Rynling R&D

I’ve gotten much better at using the Ultrahand to rotate objects in space, but the shrine puzzles aren’t getting any easier.

The problem with the Ultrahand tool is that its attachments don’t consistently snap to a grid. Breath of the Wild was robust enough to allow multiple solutions to spatial puzzles; but, in Tears of the Kingdom, there is (almost) always only one solution, and this solution needs to be precise. When you understand what you need to do but the game insists that you can’t do it without being fussy, this can be maddening.

I’ve been going through two or three shrines a day, and every day I’ve encountered a simple puzzle that’s taken half an hour to complete. I’ll look at guides online that confirm I need to do exactly what I think I need to do, but attaching Thing A to Thing B to Thing C in exactly the right way at exactly the right angle requires a ridiculous degree of precision. In addition, it’s frustrating to lose time exiting and then re-entering a shrine when I make a mistake at the end of a sequence and all the puzzle pieces fall into a void.

Today I plan to do my first full dungeon, the Lightning Temple in Gerudo Desert. We’ll see how it goes.

The reason I’ve been focusing on completing shrines is to get more hearts. I want to spend more time exploring the underground area, an enormous full-dark Halloween playground filled with jumpscares. I think, if I weren't infested with Dark Souls brain fungus, I might be frustrated by how often you die in The Depths. But thankfully, to my Soulsborne-rotted mind, the puzzles implicit in The Depths (ie, try not to die) are much more satisfying than those presented by the shrines.

Ender Lilies is a fantasy-themed 2D adventure-platformer with moderate elements of horror and a moderate level of difficulty. Unlike many modern Metroidvania games, there is nothing retro about the graphics. The backgrounds are gorgeous works of HD digital art filled with stunning details, and the characters and enemies are all beautifully animated. Both the combat and exploration are a lot of fun, and it’s a joy to move through this ruined world.

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It’s easy to dismiss Ender Lilies as “2D anime Dark Souls for casuals” at a glance, but I ended up being genuinely moved by the story and characters. The visual imagery isn’t anywhere near as gory and explicit as Blasphemous, but the horror themes are expressed with creativity and style, and Ender Lilies is nothing if not atmospheric. In terms of gameplay, I think Ender Lilies may be a perfect Metroidvania. The game features various ease-of-life concessions that help make it more accessible without diminishing the thrill or challenge of the gameplay, and I think this intentional cleanness of design is an innovation to the genre in and of itself.

And finally, I appreciate how the spirits you currently have equipped hang out with you at save points. There’s really nothing I love more than the image of a cute girl sitting amongst weathered ruins surrounded by grotesque monsters as rain falls in the background. That’s the good stuff right there.

Fairy Tale is excellent. I really enjoyed it.

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Another nice thing about Fairy Tale is its illustrations. Damn I love when books have good art.

I’ve been enjoying listening to the Dark Souls podcast (this one right here), as the two hosts share my taste in horror and humor. They’re also respectful of real-world differences both in terms of how they talk about stories and how they treat actual people, which I appreciate. Just because you make dick jokes doesn’t mean you have to be gross.

I find the banter between the hosts and their guests to be a lot of fun and super relaxing to listen to when I’m working in Photoshop, and I also like learning about the stories of Dark Souls and Elden Ring, both of which cater to my niche interests but are unfortunately too difficult for me to play. (I mean, I’m trying! I’m just very bad and very slow.)

Anyway, I skipped ahead in the podcast to listen to their episode about the manga Berserk (here), and one of the hosts said something interesting about horror and how it works.

( Content warning for discussion of Berserk, both spoilers and sexual violence.  )

Having rung the second Bell of Awakening in the spider swamp, Tulip was admitted through a massive gate into a place called Sen's Fortress. I don't know who Sen is, but their fortress is a hot mess filled with traps straight out of a Mario game. These traps include rolling boulders dropped by a giant and flaming boulders thrown by another giant. If you're feeling ambitious, you can actually make your way to the giants and attack them.

After killing his first giant, Tulip fell down some stairs and died.

This was especially embarrassing because it happened immediately after an NPC told Tulip that he would never make it through the fortress. That NPC was a dick, but damn if he wasn't correct.

With the help of a walkthrough, Tulip has made it through Blighttown. Good job, Tulip!

Blighttown is a vertically-oriented shantytown clinging to the lower reaches of the castle's outer walls. It's like people decided to live on the construction scaffolding instead of tearing it down, but maybe this wasn't the best idea. Everything is rickety and unstable, and the game managed to give me a genuine moment of vertigo the first time a plank bridge shifted under Tulip's feet.

Blighttown is also filled with giant mosquitos for some reason. It turns out this reason is that it's perched over a poisonous swamp. Hidetaka Miyazaki is famous for loving poisonous swamps, and I was disappointed that the swamps Tulip previously encountered had no poison. I am disappointed no more, and I hate it!

Anyway, the theme of the poisonous swamp is "spiders." According to the walkthrough, this evening I will have to fight a giant spider in her spiderweb lair. I'm one of those weird people who think spiders are kind of cute, so I'm looking forward to it.

Tulip has conquered the swamp! He gallantly defeated a giant water hydra that had no way of defending itself at close range, and he bravely shielded himself in a corner while a swamp witch defeated a giant moth.

Unfortunately, upon further research, I learned that both of these swamp areas are optional. Also, there is more swamp elsewhere. But that's okay! As I wrote earlier, it's a beautiful swamp.

Thankfully the swamp provides a shortcut to the next mandatory area of the game, which is called Blighttown. The concept of Blighttown is, "What if spiders and mosquitos and leeches, but large?"

Tulip's most heroic feat in Blighttown so far has been to stand at the top of a wall while shooting dogs corralled into a small enclosure at the bottom of the wall. In Tulip's defense, the dogs could breathe fire.

Tulip has slain a mighty sewer dragon! Good job Tulip!

Specifically, this is the Gaping Dragon, which is introduced by a fantastic cinematic sequence. You see what you think is its head poke out of the water, but then the "head" is just the tip of its gigantic snout. It turns out that this thing is all teeth all the way down. The boss is enormous, and Tulip had to get stomped to death a few times before I figured out that you can just run around behind the dragon and smack its tail.

I found a good area for grinding for equipment upgrade materials afterwards, so Tulip's armor has become very pretty and shiny. I love how each upgrade to a piece of equipment ever so slightly changes its appearance. One upgrade doesn't make much difference, but cumulative upgrades are quite impressive over time. The level of detail is in this game is insane. I hope the people who made it are okay.

I also want to say that I really appreciate the cinematic sequences in Dark Souls. They are all very short but extremely effective. I don't dislike cinematic sequences in games, but I prefer when they're infrequent and not overly lengthy. I think Breath of the Wild handled its cinematic sequences really well, to be honest. Let it be known that Dark Souls has some good ones too.

Tulip beat the Capra Demon! With magic.

The problem with the people writing guides for this game is that they're all very good at it. This means that none of the "strategies" they describe for beating the bosses work for someone like me, who is not good at anything.

The Capra Demon won't kill you in one hit, but he'll kill you with two. He's a double wielder, so if he gets in one hit he'll almost certainly get the second one as well. Instead of trying to block and roll and all that other nonsense, I realized that what I needed to do is stay the fuck away from him. So I bravely ran away and attacked him from a distance with magic. It took a while, but he eventually went down.

After taking the Capra Demon's key and using it to embark into the lower interior of the castle, Tulip then proceeded to fall down a hidden hole, where he was immediately killed and eaten by sewer lizards.

Apparently, the Capra Demon is just a normal enemy when you get deeper into the mountain under the castle. That means that this lone Capra Demon just wanted to live a quiet life in a quiet sunlit garden with his two dogs, and he probably kept the door to the castle kitchens locked so that nobody bothered him. I feel kind of bad for killing him tbh. But not too bad. Tulip has places to be!

Some context: I am back on the Dark Souls diet. My Chosen Undead is the basic default male character. His name is Tulip. I would like to record Tulip's adventures because I am very bad at this game.

Today Tulip feel down some stairs and died.