Elden Ring (From Software RPG)

I just don’t see how it’s possible to level your character to 200 and have 5 kids and only play for ten minutes of every hour that you’re ‘allowed’ or ‘allocated’ to play? It took me 150 hours to create a level 120 character, and I’m single, and for every hour that I allow myself to game, I actually game for the entire hour. WTF?
 
I just don’t see how it’s possible to level your character to 200 and have 5 kids and only play for ten minutes of every hour that you’re ‘allowed’ or ‘allocated’ to play? It took me 150 hours to create a level 120 character, and I’m single, and for every hour that I allow myself to game, I actually game for the entire hour. WTF?
I mean, some of this falls into the category of, "if I told ya I'd have to kill ya."

However, shoot the bird, sir. Shoot the bird. Also, dad magic. Which directly translates to loss of sleep. Pretty sure I killed Malenia the first time at 3:30am... Wake up for work started at 6am. This is how I go [Hard] sometimes.
 
Read alot about the concerns and I've spent a few days in "dad time" playing. For those who don't know "dad time" is sitting down to play, but really only getting 10 minutes of playtime per hour broken up in 60-90 seconds increments during the hour because kids.

Decisions have consequences, but at least they're living proof I've had sex at least 5 times in my life.

Anyhoo... I've found three maps and killed a handful of bosses, dragons, and ransom stuff. Not spoiling anything.

Level 200 Unga-Bunga... first off... my Ungas and Bungas just don't UngaBunga like they used to. I learned getting the death peanuts and consuming them at the camps fixes this. I've hunted lots of death peanuts on Torrent. Ungas and Bungas working closer to what was expected, but not bungaing as hard as original. I think this is great because it was preposterous that I could run into a room, buff a few times, and smash an aircraft-carrier sized boss in the toe to death in one shot. Loving the renewed challenge.

Also "DLC" is a lie. This is a full game. It's absurd in all the best ways possible. The DLC gauntlet has been thrown.

Folks really should consider leveling to an appropriate spot before coming here. They should also use the in-game growth systems. Finally, use all of your tools and put your pride in a box. Yeah, some maniacs can do it, but that's because they're freaks of nature... us ordinary folks - do everything you need to survive and win.

This has been a spectacular experience for me so far. I hope they don't nerf it at all... except for that jerky in the gaol right at the start. What a butt head he was. He unga-bungad harder than I did and it made me sad.
You should put this review on Steam to offset all the idiocy.
 
I find that it's better to use mimic for bosses than human summons. I've killed all the bosses I've ran into so far within a dozen attempts, with mimic and no human summons. Some even on only 2-3 attempts. Human summons just give the boss way too much heath, you can't kill it fast enough, you eventually run out of health and fp flasks.
My latest boss:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOrpR4WgAfQ
As long as you use the tools given, and play the way the game is telling you (leveling up you Scudtree blessings, revered ashes) difficulty is just fine.
I think my blodhound fang with +7 scudtree is over 50% stronger than in base game.
 
As long as you use the tools given, and play the way the game is telling you (leveling up you Scudtree blessings, revered ashes) difficulty is just fine.
I think my blodhound fang with +7 scudtree is over 50% stronger than in base game.
But I feel bad if I don't beat the max difficulty, nerf it for my pride /cry /whine.

/s
 
Seems like most people complaining about the difficulty are playing the game without using spirit ashes and the new revered spirit ashes.

"I'm going to complain about the difficulty because I refuse to use all the tools the game gives me since I'm a 'purist' idiot."

No, that's just what the devotees are trying to pin on "most people" when it's only a handful. It has issues and as usual the FromSoft defenders just ignore every aspect even for features that are not well fleshed out.

The blessing system is unimaginative and lame (a straight stat boost that you just hoover up off of the ground as you're running around the area like a Roomba and they don't even transfer to the base game), the camera is worse than it's ever been, the bosses throw so many bright particle effects all over the screen that it's you're like being flashbanged every other attack, etc. I don't know how they borked the camera so much when they had it figured out for Sekiro; that in addition to an FOV from 2005 means that you're literally fighting inside the boss models much of the time. e.g. the Scarlet Rot boss has a centipede front that slithers around for it's movement animation but it also has an attack that's telegraphed by the head; if you're in melee range then that attack literally just looks like the normal movement because the head is 10 feet above you and out of your viewport, which means you take damage and get knocked down/staggered from the base of her body that just looked like it was doing the standard slithering animation. And there are some questionable hitboxes; e.g. On two separate occasions I was eaten by the hippo even though I was stabbing it in the asshole; just randomly sucked me up it's rectum and into it's mouth.

Exploring has been pretty enjoyable but I'm starting to get kind of tired of all the running around looking over cliffs and picking up trash; there are so many dead ends and you very very rarely end up with anything useful or interesting. e.g. the forest level; it has awesome atmosphere but it's huge, you can't use Torrent, there's like 2 or 3 crafting books, a spell IIRC, and everything else you find is trash like mushrooms or low-level smithing stones. Like 5% of that area has a somewhat fun stealth aspect to it and the rest is just empty space that you have to run around on foot while one-shotting the same rats that you've fought in every single FromSoft game. IIRC there are only 4 different enemies in that entire area; rats, bigger rats, humanoids that carry candle sticks, and the eye monsters. And that's the same in most areas; huge wide open spaces with loot that's so uninteresting that you might as well be volunteering at a local park to pick up beer cans and Mcdonalds bags, a crypt/dungeon, and maybe a blessing if you're lucky. And that's kind of the deal as I see it; every area looks freaking amazing but they can feel like replaying Consecrated Snowfield or worse, Lost Izaleth at times.

I decided that I'd just start summoning players and play it like a standard coop RPG so I can get it over with and move on to something else. But even when I took that stance I noticed that there are also issues with summoning. e.g. 95% of the time you'll get a 'unable to summon player' message, apparently due to someone else summoning that player to their game at the same time. When that happens it doesn't clear the 'summoned state' so it locks you out of summoning your Spirit Ashes AND blocks you from accessing the grace until you die/reload. I realize that some of these are issues in the base game as well but I guess I just ignored them since they didn't really affect me more than a handful of times (I've already died to the camera swooping around causing me to dodge in an unintended direction more times than I have in every DS and ER playthrough combined). I'm sure I'll keep creating new toons to play but I'll skip the DLC unless there's something that I can just quickly run in and grab for a new build. Random thought; it would have been sweet if they had placed some basic versions of the new weapons types in the old world. But then they didn't even bother to put in a SOTE menu screen or new SOTE focused loading screens so it's pretty obvious they just wanted to be done with it.

IMHO, the DLC is pretty awesome. It looks amazing, the dungeons are fun, and the crypts are way better than the base game. But it's also repetitive and the leveling/loot/rewards/bosses just feel like they didn't get much testing. It's like they spent the last 2 years building the world and then 2 weeks just randomly dropping shit into it.
 
Seems like most people complaining about the difficulty are playing the game without using spirit ashes and the new revered spirit ashes.

"I'm going to complain about the difficulty because I refuse to use all the tools the game gives me since I'm a 'purist' idiot."
The game also has tons of consumables/craftable consumables, which many people only seem to barely utilize. Even something like a basic throwing knife is incredibly useful.

But, there are tons of other useful things to deliver damage, buff stats, etc.

I probably finish off like 1/5 of my enemy encounters with throwables, in Souls games/Elden Ring.
 
Seems like most people complaining about the difficulty are playing the game without using spirit ashes and the new revered spirit ashes.

"I'm going to complain about the difficulty because I refuse to use all the tools the game gives me since I'm a 'purist' idiot."

I don't think anyone can deny that beating all the bosses in a From Software game (Sekiro, Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Bloodborne) solo without any summoning/co-op/spirit ashes requires a lot more skill...it has nothing to do with being a 'purist'...it's about skill...there are people that are just on a higher skill level

we need the casuals to buy the game to fund the admittedly relatively lower percentage of players that do play completely solo...so use co-op or whatever tools the game gives you but it has nothing to do with being a 'purist'
 
No, that's just what the devotees are trying to pin on "most people" when it's only a handful. It has issues and as usual the FromSoft defenders just ignore every aspect even for features that are not well fleshed out.

The blessing system is unimaginative and lame (a straight stat boost that you just hoover up off of the ground as you're running around the area like a Roomba and they don't even transfer to the base game), the camera is worse than it's ever been, the bosses throw so many bright particle effects all over the screen that it's you're like being flashbanged every other attack, etc. I don't know how they borked the camera so much when they had it figured out for Sekiro; that in addition to an FOV from 2005 means that you're literally fighting inside the boss models much of the time. e.g. the Scarlet Rot boss has a centipede front that slithers around for it's movement animation but it also has an attack that's telegraphed by the head; if you're in melee range then that attack literally just looks like the normal movement because the head is 10 feet above you and out of your viewport, which means you take damage and get knocked down/staggered from the base of her body that just looked like it was doing the standard slithering animation. And there are some questionable hitboxes; e.g. On two separate occasions I was eaten by the hippo even though I was stabbing it in the asshole; just randomly sucked me up it's rectum and into it's mouth.

Exploring has been pretty enjoyable but I'm starting to get kind of tired of all the running around looking over cliffs and picking up trash; there are so many dead ends and you very very rarely end up with anything useful or interesting. e.g. the forest level; it has awesome atmosphere but it's huge, you can't use Torrent, there's like 2 or 3 crafting books, a spell IIRC, and everything else you find is trash like mushrooms or low-level smithing stones. Like 5% of that area has a somewhat fun stealth aspect to it and the rest is just empty space that you have to run around on foot while one-shotting the same rats that you've fought in every single FromSoft game. IIRC there are only 4 different enemies in that entire area; rats, bigger rats, humanoids that carry candle sticks, and the eye monsters. And that's the same in most areas; huge wide open spaces with loot that's so uninteresting that you might as well be volunteering at a local park to pick up beer cans and Mcdonalds bags, a crypt/dungeon, and maybe a blessing if you're lucky. And that's kind of the deal as I see it; every area looks freaking amazing but they can feel like replaying Consecrated Snowfield or worse, Lost Izaleth at times.

I decided that I'd just start summoning players and play it like a standard coop RPG so I can get it over with and move on to something else. But even when I took that stance I noticed that there are also issues with summoning. e.g. 95% of the time you'll get a 'unable to summon player' message, apparently due to someone else summoning that player to their game at the same time. When that happens it doesn't clear the 'summoned state' so it locks you out of summoning your Spirit Ashes AND blocks you from accessing the grace until you die/reload. I realize that some of these are issues in the base game as well but I guess I just ignored them since they didn't really affect me more than a handful of times (I've already died to the camera swooping around causing me to dodge in an unintended direction more times than I have in every DS and ER playthrough combined). I'm sure I'll keep creating new toons to play but I'll skip the DLC unless there's something that I can just quickly run in and grab for a new build. Random thought; it would have been sweet if they had placed some basic versions of the new weapons types in the old world. But then they didn't even bother to put in a SOTE menu screen or new SOTE focused loading screens so it's pretty obvious they just wanted to be done with it.

IMHO, the DLC is pretty awesome. It looks amazing, the dungeons are fun, and the crypts are way better than the base game. But it's also repetitive and the leveling/loot/rewards/bosses just feel like they didn't get much testing. It's like they spent the last 2 years building the world and then 2 weeks just randomly dropping shit into it.
I do agree on one point, it does seem like they spent two weeks randomly dropping useless shit and are now laughing at us going all out to get to those leafs and smithing stones 3 :)
 
I don't think anyone can deny that beating all the bosses in a From Software game (Sekiro, Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Bloodborne) solo without any summoning/co-op/spirit ashes requires a lot more skill...it has nothing to do with being a 'purist'...it's about skill...there are people that are just on a higher skill level
I’ll deny it, its’s far more a matter of patience than skill.
 
I don't think anyone can deny that beating all the bosses in a From Software game (Sekiro, Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Bloodborne) solo without any summoning/co-op/spirit ashes requires a lot more skill...it has nothing to do with being a 'purist'...it's about skill...there are people that are just on a higher skill level

we need the casuals to buy the game to fund the admittedly relatively lower percentage of players that do play completely solo...so use co-op or whatever tools the game gives you but it has nothing to do with being a 'purist'
To these people it is about being what they think is a purist. Even when the game first came out there were people saying that summoning ashes didn't belong in a "Souls" game. If it wasn't supposed to be exploited then the designers wouldn't have made the summoning bell one of the first items it gives the player.
 
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To these people it is about being what they think is a purist. Even when the game first came out there were people saying that summoning ashes didn't belong in a "Souls" game. If it wasn't supposed to be exploited then the designers wouldn't have made the summoning bell one of the first items it gives the player.

there a lot of items given to the player...it doesn't mean the player needs to use all of them...it's just a tutorial...I'll quote myself from earlier in this thread:

"I think people are confusing what is considered an actual game mechanic...using strength, magic, faith builds etc is a mechanic...using co-op is not a mechanic, it's a way of making the game more accessible...Miyazaki has stated on the record that the games are not difficult for the sake of being difficult and how difficulty is used as a teaching tool to make the players better...I think the games are meant to be played solo with the option for co-op if you're at the point of rage quitting...or as a way for players to get through the game and come back in a later playthrough with the knowledge and skills required to beat them solo"
 
there a lot of items given to the player...it doesn't mean the player needs to use all of them...it's just a tutorial...I'll quote myself from earlier in this thread:

"I think people are confusing what is considered an actual game mechanic...using strength, magic, faith builds etc is a mechanic...using co-op is not a mechanic, it's a way of making the game more accessible...Miyazaki has stated on the record that the games are not difficult for the sake of being difficult and how difficulty is used as a teaching tool to make the players better...I think the games are meant to be played solo with the option for co-op if you're at the point of rage quitting...or as a way for players to get through the game and come back in a later playthrough with the knowledge and skills required to beat them solo"
Are you quoting yourself or Miyazaki when you state, "co-op is not a mechanic". It looks like you're twisting a single statement by Miyazaki to suit your own argument but I'm not 100% sure. I would think that if Miyaki said such a thing it would be one of those Japanese words/phrases that doesn't have a direct English translation. Every feature that affects gameplay is a "mechanic".
 
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Even with summons ER is harder than the vast majority of modern games out there. Plus, early on everything including you, your summons, weapons, etc. are a very low level, not like you can hop in with a jellyfish and just steamroll everything.

Frankly the summon or not argument is just so damn tired, play however tf you care to.
 
I beat the game without summoning or co-op on my first run.

I recommend to my friends to summon and don't feel shame if they do.

It's all about enjoying the experience! If no summoning and solo'ing makes you feel more accomplished: Awesome! If you could care less, go nuts with summoning and magic, etc.





However if you cheese ROB katanas I have no respect for you 🤣
 
Are you quoting yourself or Miyazaki when you state, "co-op is not a mechanic". It looks like you're twisting a single statement by Miyazaki to suit your own argument but I'm not 100% sure. I would think that if Miyaki said such a thing it would be one of those Japanese words/phrases that doesn't have a direct English translation. Every feature that affects gameplay is a "mechanic".

co-op is not a mechanic was my statement not Miyazaki
 
Calibration Update 1.12.2

Attack and damage negation curve scaling of the Shadow Realm Blessings have been revised

-The attack and damage negation has been increased for the first half of the maximum amount of Blessing enhancements, and the second half will now be more gradual
-The attack and damage negation granted by the final level of Blessing enhancements has been slightly increased

We have confirmed a bug where the raytracing settings are automatically enabled if you have previously loaded saved data from previous game versions

Other balance adjustments as well as bug fixes are also planned for a future patch

https://www.bandainamcoent.com/news/elden-ring-patch-notes-version-1-12-2
 
So in response to everyone complaining about the difficulty… FROM made the game even harder? “There… take that, assholes.”

I must be reading that wrong. LOL. It would be funny if they actually did that though.
 
The entire point of the soul's genre games is they're extremely difficult.

And now normies are buying them and complaining they're too difficult. LMAO
 
Calibration Update 1.12.2

Attack and damage negation curve scaling of the Shadow Realm Blessings have been revised

-The attack and damage negation has been increased for the first half of the maximum amount of Blessing enhancements, and the second half will now be more gradual
-The attack and damage negation granted by the final level of Blessing enhancements has been slightly increased

We have confirmed a bug where the raytracing settings are automatically enabled if you have previously loaded saved data from previous game versions

Other balance adjustments as well as bug fixes are also planned for a future patch

https://www.bandainamcoent.com/news/elden-ring-patch-notes-version-1-12-2
That reads like a nerf.

I suppose one could opt-out of the new player scaling system altogether, but this is definitely FromSoft caving into player complaints.
 
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The entire point of the soul's genre games is they're extremely difficult.
Extremely difficult… but fair and rewarding.

I can notch up the difficulty level in dozens of my games by pushing sliders to the max… essentially making them more difficult than Dark Souls… but the challenge isn’t rewarding, it’s just frustrating.

FIFA is just one example of this. If I notch the difficulty level to the max in FIFA (now called EA FC) then for me personally it becomes almost impossible to win a game. In this case, I’m shaking my head and saying to myself: my god, this is more difficult than Dark Souls.

And it’s true. More difficult… quite a bit more difficult actually… but not more enjoyable.

The reason for this is simple: the difficulty level in Dark Souls is crafted and in FIFA it’s not. Those of us who play the FROM games love them because they’re difficult, but also fair (we’re forced to learn things) and extremely rewarding (after learning a boss, and finally defeating it, we often feel a sense of elation that’s somewhat akin to an endorphin rush).

The weird thing is that so many of these bosses, once we learn how to defeat them, actually seem easy… or at least much easier. This isn’t the case with those other games… we start maxing out difficulty sliders but the difficulty remains frustrating and unrewarding.

So I don’t think that the point of the FROM games is really that they’re difficult, I think it’s because they’re expertly crafted to challenge us in ways that are fair and rewarding.

If you’re a developer, and you don’t understand this, then your game is going to suffer as the result. FROM doesn’t just throw in a bunch of difficulty sliders like so many other developers do. They’re craftsmen… not lazy, tree-fort builders who think that the difficulty of a game can be shoe-horned in.

LOL… sorry for tirade.
 
Doesn’t look like they nerfed anything, just boosted the early gains from Scadutree fragments. Not sure if this is official but seeing it posted online, not like the DLC will be easy now..

1719421251746.png
 
Even with summons ER is harder than the vast majority of modern games out there. Plus, early on everything including you, your summons, weapons, etc. are a very low level, not like you can hop in with a jellyfish and just steamroll everything.

Frankly the summon or not argument is just so damn tired, play however tf you care to.
Part of that is trying to jump into a souls game at this point is really hard. You won't understand the stats system, the weapons/armor system, etc., unless you have already completed other souls game. I played Lies of P (only playing a few other souls-like games) and had to watch some youtube vids to understand wtf I was supposed to be doing.
 
Doesn’t look like they nerfed anything, just boosted the early gains from Scadutree fragments. Not sure if this is official but seeing it posted online, not like the DLC will be easy now..

View attachment 661960
Making the player more powerful is technically a nerf. Granted this isn't a large swing of balance; however, with this latest patch your character now hits harder and absorbs more damage than before.

Label it however you want it, this patch is the first step towards making the game easier. From are using careful wording such as "Calibration" to make it not sound so dramatic.
 
Part of that is trying to jump into a souls game at this point is really hard. You won't understand the stats system, the weapons/armor system, etc., unless you have already completed other souls game. I played Lies of P (only playing a few other souls-like games) and had to watch some youtube vids to understand wtf I was supposed to be doing.
ER was my first and I was absolutely clueless. Early game was intensely difficult for me. It took a lot of time, effort, and patience for me to get over what I refer to as the “Souls hump”. So glad I did though, these games are my absolute favorite now and I’ve run through all of them except DS2, which I just hated. Lies of P is the best Souls like by a mile too, can’t wait for more of that.
 
Making the player more powerful is technically a nerf. Granted this isn't a large swing of balance; however, with this latest patch your character now hits harder and absorbs more damage than before.

Label it however you want it, this patch is the first step towards making the game easier. From are using careful wording such as "Calibration" to make it not sound so dramatic.
Sounds more like a buff to me.

Anyone that wants all the difficulty can simply not use the fragments they collect, all the enemy health pools and AR’s are unchanged.

I’m fine with the wording as it absolutely is not dramatic.
 
"In the embrace of Messmer's flame."
Fuck you too Mesmer.
It took me the whole evening. Had to watch online videos, look up weaknesses, go to albinaurics to up my vigor by 5 levels, found out about the additional summon inside the arena, upped Zamor Curved Sword to +10 even though I never used it before, put the heaviest armor I head, and finally I did it.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EBzSoa-Pjs
I could relatively easily get to phase 2, and then I was either getting killed immediately or I'd roll around until running out of stamina and then getting killed. There is just no pause in phase 2.
 
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ER was my first and I was absolutely clueless. Early game was intensely difficult for me. It took a lot of time, effort, and patience for me to get over what I refer to as the “Souls hump”. So glad I did though, these games are my absolute favorite now and I’ve run through all of them except DS2, which I just hated. Lies of P is the best Souls like by a mile too, can’t wait for more of that.
I think Sekiro and Lies of P are my 2 favorite souls-style games. I haven't played Shadow of the Erdtree yet, haven't had time, but hopefully it's good when I eventually get to it.

Lies of P set my expectations really high going forward though, it was such a good game.
 
I accidently attacked and then killed the white face NPC at the beginning of the game.

Did I lose out on anything significant?

Already it seems I ruined my chanced of getting to Morgwyn palace through his quest line, forcing me to go the long way to find the portal :/
 
I accidently attacked and then killed the white face NPC at the beginning of the game.

Did I lose out on anything significant?

Already it seems I ruined my chanced of getting to Morgwyn palace through his quest line, forcing me to go the long way to find the portal :/
I don't think killing Varre has any major consequences, unless you're trying to max collectibles in a single playthrough.

Yeah, killing him early will deny you early access to Mohg. Either start over or just progress to the Mountaintop of the Giants where the portal is.
 
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Helldivers 2 director weighs in on Shadow of the Erdtree's difficulty

the DLC is currently at Mixed reviews on Steam as many players agree it's too hard to be enjoyable, but even still, there are some fans who think the high skill ceiling is a great feature and one that makes FromSoft games stand out

One such person is Helldivers 2 director Johan Pilestedt, who recently began replying to Shadow of the Erdtree players, discussing its difficulty and talking about why he actually likes it..."The games industry is now big enough for there to be so many exciting experiences for all audiences," Pilestedt says. "I try to imagine having this variety when I was 10... It would have been mind-blowing!"

"A game for everyone is a game for no one," Pilestedt says. "Always cater to a select audience"...

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/h...lty-a-game-for-everyone-is-a-game-for-no-one/
 
Helldivers 2 director weighs in on Shadow of the Erdtree's difficulty

the DLC is currently at Mixed reviews on Steam as many players agree it's too hard to be enjoyable, but even still, there are some fans who think the high skill ceiling is a great feature and one that makes FromSoft games stand out

One such person is Helldivers 2 director Johan Pilestedt, who recently began replying to Shadow of the Erdtree players, discussing its difficulty and talking about why he actually likes it..."The games industry is now big enough for there to be so many exciting experiences for all audiences," Pilestedt says. "I try to imagine having this variety when I was 10... It would have been mind-blowing!"

"A game for everyone is a game for no one," Pilestedt says. "Always cater to a select audience"...

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/h...lty-a-game-for-everyone-is-a-game-for-no-one/
I wonder how old this guy is. When I was ~10 we had NES games that were pretty frickin' hard.
 
I wonder how old this guy is. When I was ~10 we had NES games that were pretty frickin' hard.

Seriously. Even beyond the NES, arcade games were hard AF to get you to spend more money on the spot. They were "pay to win" before that was a thing. That's not to say that the Souls games are easy or anything, but they have nothing on the games of the late 80's and early 90's.
 
Or the OG Metal Gear with that fucking star rank system starting you over in the jungle, if you had less than 2 when you died during the Supercomputer showdown.
"The truck have started to move" :LOL:
I never played the original NES games, only the first one on PS1. I've heard it was a PITA, though. I think the hardest games on NES (that I played) were Ninja Gaiden and Ghosts 'n Goblins. I feel like 5 year old me was way better at games than adult me.
 
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