From PC Gamer: "Elden Ring dataminers have been increasingly turning to the pre-patch, 1.0 build of the game in search of FromSoftware's development secrets. Earlier this month, dataminer kotn3l uncovered a version of secret megaboss Malenia(opens in new tab) who's more aggressive, blocks your attacks better, and has a second variation of her signature move.
Love her or hate her (I love her!) Malenia is hands down one of the hardest bosses to appear in a FromSoft game. She's a master swordsman, with fast, varied attacks, vampiric healing on hit, a second health bar, and the legendarily difficult-to-avoid anime samurai flurry attack, Waterfowl Dance.
I think she took me as many attempts as Bloodborne's gnarly Orphan of Kos, but condensed over the span of a few days instead of weeks. Most of those attempts met their end against Waterfowl Dance."
Some of the best PS5 games are exclusives like God of War Ragnarok and Astro Bot, but there are some indie highlights as well.
These are the best Easter eggs in video games—from Atari to Elden Ring. Hidden secrets, surprises, and scandals await.
Saving some trapped aliens in Super Metroid and seeing them escape. Daisy's third eye in Melee. Seeing Mario characters portraits in a window at Hyrule castle. Megaman X using Ryu/Ken's movesets in mutiple entries. Bayonetta cosplaying as Fox McCloud while using an Arwing to kill angels and demons. So many good ones throughout the years.
VGChartz's Mark Nielsen: "Halfway into the decade and the 2020s has been an interesting one for gaming in both good ways and bad, with the restructuring of the industry, a mix of innovation and the same old, and of course many, many long waits. But there have also been many quality titles, to be sure; the last three years in particular have seen a number of critical darlings. Something the most acclaimed ones have had in common (with the obvious exception of Astro Bot) has been an absolutely massive scope, easily boasting 100+ hours of content.
In my own experience that massive amount of content hasn’t always been a positive; in fact I would go so far as to call their slightly overeager strive for quantity a shared flaw of these games. I’ll be looking at four titles in particular here and going over the different ways in which these otherwise solid experiences became victims of having just a bit too much fluff."
To much unimportant content and bloat is mote likely to cause me to stop playing or never revisit it. Especially when it feels like you're forcing the player to do side quests to pad out your game length just to make it long enough so you won't have the player trade the game in to fast
One recent example for me is Hogwarts I enjoyed the story but despised the level gating there was no real reason to lock missions behind a leveling system it was just forcing the player to fly around doing side quests and puzzles so they could advance to the next chapter
omg hogwarts
i love every second of it but damn, does it feel like a chore to play haha.
Hogwarts Legacy should have stuck to what other games couldn’t do: Let us be a Hogwarts student. The open world aspect was just like any Ubisoft game.
Honestly wish it had more of a Bully feel. It was clear that 90% of the attention went to the school and town and the rest felt like the northern chunk of Just Cause 3's map. Almost like they had to justify the flying mechanic by spreading things out.
Yeah agree the Hogwarts castle and grounds is ripe for exploration. Look at the PS1 Argonaut game i felt like that old game did a better job with relaying what it's like to be a student at Hogwarts than what legacy did.
Legacy was like ok you've done a few classes learnt to ride a broom go spend the next multitude of hours exploring nearby towns and killing hundreds of goblins and spiders I don't think they did enough with the school grounds.
I appreciate them including Hogsmeade but I felt like it didn't need to expand past that point
Why don't we have more 12-15h single player stories for $45 is beyond me.
My guess is I recall around the late 2000s game trades were a big issue which resulted in publishers shifting away from standard single player campaigns that could be beaten in a month and we started to see more expansive open worlds that would take longer to see everything to keep the player invested long enough that they wouldn't trade in the game when it was going to be the most profitable retail window e.g the first month
With the rise of all digital games I can see those games making a comeback as there is no second hand market
Expecting a 12-15h game to be $45 is part of the problem. These games don't sell well at full price anymore and relatively speaking it takes a lot fewer resources to stretch it into a 30-40 hour game that can be sold for full price.
We can complain about padding all we want, but most people simply pay more for padded games.
Eternal Strands $48. 18 hours
Citizen Sleeper 2 $23 10 hours.
AstroBot (got as a gift) 16 hours and they keep adding levels.
Totally agree. I'm tired of the same bloated fluff that games present as 'content.'
Act 3 is massive. I think I finished the game 4 times for the platinum and I know I must have missed at least half the stuff in that city
i feel like Rebirth only really had Costa del sol as a bloat. but its a long game, so i dont blame the author
she isnt hard at all, used a bleed build with bk tiche and we destroyed her - was on like the 3rd or 4th attempt.....theres way harder bosses in the game than her
There is a theory that Malenia [a few other bosses] are actually recycled from a canceled Sekiro DLC. Anyways, I recently beat Elden Ring. I played through the title using strength and dexterity build.
I would not recommend the build I used. Malenia and many other bosses are difficult to fight as melee. Many bosses due high damage melee, ranged and area-of-effect attacks.
Malenia ability to heal herself is annoying. As she heals herself even if you block her attacks. To beat Malenia as a melee fighter you have to break her poise and kill her as quickly as possible.
Stop calling Soulsbourne hard.
Hard are Vergil, Alma, Rodin.
I use a standard strength build with a claymore and heavy armour and I struggled initially until I tried going full on aggro, me and my mimic tear made short work of her.
I don't know how long Orphan of Kos took me but it was a long time until I won. Even when I had it all figured out it was still hard as nails.
I think there's harder in the game. She has terrible poise and is weak to bleed/fire. Radagon/Elden Beast I think is harder as they're too in a row and the Elden Beast doesn't really have a weakness apart from being a bit slow.
Depends how you look at it really, she's as hard as you make it if you don't have the right build, but the weaknesses are clearly there.