Positively Cynical

I’m very late into act 3 and she has completely stopped talking and is stuck with one dialog response if you manually speak to her (cannot even remove from my party) since coming in to act 3, so I would believe the note from the other poster that it is a bug. She hasn’t had nearly as much content as any of the other companions by a long shot.

It’s more an issue of if there is a risk of litigation, or potential avenues of it. Having less things potentially be targets helps differentiate a products identity more and have less ‘weight’ if it is used in court as evidence thereof.

Another benefit is this allows them to deviate from past/common tropes that people would expect from a “Shaitan” or any other renamed creatures based on knowledge from other systems or analogous creatures of myth in future writing - even if they still borrow from the latter in most creatures cases.

Red lights don’t allow you to see as well in dark/poor visibility conditions that are needed for driving. You’re moving 30 to 60 mph likely on the road vs walking speed while hiking and that reaction time visibility is much more important. The intensity of red light that would be needed would make the benefit non-existent (as they’d be just as obnoxiously eye-destroying as the super brights and blue lights).

Some states in the US allow “amber” colored lights for headlights/brights though, and I think they’re way less obnoxious and still allow for high levels of visibility.

I thought ER was on par with or easier than other souls games solo, I actually had a harder time playing in co-op than solo. It’s quite fun and has a ton of replayability on PC with the modding community. I’m in the same vein with the spooky games being a no-go, so I have nothing to offer on RE2 vs ER.

I’ve had decent experience in actual play with summons in exploration more than in combat, as you noted with the crawling hand as an example, but also with ferrying party members around or general roleplay opportunities to help with getting/gathering information once you can summon more talkative creatures.

In combat I’d have to echo the soaking hits being their primary use. Something makes it through the front line, I have small or narrow passageway or anything similar and no wall spells prepared or available I’d fall back on the creature to substitute.

I definitely agree that they’re not powerful by any means, but I don’t think they’re without uses, especially with spells on their level for the diverse utility they can provide both in and out of combat. In combat I liked the whiptail centipede just for the reach, space it took up despite being able to squeeze well and poison being a nice deterrent if things got to close to my squishy self, but I think a number of other spells could have worked just as well or better.

I had a similar experience selling off older books, minis and the like. I still have - and continue to get - tons of new books but I’ll always miss my old 3e and pathfinder 3rd party books as I have no clue where I’d even find those anymore.

100% agree I’ll never sell any of them again. Worst case I buy another shelf for the basement and move them downstairs.