Below Catch-All

Below is out now on PC and Xbox One. It's definitely a challenging game that doesn't hold your hand or explain too much. Also, spike traps.

Figured a catch-all would be a good idea so we can compare notes! Going to spoiler some really early "here's how you get on with things once you land." This is basic stuff, but I'm already hearing from people they wasted a lot of time trying to puzzle out a complicated solution to what's basically just a big, open area with little to do.

Spoiler:

The very first thing you'll want to do is go straight, climb the mountain. Once you're in the grass field keep heading up until you find a lamp. From there you'll need to head ... right or left, I forget, and enter the dungeon from there.

Also, once you're off the boat, there's a campfire and a cave just behind it to the right.

Cool! This sucked me in hard last night. I can post a few tips when I get home this afternoon. This game does not hold your hand AT ALL! I love it. I'll share one quick tip for resource conservation I figured out.

Spoiler:

Once you pick up the lantern, you can shine the light beam by holding LB, or you turn on/off the lantern aura just by tapping LB. Having the lantern aura on will slowly deplete your light crystal resource, so be sure to use EITHER the lantern or the torch, not both. If you take out the torch, tap LB to turn off your lantern so you're not burning two resources for no reason.

Is the game supposed to start with a 5+ minute non-interactive view of a low res ship on the water? I’ve been sitting watching for long enough that it feels like it’s a bug and not just a cinematic opening.

EDIT: Yup.

YEP. It’s daring you to quit and get a refund I think. If you can’t wait out that intro the game probably isn’t for you. The early spike traps kinda reinforce that

Loving the game so far, aside from my fear that I’d hit a breaking bug. Deep, opaque, and gorgeous are my initial impressions!

It's pretty baffling trying to figure things out.. I'm semi-disappointed its yet another Rogue like..I've died a bunch of times to spike traps and probably my least favorite game mechanic starvation. I do love the presentation though.. its just cool to look at and experience the sense of scale they have achieved.

I'm getting a Demon Souls feeling of "Argh, what the hell is going on?!" early bit, then suddenly it clicks and I stay alive and make a ton of progress for 90 minutes then I hit some new enemy/area and I'm back to dying and pulling my hair out. At least they build in some shortcuts and catch-up things so it stings less as you get deeper, but Below is going to shake a lot of people off in the frustrating, confusing first couple hours.

And then the new, inventive insta-kill traps deeper down.

I tooled around with it a bit, but I'm going to wait for someone else to do the heavy lifting. Just don't have the patience for experimenting, so I'll read a walkthrough before going back.

Sounds like the uber-unexplained aspects are something that would've been more en vogue five years ago or so, but I feel like we've moved past that a little and games that hew too strongly to the unexplained side are viewed negatively (see: Has Been Heroes). I feel like the Souls games have a common gameplay language threaded through them so the feeling of "I don't know what I'm doing" is mitigated a bit.

Another potential pitfall is when the depth of the game is tied up in discovering things and not the actual mechanics and systems of the game.

We shall see. I keep getting a Fez vibes from this, like everyone is spending the first few days discovering the surface level of everything but there's a deeper undercurrent you can only do Z over later and it puts everything else in perspective.

Definitely picking this up at some point. I'm a big fan of rogue-likes these days.

Random tips up to the 4th floor:

Spoiler:
  • Use EITHER the lantern or the torch for light at any one time, not both. If you take out the torch, tap LB to turn off your lantern so you're not burning two resources for no reason.
  • If you're lantern-less while trying to get back to your body and low on torches, you can press down on the D-pad to drop light crystals on the ground to shed a bit of light on your path.
  • Attack spike traps to set them off. You won't die from touching them after they are activated.
  • If you see a white question mark prompt, try shining your lantern at it by holding LB. It might do something.
  • Craft whatever you can whenever you can to free up inventory space.
  • "Kindling" a bonfire by spending 25 light fragments seems to allow you to fast travel to it with a new traveler after you die. Try to kindle at least one each run so you don't have to run as far to get back to where you were.
  • Food is pretty scarce. Attack any animals you can for meat before they run away.
  • If you have any spare bottles, fill them with water and use that to craft potions at a bonfire. Potions fill up a good portion of your health and hunger meter, regardless of color.
  • On a similar note, each new traveler comes with a bottle. You should eventually be able to amass a pile of potions in your dream by dying enough.
  • You can swim. Explore beyond the shores.
  • Once you make it to the 4th floor, have torches ready to keep yourself warm.

Some other things I stumbled across:

  • I unlocked a door by shooting a switch on a nearby pillar.
  • I destroyed some vines blocking a path by shooting them with a fire arrow.

Loving the aesthetic and general gameplay but feeling constantly stressed by either dwindling food or dwindling light. I normally like to take my time poking around in games like this but it doesn't seem like a good idea here.

I can tell there aren't a ton of people playing this yet which is a crying shame. I've already received several of the "rare achievement" pops on Xbox.

I think it's amazing so far but I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. I love the mystery about it and the visual/sound design is excellent. My only complaint would be the rate at which you get hungry. I dont think it adds much and just feels like work.

Sonicator wrote:

Loving the aesthetic and general gameplay but feeling constantly stressed by either dwindling food or dwindling light. I normally like to take my time poking around in games like this but it doesn't seem like a good idea here.

If you can make it to the 3rd floor, I did find one somewhat reliable source of food.

Spoiler:

When you get hit with a swarm of bats, swing wildly and try to kill as many as you can. They drop morsels to eat. When they disperse, just stay exactly where you are. They should come back at you in 10-20 seconds. I have done this on two different travelers so far, and I managed to get 10-12 morsels from a single floor this way.

Dyni wrote:
Sonicator wrote:

Loving the aesthetic and general gameplay but feeling constantly stressed by either dwindling food or dwindling light. I normally like to take my time poking around in games like this but it doesn't seem like a good idea here.

If you can make it to the 3rd floor, I did find one somewhat reliable source of food.

Spoiler:

When you get hit with a swarm of bats, swing wildly and try to kill as many as you can. They drop morsels to eat. When they disperse, just stay exactly where you are. They should come back at you in 10-20 seconds. I have done this on two different travelers so far, and I managed to get 10-12 morsels from a single floor this way.

Neat, hadn't worked that out but found a similar solution.

Spoiler:

delicious, delicious snakes

Phades wrote:

I can tell there aren't a ton of people playing this yet which is a crying shame. I've already received several of the "rare achievement" pops on Xbox.

Yeah, since Capy took the game back from Microsoft as publisher they're on their own with marketing. The "it's out this week!" release (with delay of a week) doesn't work well unless there's already a groundswell of anticipation and with the strange dev cycle of the game I don't think that was there.

Word of mouth will get out and there's likely to be a longer tail because of they type of game it is.

Wow. I don't think I've ever been this tense playing an isometric game before. The sense of scale is truly spectacular, particularly in the areas that are not procedurally generated.

For as punishing as this game can seem at times, it is very good about knowing when to throw the player a bone. The implementation of short-cuts is what really sets it apart from other dungeon crawlers with rogue-like elements. They provide a tangible sense of progression, even if you lose the majority of your belongings from a couple unfortunate deaths along the way.

The most recent shortcut I discovered actually made me gasp out loud.

Spoiler:

Deep into Floor 19 --> the beach you land on at the start.

I haven't seen too many other people talking about this yet, but I'm so hooked.

Broke down and bought this today. I’ve died to two spike traps already but ended my session well stocked with food and having just unlocked a big shortcut. I think I like the added range of the spear vs sword and shield so far. Still too early to say for sure though.

Spoiler on a little later area I'm stuck on.

Spoiler:

I'm stuck on the frozen area after you go through all the elevators and the ground shifts as you walk. I dont know what the crap to do and have frozen to death multiple times...

Phades wrote:
Spoiler:

I'm stuck on the frozen area after you go through all the elevators and the ground shifts as you walk. I dont know what the crap to do and have frozen to death multiple times...

Spoiler regarding equipment for a specific area

Spoiler:

This is one of the brief sequences I've seen when I was watching a streamer play it before I picked it up myself. I don't where they got it but they had a hat that either prevented them from getting cold or slowed it down. I think it's required for that section so you don't freeze to death.

Probably a good idea to note above your spoiler some rough idea of what the spoiler contains.

Certis wrote:

Probably a good idea to note above your spoiler some rough idea of what the spoiler contains.

Sorry about that. Fixed.

One tip that helped me with exploration on level 4

Spoiler:

was to stock up on blue potions until you can get the thing JeremyK referenced. Drink a blue potion when you're at about 30% hunger and thirst. It will fill you back up and prevent any of your survival meters from depleting for about 2 minutes.

I have mostly ignored that zone so far otherwise. I went the other way instead, which has led me much deeper. This is when arrows and bandages have started mattering in a big way. Some of the enemies in the deeper levels are easily dealt with from afar.

I have found three different helmets so far. I figured out what one of them did pretty easily, but had no clue about the other two, so I looked them up:

Spoiler:

Crystal Skull - Produces a weak light aura around you. Useful if you're trying to make it back to your lantern and don't want to use torches.
Fang Skull - Reflects some damage back at enemies
Iris Skull - Increases arrow damage

Also, here are the potions effects I've worked out so far:

Spoiler:

Blue - Freezes all three survival meters for about 2 minutes
Red - Increases weapon damage dealt
Green - Doubles light bits dropped by defeated enemies

Oh also, one super important beginner tip that I completely missed for my first several hours:

Spoiler:

Get the spear! After you climb up from the initial beach and head down the staircase to the right, you'll come upon your second bonfire. There's a waterfall to the right of this bonfire. Walk through it. There's a spear in the chest to the left. After you equip it, stand in the water and hold the attack button. You'll be able to stab and kill the 3-4 fish swimming around the lake for easy fillets. After that, walk through the waterfall to the north to unlock a shortcut back to the beach and a chest with an empty bottle.

Now, you could keep the spear and use it as a weapon, or you could put it in your pocket and grab it to fish for food for new travelers. I suggest the latter.

I guess that's something worth noting. The dream area is called the pocket. I don't know why, but that seems to be what everyone is calling it.

This and Ashen has convinced me to take advantage of that Gamepass deal. Hopefully the new Ori will be part of it as well.

Question: I think it's pretty obvious, but the light crystals dropped by dying creatures can just go away, right? Fall off cliffs into nothing, lost to you forever?

So it seems. I've had them fall off a cliff half the time I kill creatures.

Question of my own. Do fish and animals to hunt respawn after a time or are they gone until you die again?

JeremyK wrote:

So it seems. I've had them fall off a cliff half the time I kill creatures.

That's what it feels like! Any strategies for not losing those buggers' souls?

I've mostly just been trying to fight them in a center of a room when possible. I've had to resist the urge to chase after them since the first spike trap I ran into doing that.

firesloth wrote:

Question: I think it's pretty obvious, but the light crystals dropped by dying creatures can just go away, right? Fall off cliffs into nothing, lost to you forever?

Yeah. You'll get enough that it isn't a big deal, but I do try to kill enemies away from cliffs whenever possible to minimize this. If you're overflowing with arrows, use them for this purpose.

JeremyK wrote:

Question of my own. Do fish and animals to hunt respawn after a time or are they gone until you die again?

It seems like fish and mammals are gone once killed, but bats, rats, and some other creatures may arise in their place. Rats are great for morsels if you can spot and kill them before they scurry away.

The aiming on the bow seems very touchy to me, so I've not used it much yet. But, I'm only at about lvl 4, and I haven't really run into many enemies where it seems needed, either.