First of all, I want to say that it’s wonderful to see all of you here, and your critical support of the nation I proudly call home. But more and more recently, especially reading through Chinese internet too, there has been a sense of overconfidence and overglorification of China. It is honestly a little worrying at times for me, because as much as I love my homeland and is proud of what we are doing, I know full and well that we are still a long way to go. I see this sentiment of China being the glorious land far away as a bastion and utopia against Western Imperialism and while there’s a lot of truth behind that sentiment, and I definitely understand why one not living in China would choose to believe this (I live in the US now and I understand your pain, fellow US comrades). I just want to remind everyone to exercise dialectal materialism on this subject and try to look at China in a less idealised way. We cannot grow to be better without recognising our mistakes. Anyways that is my little message to you all. Have a nice day!
I actually dislike the controls and game of monster hunter world. Playing feels off and the controls aren’t tight. I dislike that games approach to gameplay loop with chasing a monster for 20 plus minute with chunky health bar. I prefer more of a duel type fights that doesn’t last long. Demon’s souls and dark souls boss design were lacking and are too basic. Many off them are way too passive and too much health with boring move set. Ds1 dlc actually fixed this issue with the boss design. I like ds1 interconnected world but the levels themselves are just tight corridors with weak enemies. I personally enjoy the dynamic bosses from ds2 dlc and ds3 bosses. Gael and soul of cider from ds3 are peak boss design in gaming where the insane amount of movesets and variations of attack are just too enjoyable for me. But that’s just me. Everyone just different taste. I love talking about game design since I want to form indie studio after finishing university.
This I agree, Artorias is still the greatest game boss ever. Some weapons in monster hunter are definitely loose feeling like you said, but go try lance, charge blade, great sword, gunlance, those all have insane tightness that puts Souls gameplay to shame. Souls gameplay also feel loose af until you get it.
I think relying on anime combo bullshit like in elden rings is taking a step lack. It should always be a trade of 1:1 even if the boss is being fast af, Artorias achieved this, even before his triple flips, you could still get a hit in with good timing.
The issue with Elden Ring bosses to me is that they don’t feel like duels. They feel like "look at me danceee, okay now you have one chance to at… PSYCH LOOK AT ME DANCE. You can literally feel how obnoxious their input reading BS is too where the mobs do literally nothing for up to 30 seconds and then stab you at the precise moment you press a key, like any shield spear soldier.
Half these bosses feel like they’re straight up cheating. Carian Knight before renalla is another example of the most obnoxious input reading possible. Dude has no recovery frames from being staggered either, you stagger em, and he can instantly parry within 10 frames of being staggered.
tl;dr: a lot of bosses don’t feel like duels, and souls games always feel like a downgrade in gameplay from the side games like bloodborne and sekiro.