What are you playing right now?

> playing GoW the fun way
That's the spirit. It's sad that so many missed out on the actual fun in that game. Enjoy!

currently juggling Bayo 1 & 3, Transformers Devastation, God of War 1-3, MGR, Vanquish, and DMC 3 and 5.

>I’ve found myself utilizing grabs, launchers, and collisions more and it’s made me appreciate how in-depth the combat actually is

same. i played GoW 2 and 3 when they first came out in the typical noob trap way; strings with no grabs or anything like that (aside from QTE executions), using dodge a lot, square square triangle being the go-to quick attack when using the blades (i didn't just spam that and only that though).

i remember doing VH difficulty on the second playthrough of each and getting to certain points in both games that made me ragequit (Translator in 2, Scorpion in 3) never to touch them again until now.

Currently playing Bayonetta 3, Sonic Frontiers, Ninja Gaiden Black and Rumbleverse.

Bayonetta 3 is currently a mixed bag for me. The game does so many things better than 2, which is a game I completely loath, but it continues to double down on the typical PlatinumGames shenanigans while introducing even more nuisances in places I never knew could be added. Like, switching weapons was a breeze in 1 and 2, but in 3, there's a weird thing that happens where switching weapons mid-combos won't actually make you use the new weapon instantly. Instead you have to either stop attacking with the previous weapon or cancel it out with a dodge or jump in order to gain access to the weapon you just switch to. This can lead to weird jank where weapons lose their special properties like freezing enemies or properly launching enemies. Combat is definitely a huge improvement but my god does it feel so discouraging to get low ranking results because the game doesn't want people to style on players more so just brute force everything. 20-30 second requirements are BAD.

Sonic Frontiers. OK, I'm a Sonic fan. Let's get that out of the way. Been obsessed with Sanic since my childhood days of pulling out the Genesis and hooking it up in the living room and running Sonic 2 while my parents are asleep. I'm not a blind fanboy mind you; I know when games are bad. Sonic Forces left a sour taste in my mouth so Frontiers didn't exactly give me high expectations, but to my surprise, the game is fun. Yeah, it's loaded with a ton of janky problems but I mean, I play games made by PlatinumGames so jank stuff doesn't deter me. The stuff Frontiers has isn't unplayable and in fact I have to wonder if folks overreact to certain things. For example: Sonic being magnetic to the ground. It looks weird when Sonic runs on uneven surfaces so I get it can be offputting to watch Sonic jitter about on rocky terrains but it's honestly the better alternative to just plain getting stuck between rocks. At least here, you can dash across areas without the worry of stopping and such. And combat: oddly satisfying despite being so barebones. Luckily the Sonic fans have taken it up on themselves to mod the game and now there's a Hedgehog May Cry mod where controls are more solid and precise so no more dumb power buffering and odd input choices. Currently working on a silly combo video for this game (yes really).

Ninja Gaiden Black. So, I'll be the first to admit the game didn't vibe with me the first time I played it. I made the biggest mistake of streaming my first playthrough for the game so now there's a video of me pounding the table in anger because one boss likes to be a big meanie. I decided to give the game second chance this year and after reading up on some guides as well as Raeng's post on getting into the game, I'm started to fully understand what makes the game tick. I'm still nowhere near some NGB god just yet but at least I've been able to remove my bad habit of expecting my PG skills to transfer into this game. I was stubborn in my stream thinking avoiding items is a must, and to be perfectly honest, I still think it's important to try and avoid it because it can lead to bad habits like letting me brute force some boss fights by just stocking up on health just so I can chip off the boss's health little by little without really learning the true strategy for survival. I can now get through Normal difficulty without much problem. I still have issues dealing with boss fights, but at least I don't feel frustrated or angered for experiencing Itagaki's Wild Ride.

Rumbleverse. Here's a game that surprisingly got me hooked the moment I gave it a try and has quickly become my daily comfort game. For those of you unaware, Rumbleverse is a battle royale arena fighter that came out this year. If you have never heard of it, I'm not surprised since it has had poor marketing and was released on the Epic Games Store on PC (but is also available on Xbox and PS4/5). The lack of a solid identity doesn't help much; the artstyle isn't what I'd call amazing. It's very cartoonish but not very distinct. Don't let it fool you though, there's a surprising amount of depth to this game, in the same way a fighting game has depth. The idea is simple: 40 fighters get shot into a city and must run around collecting supplies to survive the battle. Yes, it is pretty much Fortnite, but what makes it different to Fortnite is that you don't have guns. You just have your bare arms. In this game, you must find your opponents and duke it out, so if anything, it's a bit more like Power Stone and Anarchy Reigns. Around the arena, there are proteins to collect in order to increase your health, power and stamina. You'll also find books in order to learn techniques. These are extremely important as it will allow you to chain combo attacks. At the beginning, you'll only have a basic set of moves. A simple punch, a simple kick, a simple grab and a simple throw. But searching for books will expand your move list, so you'll learn stuff like Diamond Crushers, Swing Throws. There's even an Izuma Drop in the game! (no really, the move is called that, and it does exactly what you expect it to do). Movement in this game feels so good. If you ever played Hulk Ultimate Destruction, it's kinda like that. You can climb any building with ease, you can leap across areas with ease. Movement is extremely fluid.

I've been having way too much fun with this game. It's super silly but damn does it actually feel satisfying once you learn how to chain your combos. Throw your opponent to a wall for a wallbounce, into a grab, OTG into an aerial slam and then go for a giant punch, so long as you have all those moves in your kit. The best part: if you're on top of a building and you grab someone, you can jump off the building and fall straight down for extra damage. The higher you are from a building, the more damage you'll inflict. Bonus, if you bounce off a car or bounce pad, you'll go up high for crazy damage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRdJgIibMsc

I honestly prefer this over Fortnite because in Fortnite, people tend to camp with guns and just shoot from a distance. Here, there is no projectile. You MUST approach your opponents. And the more you fight, the more perks you earn, so camping won't help you out whatsoever. If this sounds interesting, I'd say give it a try. The game is 100% free. The only thing you would pay for is cosmetics.

> rumbleverse
Isn't that the game where they added a keyblade as a weapon? I remember seeing things about it and it did catch my eye. It looked like a Royale game for 'people like us' if you get me.

> NGB
The beauty (and hardship) of NGB is that it has by far one of the highest skill-floors, even playing the game somewhat competently and moving around can take a bit time to come to grips to. It also has a pretty unique mid-level, a lot of players sort of get 'stuck' around their halfway point towards mastery since higher levels of play are more about further control of movement and ability, than really specific juggles or combotimings which are far easier to define than movement.

> items
My personal theory is that in Ninja Gaiden you are your own judge. You play, you use an item, and then maybe the next time you don't. Or you don't use that specific weapon or attack. You judge your own growth, which can be a bit confrontational. Sometimes you really have to just raise the white-flag and admit "I cannot do this fight yet in the way I want, so I will use X or Y" and then come back to it after a few sessions with more knowledge and experience.

> bruteforce
This mentality does sort of help in NGII, where a lot of the fun comes from being able to bruteforce your way past the horrid parts (like a boss named Gigadeath, or a swamp section) to get to the good stuff. And example in NG:B would be the tank-fight, which is just horrid. People gladly use potions there just to 'get it over with'. if you get me.

> bosses
In general considered one of the weaker aspects of the series. While I do really like some of them, the mechanics don't really work well with 1-v-1 bosses (outside of the clones). The beauty tends to be more about mass-melee fights where it's just a chaos of survivability and prioritization.

Not really CA, but I really liked the Dredge demo. Speaking of, it really sucks that Soulstice had a demo, which they delisted before release. Even if you downloaded it, you can't play it. Shame, as even though I can play it for 2 hours and refund it, the reviews put me off buying it at current price. Too many Steam games do this, after going through the effort of making a demo.

Two other games are Asterigos and Kena. Kena has no demo, and recently came to Steam. I noticed in the demo that Asterigos is pretty easy of you use the dagger/sword/spear and block/parry. It's that weird blend of action game where they add bonfires and Souls elements for no reason. Like Blasphemous and soul retrieval. From what I heard, the only good boss is the Griffon-like giant bird, and I've seen people 1CC it with the dagger special. Really leans into the action rpg video Royta made.

When he said people don't like playing hard games, they just want to win, I felt personally attacked. Just kidding, but it did get me to reevaluate why I like the genre. I like "balanced games". If I can die a lot and not feel frustrated, then I think its a good action game. But that's the most normie take ever. Every normie review for a decent action game mentions that when you get hit, it's usually your fault. Not getting hit off-screen by attacks without cues doesn't deserve a gold medal.

And who decides when a game is balanced? When is the Mona Lisa perfect, and would another drop of paint improve it? People say DMC4 was balanced for Nero, so Dante suffers. But in 5 everything's a punching bag. Yet my normie brain thinks easier + no trick enemies = better balanced. I'm sure the other way around might make me think differently. Didn't NGII's director also say they ran out of time to finish balancing? Yet that's still a classic. Apart from wonky hit boxes, what objectively determines if an encounter is balanced? Which variety of enemies? Balanced for which difficulty?

My imaginary game had day/night cycles. Either strong enemies like FF15, or waves of weak enemies like Serious Sam would come out at night to screamo music. Summer difficulty gives the most sunlight, while winter is basically all night. But for those who want to cheese, they get a toggle that says "daylight saving time", which adds an hour (either real-world or in-game, or maybe real world would be a "super-DST"), so they complete winter, but only go out when it's light.

But Royta's right that there are too many classic action games to master, before worrying about new ones. You can get that Marlow Briggs game for a dollar, and it's 6 hours to beat. I come home exhausted, and barely have time to game anymore. Multiple playthroughs are pretty much dead, my game completion rate is 20% and my Steam backlog is both daunting and empty of modern classics everyone's played, hence why I've avoided buying stuff.

Royta, would you ever consult for a CA game? Not offering, just asking. And who do you think masters the game mechanics more, combo mad guys, or no upgrade run guys. Or are they different strokes for different folks? I find combo mad more entertaining, and something I personally would strive for, but NUR are probably better at avoiding damage (by necessity), so they know the enemy AI inside and out. Or maybe combo mad guys knowing their own characters' moves inside out is just as valid.

> consulting
I'd be honored to ever use my fanboy knowledge of this genre to help someone out. I sometimes do game-testing for some friends who are indie-devs, but those are more RPGs haha.

> who are more fitted for x
Depends on the goal I'd say. If you want to make a game that's more about style and combo potential then I'm the absolute last guy on earth you'd want (though maybe as devil's advocate, at best). I think challenge-runners are more interesting in regards to enemy-design, since they tend to focus more on how to handle enemies and their AI instead of their own kit (which tends to be very limited). You tend to hear those types or players talk more about how they can interact with an enemy, instead of how they can make their character interact. Also tends to have a higher emphasis on enviromentals etc.

That said I do tend to feel that combo-mad players tend to be...not too great at the game outside of that specific vaccume. Not pointing fingers, but it's a very limited approach of the game unless you're looking at the older combo-mad crowd that just did entire stylish runs of the game instead of the same few fights (which were fucking amazing).

> I felt attacked
hahahahaha.

good.

> who decides
More and more I'm coming to the conclusion that the word "time" is the most apt answer to that. Ninja Gaiden 2 was a mess, unfinished, which led to a lot of weird and unique design decisions that make it stand out. A lot of what makes it brilliant was very much unintended (Itagaki and co. wanted the game to cater to a casual audience and...well... you know).
But time is the true judge. The MonaLisa (despite, imo, being overtaken in quality by DaVinci's student's version) is infamous for how it stands the test of time. It is still a fantastic painting, both in terms of brushwork, composition, playful perspectives, the urge to cheat (there's a lot of purpuseful mistakes to play with your eye) and 'sfumato'.

Ninja Gaiden 2 is still being talked about nearly a decade later. So is God of War 1. So is DMC3 and DMC4. But will we still talk about GoW2018 in 10 years? Or DMC5 in 5? I'm not sure. I doubt it.

> balanced
Personally balance tends to mean 'boring', at least in application. In the art-academy we'd be taught methods to make art more balanced, from the golden-ratio to three-theory to all sorts of color theories, yet in the end it made most art just..similar. Meanwhile when a student made a piece that was more from the heart with rules as ... more of a guideline, it stood out. You can translate this to games too and my favourite example in this is MarvelvsCapcom2 and Street Fighter 5.

Street Fighter 5 is famous for being one of the, if not THE, only games in the genre where every playable character has won a major, and most matchups peek at a 6-4 ratio (at best). Meanwhile, MvC2 has a huge roster and the game is practically only played with very specific teams and even then it is filled with unfair infinites, broken setups and just crazy dumb shit.

It is also hype as fuck to play and watch. God knows why but when I play and watch MvC2 (despite sucking ass at it) it is just a joy, like crack. Meanwhile playing SFV with it's flowchart combos and strict guidelines puts me to sleep, no matter how balanced and good it is.

Enfin, that's a bit my rambling on that matter haha

Ha, you're right. I guess I didn't see it from an artist's perspective. A lick of paint here or there doesn't change the unfettered creativity from an artist who decides to do their own thing.

Balance can be boring, and unbalance can make for excellent, memorable combat. I like tier lists, but I would never psesonally make a character designed to be put in D-tier, besides the obvious gag character.

I can already see the feedback, though. Insert one trick enemy and players go: gimmick, no skill, or everything was fine except that one enemy.

I think it was Matthewmatosis who talked about "gimmick" bosses in a Dark Souls video, and how bosses since 1 are these homogenised melee globs. He went in on Bloodborne, saying his favourite/most memorable boss was the one who runs away from you.

I haven't played it, but I doubt it's the system seller everyone begging for a pc port claims to be. Old reviews complained about its inferior flask system. Matt called it an inferior action game to real action games, while DS is an action rpg that avoids the comparison.

>That said I do tend to feel that combo-mad players tend to be...not too great at the game outside of that specific vaccume.

Yeah, I watched the Bayo 3 streams of certain players who taught me how to play the older games. I know it's a fresh game and all, but their gameplay was... underwhelming. I guess lab results don't always translate to the real world.

What do you think about games like Tomb Raider that let the players balance it for them? I can see it from an accessibility standpoint, and if I made a game with enough budget, it would start with text-to-speech on/off>accessibility menu>options menu>gameplay start>cutscene.

But the idea of taking a memorable game where you experience 1 to 3 curated difficulties, and turning it into a 9+ "choose your own level" romp, is alien to me. If I go to a restaurant, I want the chef special, not to make my own meal.

That to me is a game-as-a-service. Not in the live action sense, but just as forgettable. I know it's the go-to argument for why DS shouldn't have an easy mode, but how do we talk about games when we curate them to our liking? How do we have a shared experience?

I know RE4 had dynamic difficulty, and that's a classic, but there's just nothing memorable about modern Tomb Raider, except the kill cams and awful camera shake from 1.

I guess the way to balance is with strong foundations, but don't sand off all the edges. Inertia was an accident, but removing it left 5 entirely reliant on weapon swap combos. I see those guardflyers and skystarers moving back to 4. Like you said in your retrospective, they invented new mechanics and did... nothing with them.

> purposefully making d-tier content
This is actually something that devs do more and more, on purpose, and more d-tier content as well. When designing Hearthstone, devs noted that they once made a set of cards where there was no 'bad card', just 'decent' ones. This resulted in it being absolutely broken, since all other decks had limited interactions with their cards, while this deck was just limiteless.

I play a lot of Warhammer too (nerdiest thing around) and that game recently got a new faction. To give a little bit of insight, some armies have over 100 unit types, 20+ subfactions, different items, weapons and whatnot to use, but only like 1% of it is actually decent at a meta-level. The new faction, on the otherhand, had 8 units, 6 traits, 5 subfactions and like a few weapons, but they were all good. They had to be nerfed asap, despite nothing being as insanely broken as something other armies had. The thing was more, if you just made a random army, it was still good, since there was limitless potential.

Not sure why the hell i'm saying this anymore hahaha, rambling again.

> matthew's dark souls vid
An absolute classic and one of the few videos where I just drop the link sometimes and point at it going " look, look!! THIS IS WHAT I MEAN". As he notes there, the bosses are great, but in a game filled with those types of bosses, it sucks the energy out of it. I'm not saying every game should have them, but bosses like the Tank from NG:B (despite sucking ass) does make others shine a bit brighter.

> one trick enemy/gimmick
I once saw a styleplayer complain that an enemy attacked him while he was comboing, that it 'ruined his combo' which really made me want to rethink existence.

Gimmick enemies are good, but they need to be a bit open too. DMC3 got some talk here recently, and while it's easy to riff on its enemy "Enigma" for being so brutal, they can still be interacted with in unique ways and through different weapons/setups/methods etc. Contrast that with colorcoded enemies or enemies like some from GoW2018 where it's just "do this specific thing" and that's a problem for sure.

> combo maders are madbad
There's a few 'freestylers' that are really great to see, but with the power of editing and enough time, even DSP can be made to look like a godlike player.

> personal balance
I don't mind it. SIFU has it too (allowing modifiers that make the game harder or easier). That said I do have a preference for a well tuned well designed difficulty, where everything feels like a further test from the devs. to the player. While I love Sifu for example, if you turn up all the modifiers like increased speed, inability to block and no healing and what not, the game is practically unplayable.

I wouldn't mind an Easy Mode for Souls, but I would definitely want it to also get a Hard Mode. Dark Souls 2 was the only with a true Hard Mode that remixed enemy locations and introduced new foes and helpers, which never returned (darn shame). I think difficulty modes (as shown by DOOM1 and NG:B) can really give struggling players a bit of a handholding to get into the game, and harder modes to give fans something new to strive for.

Personally it helped me too, as I'm notoriously bad at these games when I just start out. I had to play NGS2 and NGS1 on easy the first time through, helped me immensely.

The key here though is effort. DOOM1 even went as far as changing lighting in some rooms to make them less dark on Easy, which just goes to show how much passion they had.

> RE4 difficulty
I loved this, but only for a single reason: it was disabled on Professional Difficulty.

> don't sand off all the edges
A great analogy, going to remember that. Often it is THERE that the true methods are found and mechanicaldepth is met. Was talking to SBK (on gamefaqs) recently about NGII's OT. Originally made just to give casual fans some cool animations, it instead opened one of the most complex mechanics of enemy-state changes and crowd control in an action-game. Was that intended? I doubt it. Don't sand those edges.

> dmc5 players moving to 4
I think in 10 years time, people will still be playing dmc4, but I think the players of DMC5 will move to the inevitable 6th entry and leave it in the dust if you get my meaning.

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> punchingbag
I think he more means in terms of interaction. DMC5's enemies tend to either hover between just 'jugglefood' or 'walkinghitbox' with no real in between; giving them the idea of a punchingbag. You just wail on them with an intermittend dodge.

> curated to our liking
To a degree it's true we already curate our own game, in terms of how we play, i.e. in NG:B how you can say you won't use UTs or healing items as a personal challenge. But I think he more means that you forgo any sense of designed difficulty modes in favor of modifiers.

>have you played DMC 5?

I should clarify, 5 is my favourite game. I know the story of 3 is objectively better, and 4 has hidden mechanics, and 1 is 1. But 5 is where I can express my creativity the best. However, I also understand its shortcomings. I understand that I'm pretty novice to action games, despite having 1000+ hours total in DMC (mostly in 4 and 5); that the simplified, more generous jump cancelling and aerial juggling compared to 4 have given me a false sense of accomplishment; that enemies designed to fight 3 different characters are not that different mechanically. I know enough to not suck, but not enough to make a sick style vid or be an authority on mechanics.

I like 5 enough to not get offended when it's shit on, because it's just a fixed 4, which is what I wanted. I also know that the idea of sequels "fixing" what came before is wrong. I know TGBS doesn't get a lot of love here, but his video on Spiderman being the "definitive" version, at least till SM2 comes out and everyone forgets about it, rings true. Sequels shouldn't make the games before redundant, and should try new ideas.

Like Royta said, Vanquish, NG2 and ZoE2 are the only games where enemies are still hard, even if you master it. What he said about "punching bags" is true. I'll add that even on DMD, you can bully enemies so much that they can't even attack you. Aggression is the best way to play, especially if you want to avoid the enemy DT. Behemoth can be bullied without resorting to the cerberus fire pole or lightning stuns, and it has health rivalling a boss. I didn't even know Nobody could clone itself or sap magic till I saw it in the Void.

>what's the difference?

I guess it's personal preference

>games are a service

Maybe games a la carte is better

>games aren't a "curated experience" in any way

I would say designers have an idea of what type of experience they'd like their games to deliver. Some games like Homefront are played exactly the same by everyone, so you get the same 3 hour walkthrough on YouTube. Others are more malleable.

I don't mean to sound elitist. I just think the way DS curates difficulty through gameplay, asking people to commit to magic builds, etc, and having them do research, is better (and more true to the intended experience of mystery and discovery) than giving them an options menu.

When I said GaaS, I really meant gamers fine-tuning them (outside of accessibility) like a massage chair to get the most amount of comfort, rather than going along with the ride the developers made, and deciding whether they like it or not. I feel it leads to the homogenisation of games, particularly the cinematic action/stealth/crafting shooter genre. This whole site is about judging games at their hardest difficulty, to see how devs intended them to be played.

Counterargument: Silent Hill lets you change puzzle difficulty, and that's a classic. I understand you can dismantle any gameplay variation choice as curation. Maybe I'm just a snob who arbitrarily draws the line at what Tomb Raider does, but I personally don't feel puzzle difficulty is integral to non-puzzle games, and bringing up a guide because you're stuck can really break immersion.

Counterargument 2: you can already curate the way you want through NUR, nuzlocke, etc. True, I've got nothing. It's not the way most people play, but that's not an excuse. It's not fair to say curating for more difficulty is fine, but curating for less is bad. After all, players who technically don't need it use acessibility to improve aiming, enemy visibility and things I don't mind like collectible location, auto pickup and qtes/mashing.

>"build your own difficulty"
Honestly I would be pretty annoyed if devs stopped doing bespoke difficulty settings. When I played MH Rise Sunbreak I used a shitton of restrictions, my main takeaway wasn't "wow, this game lets me have so much freedom in adjusting the difficulty!", it was "the devs have no fucking idea how to balance these mechanics and now I have to do it for them." For most games it's not this bad, but having some sort of tested, "intended" experience as a baseline then having players adjust from there seems like the best option to me.

>enemies
I'm like Roy in that I don't really get into the combo stuff that much, it's cool but not for me. So for my taste, good enemies are the foundation of a good action game. Vanquish, NG, ZOE2, (Bayo 1 maybe?) all have aggressive enemies that exert pressure, but still let you interact and do your cool combos. Also probably why I like classic Doom and shmups, they are very "enemy-first" games.

I feel differently about this stuff than I used to.

Or maybe I like more approaches than before.

I still love super aggressive enemies like what NG offers.

But I also love Okami which has all these cool interactions while the enemies themselves aren't hard to beat. More because you get so much HP/resources and safety nets than them being useless.

DMC 3/4/5 are sort of an inbetween for me. You can combo, but not many varied enemy states. Which is fine for me because I can use all these moves in different ways. In DMC I usually dislike most of the weapons and only focus on one or two. Anything that lets me bounce enemies around is what I gravitate towards, like Lucifer or Devil Sword formations. Once I got that DMC5 Dante became my favorite. I have much more to test with him.

Sold the game on PS4 as I got sick of the load times and the update came out. Was hoping for a complete edition on disc.

Guess I'll go with PS5 if I decide to get one, or PC in the future.

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> curating
I'm more in favour of a well tuned difficulty, but plural. I don't mind what Souls does, also in how it allows you to curate your own run a bit, but I do like it more when it's a tad more directed. It's clear that Souls is made with melee combat in mind, and the second you break from that mold the game just either ceases to function in your favor, or in that of the foe.
That and I want well designed and thought through higher-settings i.e. DOOM1 or NG:B or ZoE2. I really feel Souls can shine more if it has a really well designed Hard Mode/NG+ where enemies and items are remixed, new fights are introduced etc.

Mostly because, on your first run, you're new. And devs dare not go all out. But with higher settings they have knowledge of 'okay, this guy knows what's up, time to fuck him up' you know.

That said, I love additions. Sifu has a well made Master-Difficulty, but you can add things on top. I wouldn't mind something like that in NG:B i.e. a modifier for "half essence" or "you cannot raw charge UTs" or "randomized eneies" or w/e. Just a way to push things further. Mods like NGS2:B show that people do want this kind of thing. That said, I always want the hand of the creator in it if possible, that it's considered and well designed instead of just 'throw shit in there'.

Just as a sidebar: it's cool to see the forum be so active with fun discussions, nice to see :)

>why?

Sequels can try to one-up the last game, sure. But I think when a sequel tries to be the "definitive" experience, or make the last game redundant, it leaves room for unrealistically high expectations and poor (but justified) comparisons, rather than being compared on its own merit. Take Bayo 2. It got a bunch of 10s because the casual audience wanted a "fixed" Bayo 1, without the minigames. But the hardcore audience complains that everything's balanced around Witch Time and Umbran Climax. Daedron12 summarises it here, and Yosheque talks more about it here.

So even if Bayo 2 was meant to replace Bayo 1, it failed to do so and people still talk about the 1st one. Sim games can be definitive, sure (and maybe there's an obscure forum that compares the mechanics of GT1 to its sequels), but as we've seen with Spiderman, it's better to create something unique like Web of Shadows, lest every game be compared to Spiderman 2 on PS2. Now Bayo 3 is different enough to avoid the comparison altogether. Not to mention, if DMC5 was a "fixed" DMC4 with the same weapons and inertia, there's another crowd that would call it redundant because it's just the same game with better graphics.

>maybe i'm just not understanding what you mean by this "a la carte" difficulty. can you explain exactly what that is and exactly how DS/the Souls games differs from that?

I was mainly referring to the Tomb Raider difficulty selection. On a second look, it's not as bad as I remember. It clearly states what's modified. I know a lot of Ragnarok players would love that puzzle difficulty slider. I misremembered exploration difficulty as affecting the gameplay, when it's more about visual cues. I was thinking more exploration/traversal gameplay being made easy, while combat is hard. Like the running in Mirror's Edge being made easier, or removing fall damage, while the shooting is hard.

Which begs the question, when is a game's difficulty not good? How much do you have to master a game before you can say it sucks? The shooting segments of Mirror's Edge are widely panned, but what of experts who break the physics and kick-glitch their way through the air to victory? Maybe they skip the combat entirely. Maybe it's 3 minutes total in an otherwise 6 hour game, so not worth ranting about. Sometimes it feels like you can't criticise anything unless you're semi-decent at it and on your 3rd playthorugh.

Which brings me back to Dark Souls. It ignores a lot of critique from casual players because difficulty options are there, just not in a menu. I would say that it's different from Tomb Raider because switching weapons and gear fundamentally changes how you play the game and interact with the world. Once you optimise for a build, you're kind of stuck with it. It may be easier or harder, but it's like playing multiple different games. Look at the endless "can you beat Elden Ring with bubbles/darkness/etc" videos. Now in Tomb Raider, you may decide to go pistol, bow or knife only, but, it's still Tomb Raider. GoW with powerful runes and upgrades doesn't turn into a shooter.

Yahtzee mentioned how it's the game you'd put on the Voyager because it has nearly every mechanic: 3rd person combat with FPS elements (1st person bow) and multiplayer. Personally, any 3D GTA would be a better example, with driving, more friendly/neutral NPCs, clearer mission structure, more interactable locations, etc. Although what aliens would think of us if they saw it would be interesting. The Grabby Alien Theory doesn't take into account that aliens may be terrified to come to a planet where murderous psychopaths roam the streets, run down civilians and get treated as anything but villains.

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Can someone define what curated difficulty?

>how to play Souls
I only used bows.

There's a wide range of difficulty, but the default is hard, at least by mainstream standards. Miyazaki's quote surrounding Elden Ring and easy mode was that they encourage players to overcome adversity. Yes, there are ways of making the game easier, that you find out later. Someone even compared it to an obstacle course.

But the intended experience for 1st time players, and we can agree to disagree on this, is sword and shield combo, stamina management, and avoiding/running past enemies that are tougher than average in that part of the level, as you're not intended to fight them just yet, such as the skeletons in the graveyard.

I don't think it's that controversial. That's what's on the box art. Melee is what it's balanced around. The community until recently referred to magic as easy mode. Sure you can snipe everything from a distance. But I don't think you can call secrets you find online an intended experience for the 1st time player. I mean, they're secret. At best it's an "oh wow" moment, not "find this obscure weapon with no guides or internet to lower the difficulty."

BTW I'm not hating on the souls genre, if that's what it sounds like. I didn't say anything about them being trash.

Last word on the matter. When I said shared experience, I specifically had in mind 2 things: the Steve Saylor/Grant Stoner video, and the Malenia fight. Having no Tomb Raider a la carte mode meant even disabled gamers like those two got the same feeling of achievement as others, as they fought the same enemies. Even if they did it differently.

Everyone had the joy of losing to Malenia, and the feeling of triumph after eventually winning. Sure there are ways to cheese her and the game, but that's true for everything. Anyway, let's talk about games we actually want to talk about, rather than going round in circles on this.

I finally got the DMC HD Collection on PC. Played it (and still do) on PS3, but now I can check out the style switching mod in all its glory. I had to restart the PC to get it to work after installing, and click the "state" checkbox in the 1st menu to enable it. If 4 had Dante-specific enemies, I wonder if attacks would bounce off RG like they do in 3, rather than passing right through.

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>u gotta b hardcore
Those kids don't respect the board in 'sword and board'. Bunch of DEX fairies (as compared to Blue DEX users *INT*). Anyway, currently it is GoW1. Finished redux for NGR+ NUR+ and NBR+ NUR+, but I'm dabbling in 'MAX' (EXP grind testing with parameters set for how hard I can exploit things or what is permissible). I'd just done so with GoWIII prior. Next would be GoWII, then the PSP entries. I suppose I technically would need to revisit GoW:A for this 'MAX' business. Some other things planned beyond it, but I've got to troll the Gokeks, too.

Alright, alright, I concede ️️️. It was a good interrogation and what I get for using souls so flippantly to make a point. I'll stick to my corner of DMC/Bayo and reevaluate my thoughts. But if I ever mention the soulsborne genre again, you can be damn sure I'll have something to say about it.

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> DMC HD collection
If you have a Switch, it also has Style-switching and Weapon Switching enabled, and also Co-op in Bloody Palace which is pretty neat.

> mercy
Sometimes it is better to whiteflag it, hope the engagement wasn't unpleasant or w/e for you.

> everyone enjoyed Malenia
I will reply to this one with a single line: I sure as hell didn't hahaha

> default difficulty
One thing that I recall being quite a thing, strangely, was Elon Musk playing Elden Ring. He shared his build and was constantly made the laughing stock for it being so "not normal", always felt weird about that. If there is a thing I like about Souls it's the notion that you can in a sense play anyway you want, just that some forms are harder or easier than others. Yet this was ridiculed in that situation.

> if these games were hard and there were no ways to make them easy, they wouldn't be popular, period.
We saw this happen with Sekiro and also when NGII hit Gamepass. People did NOT react well to them suddenly being left to their own devices.

> box-art
To make a minor defence to this, this isn't actually true what you're saying John. There was at one point a data survey back in the Demon's Souls days, and a VAST majority of the players played using Fume Set paired with a sword+shield, as a result of him being on the cover. I think it was something like 72% or something. RE4HD also later-on had some surveys regarding pistol usage, and the majority (strangely) used the starting handgun since it was on the box-art. Don't underestimate just how badly people are directed by this stuff. MatthewMathosis himself even noted that he played both Demon's and Dark Souls generally just using the box-art protagonist - so it does influence things for sure.

> astral chain
What chapter you at now?

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>unpleasant

Nah it was fine. It's not like there were personal attacks or ad-hominems. It felt like the "funny how" scene from Goodfellss at some point, but looking back, I see where I should've stopped, come better equipped, or not doubled down.

Perhaps I was too influenced by the YouTube/Reddit shortbus. I was watching the Jacob Geller video on Revengeance, got 6 minutes in and couldn't take it anymore. He was saying how he preferred MGR to DMC because it was easier to string combos together. Yeah, that's Platinum's signature dial-a-combo system for you. Maybe stick to reviewing story/themes.

Which is funny, because a comment on 700+ hours of MGR had someone called Krz3mien arguing that "no combos exist in MGR", because they only count the ones Platinum gave you. They explicitly exclude glitches and cancels. I came here to avoid such stupidity (not this comment in particular), but some seems to have stuck to my shoe on the way in.

> i thought the gaming public loved hard games now wtf.
These types don't. They love the facade of hard.

>no combos exist in MGR
>excludes glitches and cancels
Sounds like another mechanically blind, know-nothing casual.

Decided to pick up Gungrave Gore last night since I have Xbox Game Pass. I never did play the Gungrave games before so this was all new to me. The game is pretty wild in both the right and wrong ways. Like, it REALLY feels like a PS2 game that came out today. Despite the game being so in-your-face with its wild presentation like the metal music and the edgy UI, the menu itself is surprisingly bland. I'm never a fan of a game that tries to be cool but the menus don't match it so that ends up feeling oddly jarring. Like when you have a fun game that just happens to be wrapped around a menu made for iphones.

Of course, I'm not here to judge the menus. The gameplay itself? Yeah, I can see why folks love it. Shooting enemies have never felt so crunchy before. Mowing down enemies feels like a blast. The sound design is definitely a high point here because GODDAMN my room was shaking with all the bellowing booms bursting everywhere. Whoever was the sound designer for this game really needs to get an award because man, it's as satisfying as crunching down a damn good cereal if that makes any sense whatsoever.

My only issue so far, and I guess it's too soon to complain is, the guy is fucking slow as molasses. He walks like there should be a run button and the aiming, even when set to high sensitivity, just leaves a lot to be desired. I guess this was done deliberately to make aiming down enemies a challenge, but then it's like, if you can aim fast as hell, balance the game around that then. Note that I only played the game with a controller so I'm not sure how it differs when using a mouse and keyboard but so far, there really isn't a way to do quick turns or quick aiming. It's all just sloooooooow aiming. But when things connect, it feels so damn good. Charging up a gunshot in order to clear a whole row of enemies feels so good.

I don't know if this is a game folks would consider an action game alongside DMC, nor would I want it to, but I can see it being like the uncle of the genre where it's got some aspects that makes it feel as good as getting good juggle combos in a typical action game but it's ultimately pretty different overall.

I think you can more easily argue that this is a game that people that play action-games would enjoy to some degree. It's pretty fun, but I do have to say that after a few stages I kinda...felt like I'd seen it and wasn't in the mood to do 30 more levels of that style of gameplay atm.

Finished up GoW1 business. Zim got his taste of Hydra King anti-regen strats. All he could ever want of it (for life). Some decent findings along the way (just a pity it wasn't the PS2 version as some things are specific to region and OG). GoWII will be up next.

NOTE: You've finally got a Community tab, Royboy. Going to link Stinger, talk of new articles and such there, then?

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Back to Okami.

I recently played Ape Escape 1 and now in the middle of 2, both of them are loads of fun but I took a break from 2 and started Siren 1.

I'm still quite early but so far I love it, the atmosphere is really tight, sightjacking is a great mechanic that helps making the stealth fun, and I also enjoy replaying stages and going through them much faster (mandatory for progression) with previous map and enemy layout knowledge. FWIW, it was made by Toyama, creator of Silent Hill 1 and Gravity Rush.

>Siren
Back when run and hide games were actually good.

Not only that, but once you learn a level and get better you can also engage in combat more frequently just for fun. As different as they are, Haunting Ground is also a run and hide game, but one where it's tons of fun fighting the stalkers.

Have you also played Siren 2 and Blood Curse?

>Haunting Ground
One of the best games of all time.

>Siren 2 and Blood Curse
A little.

I recall playing Siren as a kid sneakily at night, was the only game that scared me into not playing when the police shibito busted through the wall in level 1.

Would like if they released Siren 2 on PSN.

This wasn't done recently, but since I posted those values in the GoW1 thread, might as well share this vid here:



This was meant to discredit the absurd claim that square square triangle is the most OP move in the game. You don't even have to watch the whole thing (I know 40+ minutes can be too much for some), just watch the first 4:30 minutes, and you'll see a very clear difference (using Plume first, and then grabs). But if you want to see the comparison with a tougher enemy type, see 33:54 until 37:15.

Why did I do this?:

I'm not scared by games but Siren's atmosphere is really tight, and like in Fatal Frame and Haunting Ground, the gameplay mechanics are both fun and help making the atmosphere even more tense.

While one specific mission objective was spoiled to me, so far I didn't need to use a guide (and I don't wanna use a guide at all), and although I was confused for quite some time with 2 second mission objectives, looking at the hints section in the manual helped a lot. I'll leave them here in case someone wants to play, so far at least they were very useful without spoiling anything: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forbiddensiren/images/f/fc/SirenManualHintsPage15.jpg

Sadly Siren 2 wasn't released in the US, and the PAL release is 50hz/25fps only. However, you can emulate both 1 and 2 on PCSX2 (which was massively improved this past year) and Blood Curse on RPCS3 if your PC is up to the task.

I've always wanted to revisit GoW since l last played it 10 years ago, definitely looking forward to exploring the mechanics, grabs and collisions are fun.

With most of my discs installed and I am using the PS5 more often, I am now playing Sifu. I'm still on the first stage mostly out of desire to try to no death it.

Tried Forbidden West but unistalled after a few hours. It sucks. Back to Death Stranding.

Anyone planning to get the PS4 version, it's two discs. One is the data disc which you have to install first. The other is the play disc. It'll take a nasty bite out of your hard drive space.

I'm wondering if I should just sell it or hold onto it a little longer and see if I feel like playing it again and just dealing with the shit to get to the good abilities.

Decided to give Evil West a shot. I appreciate that the devs made a gameplay first title but some of the design decisions really baffle me.

You have a basic slow melee string(think Nu GoW), a move to dash to into enemies, and a move to pull enemies towards you. You also have a ground pound and an uppercut where you can hit enemies into each other or certain hazards. This is all fine and dandy but only having one attack string, on top of the attacks after the pull/dash being the same gets kind of old. The collision damage from doing the "cannonball" move is also really low. The AoE ground pound is decent enough but it's about the only move that doesn't feel like shit.

I hate how the guns were handled. They're all on- you guessed it-cooldowns, meaning that something like the shotgun is completely gimped in its usefulness, because the game partitions how you can use it. Why not just let me get ammo and fire it as many times as my ammo count will allow? If I run out of ammo and am in a tight spot then that's on me. But no, the game lets you fire one shot and then wait 15 seconds before you can do it again. Don't want the players to manage resources. Or have some kind of freedom. Or think.

The rifle and crossbow are really just for hitting weakpoints, because yes, this game has the glowing traffic light system that every game needs to have. In almost every encounter you'll face a handful of mid/heavy enemies and a bunch of pests all over the perimeter of the arena, and they periodically have a glowing weakpoint that you shoot because being interrupted to play Simon Says is so much fun. Most bosses also do this, they have a bunch of enemies everywhere and then the boss will glow and you have to shoot it before you can actually go do melee attacks.

Another thing about the cooldowns: you get this scepter thing that's essentially a flash grenade. When you use it all the enemies in the area become shocked and you can go up and do your basic melee combo that happens everytime an enemy is electrocuted. The thing that makes no sense is that this is also on a cooldown, despite the fact the game literally has an energy meter that's used for your AoE attack and your supercharge devil trigger state. Why couldn't this be attached to the meter? Just make it use up a good amount, and if I want to use it multiple times in a row then I can do that. But no, the game has to decide for me when and how to use it! Lovely!

Also, the camera is atrocious as expected. Enemies are constantly throwing projectiles and shit at you from every angle than you can't possibly see. It's worse than GoW2018 somehow.

There's also like 5 skill trees for whatever reason. These upgrades aren't even interesting or that good(there are literally upgrades to add one extra bullet in your gun's chamber, wtf?).

Modern video games. They exist.

Sounds like one of the worst games ever.

>Decided to give Evil West a shot

that was your foist mistake

Finished GoWII, this time on Normal to derust before trying to beat Very Hard. After Playing MonHun for a year it's very nice to have a game that you can beat from start to finish in the same time it would take to make a single armor set in Monster Hunter.

More like Evil Meh-st

more like Shit Ingest

more like Receival Refund I Best

Battlefield Bad Company 1 and Haze

This would've been a r/patientgamers post, but I'm only on Reddit for commerce reasons now. Played the 1st level of each. Haze's MC was born in, get this, 2023. I thought the game was set there for a second, but it's 25 years later. Don't be surprised if you get a lot of "retrospectives" on YT popping up for it this year. While Haze is sci-fi Vietnam, BC1 has you playing "volunteer" soldiers fighting a land war against Russia in a fairly flat country in Europe. You're cannon fodder before they send in US special forces or the army, and you also fight Russian mercenaries led by a charismatic leader and red & black logo. Where have I heard this before...

Anyway, I started with BC1, as I had higher expectations for it. Levels are open, and you can go anywhere, provided it's outside artillery range. The secret unlockables are guns, although you start with the best one. The characters are well written, despite what IGN's review says, and the banter holds up. The story parodies the US' foreverwars, with the characters themselves forgetting why it started, but crying blasphemy at the thought of it ending.

See, I can say nice things about games. Now onto the negatives. No campaign co-op. Your squad's useless. One guy was holding a rocket launcher, but not firing it. The only time I saw them kill people, besides using the turrets on vehicles I was driving, was when I ran past the enemies to the objective. That's some COD4 scripting right there. The way enemies spawned, and the scripting overall felt very janky, like a prototype.

You can't ADS for shotguns or the SCAR, despite it being a normal assault rifle. Hard mode is easy, and beating a level on hard doesn't unlock the easy/normal trophy. You take decent damage and don't have to glue yourself to cover like COD on harder difficulties, but enemies also laugh off grenades and grenade launchers, unless it's a direct hit from these horribly inaccurate explosives. The only mercy is that when you die, enemies don't respawn. Or do they? One of the squad members said "didn't we just kill these guys" when I respawned. Still, I'd take it over the aimbot factory of COD on Hardened or Veteran.

You carry one gun only; a repair tool OR explosives; knife on triangle, even though melee's a deathwish (but since you have one gun, you're not swapping with triangle anyway). I know people are clamouring for a remake, and one was apparently in the works in 2021, but the "bad company trump card was being saved for another day". I propose a "Mandela Effect" for gaming - people misremember how good old games were, and are in for a rude awakening if they get their hands on them. I have fond memories of Bad Company 2, despite how generic the cover art is, so I'm worried that might apply to me too.

Even if they fix the FOV and controls, we have an "open" game where you mostly drive from point A to point B with some collectable guns and gold as "side content", and a completely barren map inbetween. You don't see random enemies out in the world, except near one collectable, and you unlock the map as you do objectives. It needs the Dead Space treatment, and at that point, why not just make a completely different game?

I stopped hunting trophies years ago, but no way in hell is anyone getting the plat today. You need 10002 kills for a silver trophy. Let me think, minimum match size is 4. Let's be conservative and say I and my teammate get a kill every minute. 20 kills per 20 minute match equals 7 whole days of playtime, for one silver. Some are just meme-worthy. Destroy 1000 trees? That's Stanley Parable levels of parody.

Then there's stuff that might prevent me finishing it. Terrible FOV. I actually feel sick playing it. You can't remap controls or toggle things like zoom or sprint. The aiming is atrocious. I can't get the aiming speed right. Online works, but it's either dead, or people have better things to do than play PS3 on a weekend. Not that I'd play competitively with aiming and controls this bad. You cycle weapons/attachments with R2 and L2, but the whole dpad is left unused.

"Oh well, it's 2008" I thought. Then I pop in Haze, from the same year: fully remappable buttons, multiple control layouts, crouch/aim toggle, stick swaps, camera sway, and single player co-op on LAN (online servers are down). Never seen such a forward-thinking 2008 console game. No trophies as well, thankfully.

Playing on hard. Nectar makes you near-invincible, and you can grab more from allies and by killing enemies. It regenerates, but there's some meter management involved when you're on your own. Shooting doesn't feel great, but aiming is much better than BC1. It feels less like spongy enemies, and more like your bullets aren't hitting anything. Maybe it's because enemies can play dead, so I won't really know till I switch sides, but I suspect it won't match BC1's gunplay. Unlike BC1, friendly fire is allowed, and you can kill friendlies, which isn't even possible when you accidentally hit them in BC1.

The guerrillas in Haze are way more aggressive, flanking and trying to get close to you, some even meleeing you. They have no right being this bold when fighting supersoldiers, although they brought riot gear to a warzone and often OD on nectar, so they're not that intimidating. BC1 enemies stand in one place and shoot, occasionally moving a few feet when hit. Tanks are a little more brave, but even they go passive after a minute of not seeing you, even disappearing from the minimap till they start shooting again.

Both make fun of US foreverwars and war as a business/PMCs, although BC1 is funnier. That might be because the story is based off Three Kings, so the writers didn't have to come up with a whole new plot. Haze's plot is so hamfisted, it reeks of that kid who listened to Immortal Technique's Dance with the Devil and thought he was a scholar. In a cutscene, one guy's telling me the trolley problem like he's the first person to ever discover it.

I wouldn't say Haze is good. The driving section's pretty bad, but I'd say it's more than the failed "hAlO kIlLeR". Can't complain, I paid more on travel than the games themselves. I know it's not good to judge a game off of one level (although BC1 has 7, and 1 of them has no collectables, so may be much shorter). Anyway, I'm glad I got round to them, but I guess they'll go on the backburner while I continue my 30 days souls challenge. Realistically, I don't think I'll do both DS and DeS before ER's 1 year anniversary, but who knows? With the Black Knight sword, I'm getting more oneshots than Shonen Jump.