Vanquish 4k might be coming to X1X

BoostMachineGun? Probably lots of headshots and melee. It 2hit KO's most enemies with headshots outside of Golds and Romanovs (the latter of which you can melee combo anyway). Ammo would be a (big) problem though since you're essentially left to RNG. Think a shotgun only run would be more fun honestly. Or perhaps Assault Rifle only.

No-ARS would also be pretty fun perhaps?

>left to RNG

Eh. This is what I was afraid of. Thought of doing a weird weapons only run, LFE, disk launcher and lock on laser for the whole game. Or maybe just something like pistol/disk launcher. Could be fun.

>shotgun of AR only

Certainly wouldn’t have to worry about ammo as much. Shotgun would still cause some issues though I would imagine?

>No ARS

That sounds brutal. Does auto AR count?

> multiple weapon runs
There was a guy on Gamefaqs years back that did an all weapon combinations run without DLC. Was pretty interesting but from what I recall he mostly played it on Hard and as a cover-shooter. Still, interesting.

> Shotgun
There are a few points where you have to use a Sniper or rely on enemies attacking each other. The Pangloss Statue area is the hardest part of the game in that run imo.

> no ARS
Auto AR doesn't count since it lasts 0.5 seconds and you're probably dead anyway. But for style I'd say, don't get put into it.

NOTE ABOUT ZERO DEATH RUN
Bullseyestrider replied. He abused checkpoint resets. He thinks a single segment death run should be possible, but like me he thinks it would require grinding runs. Don't think we'll ever see it honestly. Just like a single segment zero death for NGII. Hell, just single segments of each chapter would be a miracle in that game imo.

>played on Hard

Challenge accepted.

>pangloss statue area

Goldens don’t die in one hit from the shotty do they?

>Auto AR

It’s amazingly useless on a LC run, there’s not enough time to kill anything. As soon as it activates I go into hiding.

>just like a single segment run of NG2

Sounds like this should be your next challenge run, ha.

> golden gorgies
Ha! You'd wish. 2-3 shots up close, more at range. Here's my completion of that stage with Shotgun only: https://youtu.be/zPh0M1e3gcY?t=263

> single segment of NG2
It is on the list. I have dabbled in it and managed to get to Chapter 3 without dying, but Gigadeath ended me (as he always does). Have to note that this was a 'everything allowed' run, so plenty of abuse.

Wow, didn’t think that would be possible. Will be watching your shotgun only run tomorrow.

>everything allowed run

How much does a NUR affect your ability to beat MN?

> shotgun only
It's the run I'm probably the most proud of.

> NGII NUR
I already did a no-ninpo run without life-upgrades, pretty doable with maybe 3-4 moments there were really "oh dear, I might not make this" moments. A regular NUR would be okay I think. You'd mostly be hampered by some lacking moves and the low damage against bosses would be annoying too.
Worst would be everything after Chapter 11, as you essentially lose the Dragon Sword (since it auto upgrades).

It is on the list

Been binging your shotgun only playthrough, great stuff. Makes me think other single weapon plays are possible. That being said, I’m at the buzzard and I don’t know if I can kill it with the LC. Even without overheating at all I simply can’t get it below 35-40% health. Not sure what to do.

>hampered by lacking moves

Which ones in particular?

>it is on the list

You’ve said it, now you have to do it!

> lacking moves
I haven't really played with level 1 weapons, so I cannot be sure. But the tonfa lacks its drop-attack, claw misses most of its grabs, the lunar is pointless without its level2 UT to carry it, Kusari lacks 360Y to melt big enemies etc.

> buzzard
As in, you die when that happens or the craft just melts? Have you tried grenades? Could be a run exception. Note that it takes extra damage in the eye and back-engine.

The craft melts, I just can’t get enough damage in. EMPs don’t work while it’s grabbing on and I can’t get the grenades to work consistently. I just made an exception here, don’t think it was happening. Couldn’t find a video of anyone pulling it off either.

>Lunar is pointless without its level2 UT

Isn’t the lunar a favorite among more casual players? Is not as good on MN?

The lunar is a favourite amongst beginners exactly because of its level 2 UT. At level 2 it gets the 360UT which is a good beginners weapon (high damage, high delimb and doesn't need to hit to get the full activation). It is a great all purpose attack. At level 3 it gets a great string as well (XYYYY) that is safe, has good i.frames and clears waves of foes.

But on a NUR it will be stuck on level-1, which means it has a really bad UT and no real other options. Only its XXY is worthwhile I'd say in that case.

> Vanquish

I'll give the craft a go in the future when I finish this run. Hate that you cannot have multiple playthroughs active at any given time!

Does all of that apply to the lunar in Sigma 2 as well?

Haven’t played my LC only run in a few days. Fear I may not finish it before Doom releases.

Sigma 2 is slightly different as all weapons have their full air-combo at level 1 instead of 2, to compensate for the higher health of enemies. Still, at level 1, it is quite the crappy weapon and not worth using imo.

> DOOM
It is so close I can almost smell it.

About to get back into this. Want to finish my LC only run. After my current TEW run I’m putting this back in the rotation. A Mikami game needs to be played at all times, apparently.

Started recording a new run. Decided on HMG+LFE+Disk Launcher. Was going to do Lock on laser instead of HMG but I didn’t want to deal with running out of ammo during some of the tankier fights. Went with HMG because with this load out I basically have to always be fighting up close.

The run starts at 1-7 because I didn’t see the LFE and DL any earlier. Going pretty well so far, LFE is truly a godlike weapon. They absolutely decimate the legs of the Argus in 2-3. I love doing group Romanov shots and keeping them cornered, switching to HMG for hip fire shots while they’re knocked down. LFE is also amazing when paired with EMPs, boost drop them and then hip fire into a crowd causes serious wreckage.

Damn I love this game.

LFE really is the best weapon in the game IMO thanks to just how versatile it is as you note. You can huddle the Romanovs together, melee them and then just LFE them. It's also one of the few ways you can set up a full AR-melee (LFE to corner, EMP, AR-melee > laugh). Fun idea to do dedicated weapon-set runs!

Yeah it works great with melees like you said. The nice thing about it and the Disk Launcher is that they give you workarounds when overhearing, can still knock enemies down and keep them stunned. Love that knocking down romanovs will send them down on their front side so the weak point is exposed.

Question...is is possible to use grenades against the Argus? I tried nuking its core with three grenades when it fell over but it didn’t seem to do anything.

The damage/enemy aggression is broken in this new version isn’t it? I’ve never been sent into danger so often and so quickly on the PS3 version. I feel like I literally can’t do anything against goldens/snipers except dodge slow mo out of cover. 3-2 sucks right now haha.

I think the PC version has a damage bug tied to the higher framerate, but it got fixed in the current gen console ports. At least I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary playing on PS4.

I might be wrong, but I think this was fixed on the PC version. I played through the Hard difficulty at 120fps and didn't find the game to be more difficult than I expected.

The PC version was fixed shortly after it released but it feels that this version has that bug, or something is off. I booted up my PS3 version just to compare and I definitely wasn’t going into danger as often. Maybe I’m crazy.

Just to nib that in the butt, it wasn't fixed, they only said they fixed it. Damage values and enemy agression is still wack, even in the X1/PS4 versions as well as the current PC build. Some attacks deal a lot LESS damage now, while others are increased by a ton. Due to the higher framerate multihit attacks mostly phase through Sam now, so they don't deal damage. You can tank the entire multilaser from Bogey if you stand up now without leaving the Green health zone.

Some smaller hits deal a lot more damage now though, like the shots from Golden Gorgies.

Note this is all about God Hard. Haven't played below that in over a decade I feel haha.

That all makes sense. The romanov’s machine guns do very little damage yet goldens will shoot you in the blink of an eye and send you to danger.

>is all on God Hard

What kind of filth plays on anything below GH?

Infinity_Divide wrote:What kind of filth plays on anything below GH?

Probably the kind of filth too busy grabbing world records to grind out GH, you clowns.

They still take non-God Hard world records seriously? Ah well, gotta give those Red9 users something to be proud of in life It's adorable really.

> That all makes sense. The romanov’s machine guns do very little damage yet goldens will shoot you in the blink of an eye and send you to danger.
Note that a single bullet of a Golden Gorgie can now, if you're unlucky, OHKO you. It's really weird. Really wish designers would learn and stop tying game essential elements to frame-rate. It's probably easier this way, but it really hurts games in the long run.

Came close to beating 3-2 several times last night but the tank kept cornering me. Need to try to get rid of its turrets closer to when it spawns. It sucks since my only long range weapon is finicky(disk launcher). I’m determined to clear this part after work today.

I started a different run on my other PS4 where I’m trying to clear the game with as few deaths as possible. I’m only at 2-4 and already have 11 continues. I wanted to get under 50 but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

For the tank you can generally quickly get behind him and do two AR shotgun shots to the turrets next to the weakpoint. I couldn't quickly find which weapons you were allowing, but the shotty was amongst them right?

Actually not sure how the Disc Melee would work against the tank, does it connect in any way? Because its melee is fully i.framed iirc.

> 11 continues by 2-4
I'd like to think I can do better but I'm really rusty still. I think you can now understand what I mean with zero-death being nigh unimaginable. Watched a commentary by Zaarock on Vanquish God Hard speedrun and he also had 20+ deaths.

No shotty, it’s LMG+LFE+Disk launcher. Speaking of which, just finished the run! Only had 5 deaths on 5-3 and two of them were in the second phase of the fight(I was so relieved to beat the duo so quickly that let my guard down). Holy shit, what an incredible run that was. Learned a ton and had a blast crushing some fights with the LFE. Can’t believe how well 5-3 went.

>zero death run nigh unimaginable

Yeah there are way too many quick deaths and parts where being in the wrong place at the wrong time will kill you in a second. It’s just one of those things that could be possible, but I don’t see it happening.

Up to 3-5 on my shotgun/disk launcher/lock on laser run. Probably not saying anything new here, but some quick notes:

-Lock on laser is really great for gorgies in all directions, especially if you have soft cover. I used the laser to destroy the turrets on the tank in 3-2 and ended up beating it on my 4th attempt, pretty happy with that.
-Can’t believe I never used the disk launcher more, decapping romanovs is a joy and it even makes quick work of the Argus in a run like this. Been using the melee to buy myself time while overheating(“helpless while overheating” my ass) and the difference of cutting when it comes to enemy size/thickness is clever. Delimbing a drill Romanov isn’t always my cup of tea though, they get seriously aggressive once they’re on the ground.
-I never knew you could use the disk launcher to destroy enemy missiles.
-It’s fun countering spheres with the disk launcher(even while they’re armored).
-Kind of wish the LoL was more readily available, you only get 10 shots out of something that doesn’t spawn often.
-LoL is great for 2-5, which I was absolutely dreading.

I want to beat this run today before W101 releases(at least, I think it releases tomorrow) so hopefully I’m not stuck on the bogeys for hours.

The Disc Launcher is a ton of fun absolutely. I keep forgetting and flipflopping on it, but its melee has i.frames right? If so that alone makes it a worthwhile keep. Just feel it isn't that great against some of the bigger targets like BIA or Bogey.

> discing projectiles
I remember it would even cut them in half. The game is full of fun little details. I wonder if they used that cutting tech for MGR:R in any shape or form.

> LoL
Its ammo drain is huge, though probably to dissuade casual players from spamming it.

Glad you're still enjoying it!

I don’t think I’ve been hit while performing the melee so it might! Honestly I tend to use it more when it’s very safe, because I’m lame haha. Making the Unknown crumble with a melee is fantastic too.

>reused tech for MGR

Wouldn’t surprise me. Was there any overlap between the teams? Or did pretty much everyone go to Tango?

>low ammo to dissuade spam

Makes sense. It is a very low effort weapon, in the sense that you don’t even have to aim or take spacing into account. Really love it for snipers.

You played recently? Just out of curiosity, what’s your favorite stage?

Haven't played recently, been mostly juggling Zone of the Enders and building my upcoming Kill Team army for when the quarantine is over haha. I really want to play NGII again this week as well, just something 'casual' haha.

My favourite stage? Damn. That's a hard one. Actually. No, it isn't. 1-4 easily. I love the music it has, the verticality, the enemy compisitions, the weird sex jokes about BDSM electrotorture haha, just such a funky stage. Runner-up would be the entire Kreon section which still has a lot of fun areas, LFE ring-outs, Unknown fights and just looks really cool.

You?

I’m kind of doing the opposite, finishing up a couple runs on this and Doom before going back to ZoE2. Vanquish/ZoE2 will make it hard to back to some other action games I fear...

>1-4

I love flanking that final group on the first floor, and then grenade gimping that spawn before the checkpoint. The end of the Kreon is great too, Romanovs and Unknowns are some of my favorite enemies ever and we get them both in multiple encounters, plus the dancing gorgies and the final QTE section. Great stuff. I think overall my favorite is just the entirety of act 4, every enemy type, a lot of variety, challenging fights throughout(aside from 4-5), and it’s just a crazy rush to the end of the game.

Didn’t realizd disk launcher stunned BIAs. Came in handy during 4-2.

Act 4 is also fantastic, have to agree. The Kreon really is just that fun. I do feel that 5-1 tends to get forgotten a lot, has a ton of fun little encounters but really feels like of 'lame' in between fight. 5-2 is just where the boss rush starts and 4-5 is just a bonkers section too. Feels a waste. Challenge 5 feels more like what 5-1 could've been like imo.

One thing I do wish we'd gotten was more solo chapters where it is just Sam.

I enjoy the buzzard fight in 5-1, as well as the Bia in the closed space indoors. But 4-2 through 4-5 are so damn good that 5-1 does feel a little underwhelming.

>solo chapters with Sam

Agreed, in games like this I always prefer to be alone without allies. As much as I like something like Uncharted 2, it’s always bugged me how few levels you play as just Drake.

Just finished my shotgun/LoL/DL run. I died more than I did on my other run, but that was to be expected since the HMG+LFE is such a godly combination. 5-2 and 5-3 accounted for a total of...wait for it...90 deaths. I really struggled against the bogeys with this setup, until I realized how much damage I could get out of the LoL, especially with the ammo refill in the corner. Decided to just be super aggressive and go for boost melees and pretty liberal use of EMPs to get up close shotty blasts. I managed to hit the red bogey with three raw grenades as well. Such a fun run.

One thing I’m curious about: when you boost left or right while hitscan enemies are shooting at you from directly in front you, does it increase your chance to dodge the attacks?

I like 5-1 but the Crystal Viper fight feels a bit unnecessary.

I dunno about lock-on being a low skill weapon somehow. It is powerful per ammo though. It has a decent amount of depth as it's the only weapon able to be fired during a roll (along with laser cannon), being able to change the starting trajectory of the lasers by aiming (high to get headshots, low to shoot through doorways, low in front of another enemy to shotgun etc..) and since their travel time is delayed you can stack simultaneous hits with other weapons. Vaguely reminds me of some gunslinger weapon in DMC3.

Lock-on is extremely good against the single bogey at the end of 5-3 (I like to call this guy 'Hyper Bogey' for some reason). If lock-on lasers are flying at him the AI starts focusing on evasion using his new ARS abilities instead of shooting dangerous bravo laser bursts which have no visual or audio indicator. Makes it easy to reach the limiters off trigger without playing passive in the 'meant to lose' part.

Disk Launcher melee being a grab makes enemies immune to knockback from other sources. So it's possible to stack grenade, rocket and maybe even LFE hits on enemies while locking them down with melee.

LFE gun does damage per frame on enemies without i-frames like the Argus limbs and 4-legged core + Buzzard. Saw a japanese godhard player use this very efficiently on the first 2-3 argus. A couple shots where you use slowmo as it's connecting and the thing goes down. You can even use a timestop glitch to take this further and one-shot parts but it's kinda redundant.

If you overheat due to firing the Laser Cannon you surprisingly get a much reduced overheat time than normal. I wish they took this a step further and had this weapon give you a benefit to overheating: during overheat you would regain gauge faster than normally. (EDF series does this with wing diver: max damage output can involve firing heavy weapons into overheat for a quicker recharge, a risky move). As it is it feels like there's no reason for this LC mechanic to exist. Or any reason for player to touch overheat mechanic outside of mistakes period unless landing a melee hit.

5-3 bogeys on godhard were always my favorite fight in the game. I've spent stupid amounts of time on the game and still the last challenge run I did of that fight took ~6 hours to get down the way I wanted and was fun all that time (shotgun only, no knockdown loop, no EMP/AR).
I would say the bogey bravo/blue is the major problem as his main shot (triple laser burst) has no kind of indicator yet takes you often immediately into red. Every other attack in this fight is well indicated, that's the one that can tag you without audio or even visual cues. iirc red tends to be easier to chase around and hit overall, partially because they defend with that normal shot. Hyper Bogey is kind of annoying to deal due to constant shot bursts when without limiter off or AR unless you can maintain consistent iframes somehow.

Deathless run of godhard is no doubt possible but I think if that's really your main goal, you should play very defensively like those NG2 no damage runs. Which doesn't sound appealing to me. It should still be possible to get with a variety of playstyles constantly dropping that death count. I think I'm too burned out on the game to ever attempt this unfortunately and by now doubt anyone really will. There might have been a chance if those japanese godhard players kept grinding GH full game runs as hard as they did but that ship sailed a few years ago.

About enemy aggression in 60fps ports: I think this might be true in that enemy aggression / AI speed is somehow sped up as tied to framerate. I spent a lot of time messing with challenge 3 while testing/building a PC mod for the game and I could swear the first wave of enemies is way more aggro than normally. I'm afraid in the base game so much of the game logic was tied to framerate that them trying to fully fix it is a total nightmare, things like them saying they adjusted every enemy attack individually to scale correctly with FPS. But something like bogeys still having it very wrong in the end. Still, going back to playing the game at 30fps is a pain. Just have to accept the 60fps versions are a different but probably the most fun version and not super accurate imo.

>no AR runs
This is possible with a mod on PC version now if you want to do them without roll into standing shot cancel etc. As as side effect this also changes behavior of things like shooting weapons during slides, laser cannon being easier to use in some ways as you can remove AR consumption

I'd pick up the PS4 version of this if it had any new features/improvement over PC version but there seemingly are none. Bayonetta I'm still interested in though. Bayo always felt more fully fleshed out / finished in terms of content and bonus unlocks compared to Vanquish, even if the core combat is so good in both.
It's fun remembering playing this game around the initial launch. I was totally sold on getting the game at the point the 2nd demo was released (You got to play Challenge 1, japanese marketplace only?). I was the 2nd on xbox360 leaderboard to finish a god hard playthrough (the first guy to beat it had a terrifying amount of deaths on 5-3, 5-2 was way more annoying for me) and Iconoclast was seemingly the first on PS3 to post about clearing it. Been in contact with him since for various other games.

Infinity_Divide wrote:One thing I’m curious about: when you boost left or right while hitscan enemies are shooting at you from directly in front you, does it increase your chance to dodge the attacks?

Could be off since it's been a long time for me: iirc the boost will initially throw off their aim. And the very start and end of a boost is invincible. But if you let the same boost continue for too long they will correct their aim and hit you.
Otherwise keep in mind enemies try to aim for your head which does increased damage. This is the most clear with snipers 1-shotting you on lower difficulties but not on bodyshots. It's even possible to instantly die to red gorgie fire on Hard mode if full bursts hit Sam in the head, too quick to trigger auto-AR (perhaps 30fps only?).

> lock-on
Low-skill, low-entry, it is an easy to use weapon whose use is immediately apparent. It offers people that are bad on the aim an alternative while also offering some nice options to more advanced players. The LFE is its polar opposite, being useless in the eyes of most casual or beginning players left wondering what it even does. Personally, unless doing single weapon attempts, I use the LoL only for sniping higherup enemies. Like in that part before the tank where you have to cover Burns, I use the boost-melee to get to a higher position and LoL them, easy.

> hyper bogey
Makes sense. For some reason that guy *always* tags me somehow, though I think this is usually due to me really relaxing after the dual bogey and starting to toy around. Definitely agree the dual fight is probably the best around in the game, not a lot of things like it. Remember when talking to some other users about it like SBK and GMG that it really feels like a game of its own. If you have an account on Gamefaqs it is well worth it to seek SBK out if you want to talk shop, very knowledgable chap.

Ironically Mikami would re-use the idea somewhat later-on, with The Evil Within's final boss also being an earlier boss, but now two of them, in a unique scenario.

> LFE damage per frame
I assume this means that higher FPS means different damage output?

> deathless and NGII no damage
Agreed and something like that holds no interest to me either. NGII's no-damage run in particular really didn't show off that game in a good light, seemingly giving people more reason to dislike the game's "bullshit", instead of playing it the fun way i.e. "dying slower than your enemies" as they call it.

In terms of burned out, I sometimes still do attempts but it really is waiting for a combination of me not trying to be cool and getting a lucky run. Like with my ZoE2 run, just pure luck of the stars aligning. Already really happy with my 7 deaths in Vanquish and not looking to set any more records with games. That ship has sailed for me (unless NG4 hits...).

> version differences
It's sad, but also understandable. The more I learn about gamedesign the more I understand why these things happen. Teaching a game to count seconds is pretty complicated. Making it count lines is easier, making it count frames is second-best I've heard. So it's a very easy fix. Just not very future-proof. We're bound to see the mainstream jump to 140fps one day or another, which will open up another slew of issues.

So far I mostly play the X1X version.

> Bayonetta
Great game, but never could get 'into' it. Got the achievements, PP-ranks etc, but the minigames and just the 'something' about the game never made me stay with it like NG or Vanquish did.

> God Hard
I was super late, it was one of my introductions to the genre of all things. Got a super bonkers run on God Hard eventually with terrifyingly amounts of deaths haha. Then started optimizing and just having fun.