I’m still neck deep into NiOh 3, working my way to the platinum trophy. It’s been such a tantalizing experience, and scratches that Elden Ring itch. By that, I mean its open world design. I prefer this approach to the genre because the difficulty of formidable bosses can be overwhelming. Being able to go somewhere else, explore, and level up gives you the feeling of always making strides to improvement.
That said, the final boss for the first region, Takeda Shingen was the bane of my existence. There were moments I contemplated whether or not victory was even fractionally possible. My death count was approximately 25 times, and my head hanged low before I had to go to work for the day. Prior to him, the (boss) fights had been challenging, but my confidence grew with each attempt. Nine hours later, I arrive home from work, and tell myself that I can beat him. Once again numerous deaths. And then I learned a pattern. Though I still died I was consistently getting him to the halfway mark. And then I learned another pattern. And another. Two attempts later, I beat him.
Sometimes, you just need to take a step back for a while. You have to realize that this is just a video game, and it can be beaten. Once I didn’t let the enemy frustrate me, toy with my emotions, and make me play defense, reacting for sheer survival rather than be offensive minded and focus on positioning, I knew I could do it. There is no other feeling like adrenaline. Subsequently, the next main boss I encountered I was victorious on the first attempt.
Meanwhile, during my lunch break at work, I read the news that Xenoblade Chronicles X got a Switch 2 upgrade; I downloaded it as soon as I could. It’s nearly been a year since I’ve last played — I have forgotten the controls and sole core mechanics. I’m debating whether I want to start a fresh playthrough, or boot up my save file that has 120-hours logged, and get accustomed to the systems again. I will probably choose the latter, knowing I more than likely won’t finish it if I start anew.
