can see the horizon instead of a fog of war.  The way the lighting filters through makes me stop and pause.  My wife made note that MHW was a prettier game, and on that I won’t disagree.  SotC is a muted game, where the lack of things is what makes it so impressive.  There is beauty in simplicity.

Down Goes the Giant

Playing from memory, the first 5 colossi went down without too much effort.  I do recall the original play through, where each one was a puzzle that needed cracking.  It’s always more fun the first time completing a puzzle, but the 2nd and 3rd (or more like 10th now) you get to appreciate some of the smaller details.

The 3rd one in particular was a head scratcher.  You need to get him to swing his giant sword on a specific spot on the ground.  You know exactly what to do, but getting a lumbing 20 story giant to follow along is a tough one.  The 4th is a similar event, knowing sort of what to do but having trouble getting it done.

My wife watched the 3rd and thought it was relatively simple.  She had some suggestions for the 4th, which was neat to see.  When I was finally able to climb aboard, she was as happy as I was.

Then the 5th.  This is a flying bird, gliding over water.  You need to get it’s attention, then figure out how to board it.  Memory worked, found the ledge and then the fun began.

The ones previous to this lacked the concept of movement.  They were slow moving.  This one provides a great sense of movement, size, and distance.  Hanging vertical, running to a tail in the wind… just feels amazing to go through.  Even falling for a good 5 seconds into the water is exillerating.

The Toll

As I was fighting the 5th, my wife noted “he’s not very agressive, like the monsters in that other game”.  Good observation, and one that helps articulate why this game is not like the others.

It’s a rare event that playing an older game gives the same feeling as in the past.  Knowing what’s coming is making all the details that much richer.  I am really enjoying my time here.

Monster Hunter World is based on the simple concept that you kill monsters, make gear from their loot, and kill harder monsters.  Rinse and repeat.  There’s, for the most part, a linear structure to the power curve.  Think Diablo; you get more powerful stats to get stronger.

I have currently “red completed” all the optional quests to 7*, which I consider having completed the proper game and entered “end game” – the tempered monster hunt.

Further, MHW is split into 3 tiers.  Low Rank, High Rank, and Tempered.  The first two follow the same power curve, the latter does not.

Low Rank is split into 3 sub-groups of monsters, in terms of general difficulty – Great Jagras as the low end, Odogaron at the high end.  That works, and there’s a somewhat clear path to progression.  It’s also fairly linear, meaning the change is gradual.

There’s a major milestone when High Rank is unlocked, since the needed power level is just a tad more than what Low Rank can provide.  You need to offset that power need with better gameplay performance.  Git gud.  High Rank has 4 sub-groups of monsters (elder dragons are the 4th), and once you are comfortable with the low end, moving to the high end isn’t too bad.  The gaps between the sub-groups are larger than low rank, so killing something like a Laviasoth is a challenge if you only have gear for a Pukei Pukei.

Still, it works and you can see progress.

Unlocking these enemies is also rather straightforward.  They all have a preferred habitat and you can generally find them within a minute or two.  This also unlocks investigations and optional quests to hunt them ad-infinitum.

Tempered enemies are different.  These are the same enemy types as in High Rank (3 subgroups), but they are at much higher power levels.  A tempered Bazelguese will kill you in a single hit if you’re not adequately prepared.  There is no power increment (HP/Attack/Defense) from gear to offset this change.  You need to start crafting potions.  You need to select specific gear sets, with specific skills.  You need to have a specific set of decorations (gems) for even more skills.

Potions are easy enough to farm up.  The pieces can literally be farmed from the Tree in Astera.  Gear isn’t too bad either, since all the drops are from High Rank enemies.  Some pieces are a bit more rare (Wyvern Gems) but it usually works out in a couple runs.  That leaves decorations, which are randomly dropped, and have 4 drop tables (A, B, C, D).  There’s a whole hidden table on this, and multiple YouTube guides to make the best of th situation.  The point is, that you need to either be a) lucky or b) gaming the system to come out ahead.  And there’s no path of progress… you simply loot the decoration or you don’t.  Even the Melder (to upgrade 3 gems to 3 other gems) is randomized.

Did I mention that these quests are not optional, and to find investigations you need to track down tempered tracks in the maps?  There are about 8 tracks per map for Tier 1 monsters, 4 per map for Tier 2, and 1 per map for Tier 3.  Getting an investigation is random, and the monster assigned for that investigation is also random. In fact, in order to get Tier 3 Tempered investigation missions, it’s best not to complete the HR49 mission for a Tempered Kirin, and simply follow it collecting tracks.

From Low Rank to High Rank, the path is both clear and somewhat linear.  From High Rank to Tempered, the path loses that clarity and is dependant not only on hidden systems, but RNG on top of other RNG.  After WoW-Legion, I have had nearly enough of that model.

My guess is not enough people have hit this milestone.  It honestly takes quite a few hours to get here, and even once there the problem isn’t exactly evident as you’re still working on gear sets.  I am also guessing that Capcom is going to modify this sytem in a future patch, to make it both more transparent to the player, but also to open up more challenging hunts that don’t require RNG to unlock.

Until then, I think I’m going to take a step back.

I have been forever fascinated with numbers, all shapes and sizes.  How they apply to so many situations. I never wanted to be a mathematician, but that was for practical reasons – no one really gets to see how the back end stuff works.  Numbers in spreadsheets though – that’s second nature.

When I was younger, I worked in a grocery store.  The computer system in the 90s was rudimentary – DOS based and made for ordering.  I thought it could be improved and allow for sales projections.  I made a deal with the owner to work full time on an new inventory system, just for the deli side of the business.  Going from paper inventory (every month) to digital was a big change, but it did open my eyes to some parts of the business.  Specifically that a deli was running 30-50% margins on the products because they had a shelf life.  We bought something for $1 and sold for $1.50.  Things with very long lives had ~10% markups.  Things with high volumes had even smaller markups, around 5%.  Each category made a similar amount of gross profit at the end, but through different means.

Games and Damage

Games are similar.  I played some D&D and the numbers for damage were always intriguing.  At level 1, it made sense to take a large weapon for the single swing and damage.  At level 4, well dual blade attacks were possible and mages had a large amount of spells at hand – meaning the single large swing wasn’t as useful.  Armor complicated things, but mages never really worried about that…

Enter computer games and the speed of dice rolling.  In the majority of cases, armor was turned from an absolute number, to a flat %.  This meant that rather than lose say 10 damage per swing, which impacted daggers much more than a greatsword, every attack was now losing 30% damage.  There are many such exampled, but let’s use both EQ and WoW to make the point.

Base weapon damage was “harmonized” to a great degree.  The damage per second was relatively equal per weapon type (ignoring spells for simplicity).  The difference makers were skills and passive benefits.  e.g. using a staff provided a defensive boost, while using fists provided more chance to provoke a status effect.  The choice was in the effect, not so much the damage.  This was a class-first approach.

Development eventually focused on items, and the age of weapon procs came to be.  They were originally % based on the number of attacks, but it was obvious that multiple fast attacks were preferable.  Harmonized again, and the procs then became capped per minute (PPM), and eventually fell out of favor in development practices as they were nigh impossible to keep relevant/balanced across all classes.

Back to magic users for a second… in nearly all cases it’s preferable to take a lower damage skill that can be used quickly (or in movement) versus one that takes a while to trigger.

This is a common thread in other game types as well.  FPS games certainly have sniper rifles / rocket launchers but they require time to set up and great skill to use effectively.  These large attacks need support from other groups to line up.  Card games are similar, it’s a long set up to get a payoff, compared to continually chipping at health.  In most cases, it’s better statistically to go for volume instead of one large attack.

Monster Hunter

The concept of volume and margins applies here, at different points in the game.  It wildly impresses me that all weapons are fairly well balanced, depending on the role that is played.  Dual Blades are all about volume, and they are amazing at applying status effects.  They recover quickly from missed strikes, and therefore favor a very offensive playstyle, and generally reward a critical based attack (affinity).

Charged Blade (and the Heavy Bowgun) are very slow but can deal tremendous damage – if you hit.  They dramatically favor strategic attacks and defensive play.  They have poor crit chance, and instead focus on raw attacks – high margins.

I’ll give two examples.  The Juyratodus is a rather slow water monster.  Easy to hit with the Charged Blade, and will drop over really quickly as there’s room for error.  Dual Blades still deal damage, but since it’s like hitting a barn, they don’t really shine.  The Odogaron is an extremely quick beast that jumps all over the place.  You need to memorize the patterns in order to get a slow/telegraphed strike to hit, or find a way to make him stop moving.  Barring that, Dual Blades can zip all over the place, avoid getting hit, and find flesh to strike the majority of the time.

There are plenty of videos showing what a fully mastered Charge Blade can do.  They all have the Rocksteady Mantle, meaning that you don’t get knocked back.  They all focus on stunning the target to reduce movement.  Reducing the number of variables so that the only thing that matters is damage margins.  Heavy Bowguns are the same… stop the target from moving.

In all honesty, I find it quite fascinating that a game is able to provide that level of flexibility and still maintain balance throughout.  In the majority of games that we see today, there are cookie cutter builds that work in 95% of the situations.  Sure, there are outliers (e.g. Warlock tanks) but when’s the last time we honestly saw true flexibility?  In a world of min-maxing…it is a breath of fresh air to try something and know that it’s more than likely viable.

I finished up the 3 elder dragons after Nergigante, then the final boss Xeno’jiva, to complete the main campaign.  I won’t go into the hours taken, since there were times I just left the PS4 on… but my guess is around 20.

Of those 4 last dragons, none were the challenge of Nergigante.

Kushala Daora is a nuisance as there are tornadoes everywhere and getting into melee range is a challenge.  Flash Pods work wonders.  Fun little fight, but a ranged attacker will shine here.  The final “nest” zone is chaos, which is great!

Teostra is a fire dog, that has explosions everywhere.  Extremely aggressive and lots of damage over time due to the fire.  The final bit in his lair is a hectic run to avoid all sorts of explosions.  Cool drinks are mandatory to offset the heat HP drain.  It’s quite a lot of fun.

Vaal Hazak is an undead dragon in the Rotten Vale – plenty of Effluvium around.  There’s no way to avoid it, and you need to bring Nullberries to revers the 50% HP debuff.  He is rather weak and slow compared to the other two.

Xeno’jiva is a massive dragon, the largest by far.  Melee really only has a decent chance hitting the front paws.  It acts more like a mobile cannon, continually shooting beams from it’s jaws.  Deadly beams.  It eventually goes crazy and starts leaving fire spots on the ground, and when it rears up on the hind legs, it will generate a large 1-shot AE.  In fact, as a general rule whenever any dragon goes on its hind legs, run away.  Flash Pods don’t work here, and this thing has twice the HP of any other dragon.  Easy battle, just very long.  And sharpening the weapon can be a pain.

Closing out after 10 minutes of cutscenes, you unlock a higher HR (level), the ability to meld (use items to make other items, randomly) skill gems, the ability to use two utility devices (now you can always use the Bandit Mantle), and more quests.

I’m far from done with MHW.  It feels like the rest of the game opened up for fun, and I can finally see what I want to focus on as end-game.  Plus, many of earlier challenges are seemingly a lot easier.  My character’s power increase is part of that, but the sheer skill development required to beat some of the tougher monster (looking at you Nergigante) has honed my reflexes to a high degree.

I have two builds I want to try – one that’s crit (affinity) based for my dual blades that requires high sharpness, and another for raw single damage for my switch blade.  It’s neat to see so many skills available to try, though I fully understand the grind to get the appropriate decorations (skill gems) to finalize the build.  I’d guess a solid 40 hours or so before I consider this game “complete”.  Very rare for any game to hit that mark nowdays.

Rumors have a tendency to be self-fulling, in particular when they are on the border of ‘ehh, I guess that’s possible’.  The more they are talked about, the more the folks involved can see if people like the idea.  It’s a well known tactics for a company to plant a rumor, just for that effect.

This one concerns the company I like to dislike.  Seems many others to too – but this is my blog.  Rumor is that Disney is looking for another gaming company to take over the Star Wars franchise from EA.

Neato.

The Good

• I dislike EA and their business practices.  I used to love EA in the 90s but they, along with Activision, went bananas with greed driving every decision.  EA in particular has a notorious habit of buying smaller developers, and then laying them off.  Then using that company’s IP and re-branding the game with micro-transactions (Bullfrog and Dungeon Keeper are prime).  Anything that hits EA’s pocket book is good, and SW is a massive money maker.
• It’s possible this goes beyond Lego Star Wars and the rest of the games, where Disney can license the material to many companies.  There is so much potential in that franchise… it seems wasted.
• The SW mobile games by EA are atrocious – they need to go.
• RPGs! Where are our SW RPGS?!  EA makes horrible RPGs, this is potential!
• Rogue Squadron / Tie Fighter anyone?
• Maybe BioWare can be bought by another company, giving them a second life.

The Bad

• Loss of this franchise near guarantees massive job cuts.  It really sucks.  Hopefully they can follow the franchise to another company.
• Disney is the largest media monopoly and the simple thought of this occurring is making waves.  That level of power/influence is scary.
• Changing companies means a large dip in terms of timelines for a good SW game to let the other company come to speed.
• There’s a risk that SWTOR closes if this goes through.  Which is unfortunate since it’s a decent game…

The Ugly

• Knives in everyone’s back until this rumor is put to bed by Disney with a new contract.
• Could be the complete end of BioWare as Mass Effect is most likely permanently shelved, and SWTOR isn’t exactly brimming with development news.
• Disney’s driving force is a tough one to crack.  As much as they love money, they value reputation nearly as much.  SW:BF2 didn’t meet it’s market projections and made major negative media lines.  It’s entirely possible that EA addresses this, and this limping beasts keeps moving forward.
• When giants topple, there are always little folk that get hit that we don’t ever hear about.

I’ve mentioned numerous times the obscure and obtuse systems that make MHW run so well.  Nergigante is a solid example of that.

Imagine if you will, a giant dragon that continually grows thorns, and if those thorns grow numerous enough, it will throw them at you for a 1 shot kill.  There really isn’t a good way to avoid him using the skill, but enough damage will break the thorns and delay the attack.  Further, the deadliest attack is a dive bomb that not only can kill you straight on, but will explode the thorns sideways as well.  Fun times.

Now onto the obscure systems – namely food and diving.

Food

Food items are based on type and color.  Any increment of 2 (2, 4 or 6) provides a larger benefit.  Food types provide either attack, defense or resists in small/medium/large amounts.  Food colors have a chance of providing a specific buff – there are 6 color types.  One of the most notable ones is from 6 blue items, which can provide a buff that gives 1 free death per quest.  The catch is that ingredients can only be used once per quest, and that buffs can only be triggered if the ingredients are fresh (random if they are, per quest).  You can use a voucher to assure that they are fresh, but you are severely limited in vouchers.  And additional ingredients are found in quests…so it’s unlikely to have say, 6 blue fish before you’re all the way at the end.  And this doesn’t count random daily buffs from food.

All of this is provided in a 2 paragraph tutorial screen that sums to say “eat food before eating to get benefits”.  I needed to test each food combo, click a button to get a description of the skill, then cancel and repeat.  Fun times!

TLDR: Always be eating.

Diving

There are many avoidance moves, depending on a few factors.  Most weapons allow you to roll out of the way, though movement speed can be slow for large weapons.  Some provide a side lunge attack to close the distance, or to run away. Understanding how those moves works allows you to stay away from the face, and focus on the sides without getting hit.

Then there’s superman.  This is achieved by sheathing your weapon, pressing run and dodge at the same time.  You will launch yourself on your belly and for most of that duration, be immune to damage.  The catch here is that each weapon takes a different amount of time to put away, and you need stamina to dive.  One of the only effective ways to avoid Nergigante’s dive bomb attack is to use this move.

It took me way too long to figure out this invincibility bit, and once I did, Nergigante became a different fight altogether.

(Side note.  Diving/jumping from ledges acts differently if you have your weapon out or not.  Ledges can act as walls in some cases)

Free Addition: Flash Pods

Flashbugs can be turned into Flash Pods.  You can have up to 10 of the former, and 3 of the latter.  Using this on your sling attack will cause a monster to be disoriented. Using it on a flying dragon causes them to fall down and get slightly stunned.

Flash Pods have a ~90% success rate.  Be sure the monster is affected before running over.

TLDR: Always have Flash Pods.

The more I play of this, the more I realize the sheer stupid pleasure of a grind.  Where else would I play for 45 minutes, fail in a spectacular fashion, and still have a smile?  It seems like every single action taken, no matter how small or large, provides some movement forward.  I learn a new skill nuance, I learn new timing, I get a new ingredient for a buff, I find a new gem, I get the last piece to craft that piece of gear.  And there’s a lot of joy heading back and smacking some heads that took me to town not too long ago!