When it comes to the regular arrows on the bow you can kinda hip-fire the thing that seems to have some auto-aim snap to it.
When it comes to the regular arrows on the bow you can kinda hip-fire the thing that seems to have some auto-aim snap to it.
Ah, that's useful to know.
Aiming the bow can be a bit touchy, particularly with the arrow types that you lob. When you do need to aim more precisely, use the right stick to line up your shot, then hold down the left trigger to keep it in place while using the left stick to strafe into position.
This really only works when the enemy is not yet aware of your position, but you can take out some tougher enemies with fire and bomb arrows this way. Otherwise, like Certis said, hip firing normal and spike arrows works pretty well.
The spear is an amazing weapon for taking out the crab enemies. Finding out that it one-shot them changed how I was playing dramatically.
Put somewhere around 3-4 hours into Below now and I'm feeling kind of over it. I don't mind games that are punishing (love me some Dark Souls, for example), but it really feels like this game doesn't respect the player's time. At this point I think I'd need to do a farm run to restock, then do a bonfire run from my last unlocked shortcut, and then do a corpse run so that I could actually start progressing again. Blergh.
Yep... I'll wait till someone mods unlimited inventory.
RIght there with you. I was absolutely loving this game, but it's less "difficult" and more "busywork" when you get to the later areas. The amount of prep you have to do just to get ready for a corpse run isn't interesting.
I'm sure I'll hit a wall eventually but I've been enjoying playing a short session here and there since it came out. I'm only on floor six but so far the shortcuts I've found have prevented a death from being too tedious.
I'm sure I'll hit a wall eventually but I've been enjoying playing a short session here and there since it came out. I'm only on floor six but so far the shortcuts I've found have prevented a death from being too tedious.
Unfortunately I've got the worst case scenario of the corpse being just before the next shortcut, so I have to redo the whole run from the previous shortcut to there (without lantern, potion stocks, etc.).
I beat Below last night.
I wrote a bunch about in my write up for the GotY thread. The long and short is that I love much about this game, but almost every positive comes with a caveat that makes it difficult to recommend. It's just a little bit too punishing for its own good. Just a few tweaks could have taken the difficulty from tough and annoying to tough but fair.
The main issues are...
1) Resource depletion is too severe. I have no problem with resource meters, but the hunger and thirst meters should deplete at about 70% the rate that they do. By the end of the game I had accrued enough bottles that resources weren't an issue, but it took quite a bit of time and multiple failures to figure out the best ways to manage.
2) Insta-death traps are dumb, particularly in an exploration-focused game with permadeath. Yes, your lantern illuminates traps in the environment. I think my total trap deaths was probably only 5 or 6 in the 30+ hours of playing, but losing a long run to a trap always feels bad.
3) Lantern retrieval sucks. Making you retrieve your stuff when you die adds some stakes to exploration, and it doesn't feel unfair because you can store extra resources in the pocket for a rainy day. But the fact that you need to retrieve your lantern every time is needlessly punishing. Without the lantern, you must rely on torches for light. Torches don’t illuminate traps AND prevent you from using a shield. This becomes even more punishing on some of the later floors where your shield becomes more important.
Any one of these issues on their own would be manageable, but all three in combination is just too much. When you are lantern-less, your trap detection is worse, so you need to move more slowly which makes hunger/thirst more of a problem. It's very punishing.
All that said, I still really enjoyed the game overall. There was an ever-present aura of dread while exploring, but I always wanted to inch forward to see what was around the next corner. Very few games create this kind of tension this effectively. Also, the ending is pretty nuts. If you're not going to play more, just YouTube it.
For anyone else looking to continue on with the game, here are a few great resources for getting through.
Detailed map with shortcuts: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1...
All crafting recipes and most item descriptions: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
Guide to marble, equipment, and lantern bit locations: http://zingrook.net/gaming/below.html
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