Immortals Fenyx Rising - Burp of the Wild

[HarryBizzle]

Someone previously mentioned something about different ways to approach the combat, but there doesn't really seem to be that much depth, to me. Even if you try and stealth, your first stealth attack usually alerts everyone else to your presence. You can shoot them from a million miles away with an arrow, but enemies still figure out where you are, even with no line of sight.

 

So far, this has been at its best where it's giving me something me something environmental to do - roll this enormous pearl down to the ocean, etc. But there's not really that much of it, and instead you end up doing all these little 7/10 puzzles, which aren't that great but feel somewhat novel because of how dumbed down gaming is these days - Lara Croft and Uncharted tier "puzzles" might as well not even exist. Platformers have almost completely abandoned them, too.

 

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that the bits in between each discrete puzzle could be massively improved if there were some pervasive systems you could play with, BOTW style. It's odd that Ubisoft, who went big on emergent gameplay with games like Far Cry, have put almost none in this.

[Fletch]

26 minutes ago, Majora said:

 

Where you drop multiple orbs into a grid on the floor so they match a mural on the wall. I've been finding them really quite time-consuming, I did one yesterday that must have taken at least half an hour. It's not always obvious where the orbs are and they can be spread out across a surprisingly large area.

 

Cool thanks I've done a couple of those will seek out more so I can get those coins. 

[schmojo]

7 minutes ago, Fletch said:

 

Cool thanks I've done a couple of those will seek out more so I can get those coins. 

 

Things to put your money into early:

 

Hephaisto's Hammer + the power upgrade

Glide boost

Climb jump

Sword combos

Ares' Wrath (the 'uppercut' becomes a really useful vertical boost in the air)

Phosphor Clone & Heavy lifting - both make a lot of puzzles much easier and quicker to finish.

 

Even with the swim boost, I tend to find I die maybe... 60% of the time I get in the water.

 

Once I'm done wrapping shit, I might put this game to bed later today. I've enjoyed it though.

[Fletch]

Just now, schmojo said:

 

Things to put your money into early:

 

Hephaisto's Hammer + the power upgrade

Glide boost

Climb jump

Sword combos

Ares' Wrath (the 'uppercut' becomes a really useful vertical boost in the air)

Phosphor Clone & Heavy lifting - both make a lot of puzzles much easier and quicker to finish.

 

Even with the swim boost, I tend to find I die maybe... 60% of the time I get in the water.

 

Cool thanks, I've got the one where it sends the swords up. The one that drags you up to vertical enemies looks useful. 

 

Sorry I'm not great with the names. 

[Strafe]

Anyone else finding the vaults a bit of a chore? None of the charm of botw’s shrines.

[Fletch]

1 hour ago, Strafe said:

Anyone else finding the vaults a bit of a chore? None of the charm of botw’s shrines.

 

They are a lot clunkier for sure and I had one where I had to redo the environmental puzzles after backtracking for a chest that I could only reach after getting to the top of the vault. 
 

[schmojo]

2 hours ago, Fletch said:

 

Cool thanks, I've got the one where it sends the swords up. The one that drags you up to vertical enemies looks useful. 

 

Sorry I'm not great with the names. 

 

That's Ares' Wrath. Really useful for throwing you up in the air when it looks like your glide won't quite hit the ledge.

 

Re: the vaults. I mean, I'm sounding like the #1 advocate for this game, but I've enjoyed more than I've been annoyed by. There's some inventiveness and some filler, and I found BOTWs vaults to also have plenty of dull stuff.  The main benefit is that I wasted too much time on BOTW's worse shrines. In this, I'm only doing as many vaults as I need to.

[Yiggy]

27 minutes ago, schmojo said:

In this, I'm only doing as many vaults as I need to.

This. I agree that the vaults probably aren’t quite as good as the shrines. Though as so many of the ideas are ‘borrowed’ it’s quite hard to say. 
 

However in BOTW they were essential to boost your health and stamina. The relevant currency to do this in Fenyx is gained elsewhere so if you don’t get on with them, hopefully you don’t have to do too many. 

[Yiggy]

32 minutes ago, schmojo said:

That's Ares' Wrath. Really useful for throwing you up in the air when it looks like your glide won't quite hit the ledge.

I’m finding the massive axe smash very effective as my first major upgrade. Gives it some quality heft. 

[Majora]

2 minutes ago, Yiggy said:

This. I agree that the vaults probably aren’t quite as good as the shrines. Though as so many of the ideas are ‘borrowed’ it’s quite hard to say. 
 

However in BOTW they were essential to boost your health and stamina. The relevant currency to do this in Fenyx is gained elsewhere so if you don’t get on with them, hopefully you don’t have to do too many. 

 

You upgrade stamina with Zeus's lightning which you can only get at the end of the vaults though, right?

[Yiggy]

1 minute ago, Majora said:

 

You upgrade stamina with Zeus's lightning which you can only get at the end of the vaults though, right?

Ha ha. You know what. You may be right. I was struggling to think of which of the numerous currency’s gets you stamina when I said that!

 

At the very least you don’t need it for health bars as I KNOW that’s ambrosia rice. 

[HarryBizzle]

Anyone else find tree-Aphrodite is incredibly unsettling to look at?

[Yiggy]

1 minute ago, HarryBizzle said:

Anyone else find tree-Aphrodite is incredibly unsettling to look at?

Yeah. I didn’t get wood.

[schmojo]

Aphroditree 

[Majora]

Gradually picked up on an issue with this and the ambient background music. After a day or two I noticed it seemed to be non-existent so I rebooted the game and it started almost immediately and was much more frequent. Resumed the game today and after a couple of hours noticed I hadn't really heard any music, rebooted and it's there again.

 

Wondering if it's related to quick resume on Xbox somehow.  I know it's not meant to be continuous but sometimes it's just absent entirely for hours.

[metallicfrodo]

This does seem to have an issue with Quick resume, which is really annoying as it does that 'checking for additional content' which takes longer than the actual loading of the game if you start from scratch. I'd say 90% of the time it hard crashes (black screen then back to dashboard) after about a minute when quick resumed. This is the only game that I'm playing that doesn't quick resume properly.

[HarryBizzle]

Quick Resume also completely breaks the daily tasks and buying anything from Hermes.

 

 

Anyway, just finished Aphrodite’s quest line, and while I still have plenty to do in the Valley of Eternal Spring, I think I’m going to head off to Ares’ bit.

 

Thought this guy was pretty cool:

 

[Yiggy]

The sound is really good in this game over headphones and Dolby Atmos. Some of the most atmospheric and best placement I’ve heard.

[Yiggy]

I switched to Graphics mode on the series X last night and it looks really nice. It still looks nice in performance mode but I’ve left it with all the particle effects and pretty things for now as so much of the game is exploring. It looks stunning in places. 

[sandman]

This may not be my game of the year, but it’s certainly my surprise of the year. 
 

I never heard of the game until I saw it advertised in Game. I picked it up on Switch and haven’t looked back since. Just a lovely game to play and experience. I do agree about the “comedy “ voiceover which I am not a big fan of. 

[JPL]

I wonder why they pretty much sent this one out to die while promoting Valhalla and Watch Dogs? I always thought this looked far more interesting and from what I’ve read in here, it seems like it’s the best of the 3.

[Yiggy]

21 minutes ago, JPL said:

I wonder why they pretty much sent this one out to die while promoting Valhalla and Watch Dogs? I always thought this looked far more interesting and from what I’ve read in here, it seems like it’s the best of the 3.

Because it’s a new IP and the others are bankers. They probably also thought it would be a popular Christmas game or will sell a lot when it reduces in price. 
 

There’s a lot of love in it for sure. 

[Majora]

I haven't played an Assassin's Creed game since Black Flag, I just can't bring myself to do it when I hear about how large the worlds are. I know I would burn out and never finish them. This is definitely better than Watch Dogs Legion though which I didn't hate but was a great concept in search of a good game.

 

When I look at the size of the map in Immortals I'm still not sure if I'll ever finish it but it feels like it could be manageable. I nearly always burn out on open world games before I actually complete them when repetition inevitably sets in but I get the impression that if I got to the stage where I wanted to mainline the story it probably wouldn't be a particularly long game.

[deerokus]

2 hours ago, Yiggy said:

I switched to Graphics mode on the series X last night and it looks really nice. It still looks nice in performance mode but I’ve left it with all the particle effects and pretty things for now as so much of the game is exploring. It looks stunning in places. 

Yeah, the difference between quality and performance is more noticeable than usual, the over the top particle effects are really nice and fitting for the aesthetic. 

 

The combat has the basics of a really good combat system - it's like a blend of God of War and a Warriors game in a way - but in execution it's just fine. Better than assassin's creed. 

[moosegrinder]

12 minutes ago, Majora said:

I haven't played an Assassin's Creed game since Black Flag, I just can't bring myself to do it when I hear about how large the worlds are. I know I would burn out and never finish them. This is definitely better than Watch Dogs Legion though which I didn't hate but was a great concept in search of a good game.

 

When I look at the size of the map in Immortals I'm still not sure if I'll ever finish it but it feels like it could be manageable. I nearly always burn out on open world games before I actually complete them when repetition inevitably sets in but I get the impression that if I got to the stage where I wanted to mainline the story it probably wouldn't be a particularly long game.

 

If I was going to recommend any I'd say Odyssey. It is fucking huge, and can be a tiny bit grindy but it's one of the few open world collectathon Ubisoft bullshit I've stuck with, mainly because Kassandra is fucking ace and the various side quests and main quests had a decent balance of good writing, compulsion and humour. But yeah, it's like an 80-120 hour investment.

[ryodi]

1 hour ago, JPL said:

I wonder why they pretty much sent this one out to die while promoting Valhalla and Watch Dogs? I always thought this looked far more interesting and from what I’ve read in here, it seems like it’s the best of the 3.

 

Immortals has a PEGI 12 rating so is targeting at a younger audience than Watch Dogs and Assassins Creed which are both rated 18. It's also available on Switch which which the other two games are not so I don't think it was sent to die even though whatever marketing it had has been completely drowned out by the other two games. 

[HarryBizzle]

2 hours ago, Yiggy said:

I switched to Graphics mode on the series X last night and it looks really nice. It still looks nice in performance mode but I’ve left it with all the particle effects and pretty things for now as so much of the game is exploring. It looks stunning in places. 

I keep trying the 30fps mode but just can’t get used to how it feels. So sluggish and the 30fps refresh just makes everything look blurry when in motion. 
 

Totally agree on the sound, though. Am amazed how good the surround is on a pair of headphones. 
 

Photo mode is a bit limited, but still fun:

 

[macosx]

This is my Xmas game, and so far a few hours in am really enjoying it especially the puzzles. Looks a bit lacking in contrast/soft  in the gfx but maybe it’s the the Xmas beer.

[Wiper]

On 24/12/2020 at 15:09, schmojo said:

Aphroditree 

 

I am sorry, but as an honoured member of the fun-killer society, I must notify you that the proper pronunciation of 'Aphrodite' is actually 'ah-fro*-dee-te**', and so your pun must be stricken from the record.

 

Aphrotreete would be acceptable, however.

 

*as in 'from'

**as in 'ten'

[moosegrinder]

39 minutes ago, Wiper said:

 

I am sorry, but as an honoured member of the fun-killer society, I must notify you that the proper pronunciation of 'Aphrodite' is actually 'ah-fro*-dee-te**', and so your pun must be stricken from the record.

 

Aphrotreete would be acceptable, however.

 

*as in 'from'

**as in 'ten'