Devil's Third

For reference:




I haven't played it but I looked at it for a while now have some thoughts here:

Level design seems to be an issue in the campaign,  as it's way too linear and doesn't effectively allow for use of the movement options and interplay between guns, movement and melee which is something the multiplayer alleviates due to open map design. It seems too binary and encounters are either cover shooting or melee, if the levels where more open and allowed for multiple approaches via smart use of elevation navigation to flank foes then you could make melee/guns as viable as you want. It has so much more going on that basic cover shooting and melee, the interplay is what it was founded on and what the multiplayer achieves.

Bosses I'm not sure if they are bullshit poorly designed or actually good and the player just sucks, maybe mix of both. I've seen they seem unclear with their tells and openings and may get armor/iframes and have some really fast atacks and can cancel out of moves, I'm not sure in these things just notes. I do like grundla saha and kumano bosses the most(designs, themes and move sets), don't know if the angry black dood is a cheap boss but kumano seems the most fair straight away his moves make the most sense to me.

Enemy types seem lacking. Mostly soldiers with guns and/or knives, ninja, invisible ladies and big black bullet sponges that seem pretty redundant. Zombies are boring damage sponges too.

Lack of offline multiplayer functions like a wave mode against ai that would reuse multiplayer maps for offline use, that way one could really use the map to elevate the core gameplay.

It's clearly a rushed game but I'm glad it's out, it needs to find a balance between its mechanics as the story mode seems all to eager to be the next cod/army of two.

The bosses are just really agressive, but you can nail them down hard. They are Itagaki style bosses but without him holding back. The mission 3 boss Saha is especially hard though.

The game itself really lacks a desire to use its mechanics. The gameplay itself really leans for a Vanquish style mixture of close combat and shooting, yet the enemies are all built around shooting. Going in with a katana is begging for death. Also Score-mode is no longer available, you can play it but it doesn't work as the leaderboards were taken offline sadly. Still the game holds a special place in my heart. It was the game that prompted me to start Stinger Magazine as a whole because I felt the game didn't get enough love.

So no commentary for the lp? I always enjoy your commentary Roy.

I totally get what you're saying about going in with the katana. I kept trying to slide and get up close but got destroyed once the enemies had guns.

Are there any abilities later that give you more options for scenarios like this?

Yeah I got a bit tired of recording commentary at that time and just wanted to get the run out haha. I just want to share the content, but I don't always feel like sitting down and talking to a screen for an hour ;p

That....and my recording of chpt2 got corrupted. At which point I thought fuck it. Sorry man! But glad to hear you like them : ) What do you like more? Live commentary or just post-commentary?

@birdman, there are no new abilities except Devil Trigger which unlocks in chapter 2 I believe. It's nothing too special, just ups damage and increases your defense a bit. Melee should only be used when needed in this game, it isn't the focus.

I like both types of commentary, the post commentary adds a different perspective, seems best for analytical talk, since one can focus on just commentating while they break down the footage, more distant I guess. The live commentary may offer more moment to moment relevance and humour, more spontaneous and stream of consciousness I think is what I mean. Sorry I'm not very good at typing my thoughts.

Just beat the third boss I think? Huge black guy with a red cap using some kind of short blades.

I can't believe how fast you can die in this game, not just from bosses but regular guys too. Anyway this boss was kicking my ass but I got used to his attacks after about 10 or so deaths. It's just hard to tell when he's going to do something and he has quite a few attacks. Blocking him for more than a few hits will lose your weapon and I think some of these attacks are unblockable but that may have just been my timing. Once he stun locks you it's over. That damn knife throw combo is nasty and his front kick causes a huge stun. It seems to be a bad idea to do a combo on him.

I found an interesting tech, may already be known but once I confirmed it I died on purpose just to test if I could defeat him only using it. What you want to do is deliver a single light attack. I was using the katana so I don't know if this works with other weapons, but after that light attack, wait a second for him to recover from the stun, and do another single slash. Repeat until dead.

You'll actually be interrupting what he's about to do. Sometimes, depending on your timing you see him try to start something, but you can slash as soon as you see him return to his neutral position. It might work with two slashes because when you get a free shot you can do a full 3 hit with the katana before he retaliates.

As far as I've tested, this is a no damage strat. Unless something changes him on harder modes, this should work there too. I guess it would have worked on that cowboy looking guy too.

Fuck this Jane Doe BITCH!

Insta-kill invincible grab, invincible normal grab, invincible side kick, dodges most of the time.

Got used to her shit and just hit a few times then dodged because those grabs or side kick are hard to see. Way harder than the black guy because the same strat won't work due to her dodging.

And can you imagine that you're probably playing on Easy or Normal (I think the default is Easy in the JPN release). You can check it via the options menu. Hardcore ups the damage even more (Yeah...).

The game is all about knowing when to use what type of weapon and how the melee combat works. What you noted are the pause combos I believe. You can also do that with block-canceling, it is the best with the heavier weapons like the Hammer and Pipe, it will absolutely wreck most enemies. The Cowboy boss can be stunned pretty easily too, though he's easiest to just nuke with weapons and headshots.

> Jane Doe
She can be tricky. Maybe this helps: https://youtu.be/PF-M-CfgMbo?t=19m46s
You really have to punish her moves with your gun instead of your melee weapons, she'll wreck you in close quarters - especially on Hardcore Mode. She's one of the harder bosses though. The next few bosses are quite easy (one can be killed before his HP bar even appears if you're smart), the last two are probably the best in the game I feel.

It's weird, everytime I hear talk of the game I want to play it again. Might pop it in tonight now that I have a pro-controller.

So only guns can cause that extended knockdown start? When I tried shooting her and saw how little damage it did, I instantly disregarded them. It just seemed like the game was trying to say they weren't effective. Shit.

Still close quarters does more damage if you can dodge her nonsense. I found hitting a few times and not getting greedy worked well.

I don't understand why they'd up the damage more. You die near instantly as it is.

I'm going to finish this game but I know I'll never touch it again. It has some great ideas though, I'm forced to play a cover shooter and it's really not enjoyable. If only they made another way to safely approach enemies. The only time I slide is to get to cover.

I don't think I can do this anymore.

I'm on chapter 8 I think. Honestly I have no idea. I don't care for the story at all, and watch something on my laptop during cut-scenes. I don't even know why I'm shooting people and weird monsters lol.

I'm at some place where invisible enemies have been introduced, then a part where I have to fight like 4 or 5 of those large, black armored guys with either gatling guns, chainsaws or axes. They are bullet sponges and I actually almost ran out of ammo before I died to some random shot before I got to cover. I guess I'm at the point in all shooters where they just throw small armies at you and the tougher ones become normal. I'm not sure I'm going to win this fight and when I die it's back to the start of that area to fight all the grunts again.

I'm just forcing myself to play now. It's so boring and the gameplay is just basic cover shooting. I don't know if melee works on those big guys but the game has done such a great job of discouraging me from leaving cover that I don't even consider it or even care at this point.

It's a shame because I can see a few cool elements. I also think Ivan is one of the best character designs I've seen. I would love to see him in another game.

I'm seriously weighing up whether to continue or send it back to the box in the closet for all time and start Star Fox Zero.

> Mission
You still have a ways to go. The invisible enemies are in the snow right? The part you're talking about is generally considered to be the hardest part of the game - easily. There are a few large fights later in the game, but not too much and not too long. And never with 4 ExoSuits.
You really need to balance your agressive and offensive playstyle there. But yeah, it ain't easy. Don't forget to use Devil Trigger at times, it increases health-regen, has i.frames on activation and gives a free full heal on activation.

> melee
You can dodge > punish them with melee weapons, deals a ton of damage. Throwing a weapon at them does monsterous damage too. Don't use jumping attacks.

> Ivan
Agreed, really well designed. Also liked the boss-designs and the whole Japanese mission.

Yeah it's a snowy part. Right now I'm up against 3 at one time, but there was one before that with an axe.

I found the melee using ones are fine to use melee against so long as I can isolate them from the guys with gatling guns. Might try again tomorrow but no motivation to touch it again at the moment.

Never thought of throwing my weapon, because I forgot it was even a thing. Only ever did that once in the tutorial then forgot about it. The game doesn't seem designed for anything other than cover shooting. Totally forgot the DT existed.

The slide is cool and being able to hold grenades before throwing them is useful. I don't play many shooting games so I don't know if this is a common mechanic. The only other game I remember (from what I've played) that has this is Dark Void.

"Cooking" grenades is in most shooters these days yeah.

That fight is all about peaking your head out and knowing who spawns when. Don't be afraid to backtrack and kite the heavies around. They have a ton of HP but there is a rocket launcher near the start I believe so you can use that.

The game is mostly based around shooting, melee is a fun addition though. If you're going for score it's basically melee-only which requires some work arounds at times but it is possible. It works best if you use the method when it is called for. If you're surrounded by gunners and you rush in with a katana, expect to die unless you know what you're doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy2fuFtAO_8&list=PLKz6wVNSUw6GQhmcXZD6_W0crKK-UWyTE&index=7

(around 17:00)

There's two more missions after this. The first is, not going to lie, pretty hard and bad. The last one is probably the best mission. Really cool bosses.

Honestly I hope the game gets revived some day, maybe a remaster or whatever. Would be pretty cool.

I did not know his gun had a grenade launcher built in. There are ENDLESS situations where that would have been extremely useful.

Overall, your gameplay looks similar to mine, though mine is worse which I would say is more due to not knowing what's around the next corner. At this point I know where all the enemies in that area are and after watching this I think I could beat this part now. I think I died more here because every time I died I got mad and tried to rush back to that point where the robo-suit guys come out. I see the melee strat there so I'll try that too. Thanks.

I wish they added some kind of mechanics to the slide or something to make dodging bullets possible like what Vanquish has but I can't think of anything other than adding slow-mo which would end up making them too similar.

Done. Not sure what I really want to play next. I'm thinking Star Fox Zero or Guard but I think I'm sick of the gamepad and Star Fox is known for its extreme motion controls. I've only played it a little in the past and it was annoying but I felt with practice and effort you can master them and play perfectly.

"Done" as in in "I've beaten it" or as in "I'm done with it".

Yeah, I've beaten it. The last two bosses were decent particularly the invisible woman, but neither seemed as troublesome as Jane.

I think an issue is level design. Most stages are very linear hallways with not much room to flank and little to no elevation to use, only a few areas make use of the wallrun mechanic. If levels where more open, had areas to reliably flank enemies from multiple sides and elevations to use hit n run tactics and bait and force enemies into melee more safely.

As well as the usual issue with modern shooters is the abundance of high damage, accurate hit-scan enemies, meaning you have little to no way if reliably avoiding damage, hence regenerating health being the most common health model to balance this issue(but not truly solve it, just mitigate to a variable degree). Reduce enemy gun accuracy(have them fire in a specific arc, think jj in re4) and damage, also have them fire less frequently(as in less firing at once and take breaks between volleys to let you move with some safety) would help. Hitscan with no moderation is pretty much always worse on higher modes, just forces players to spend even more time shooting from cover, more shooters can benefit from Vanquish’s subtle design choices instead of going the usual full retard hit-scan.

I think one thing people need to realize when playing is that it isn't a Ninja Gaiden game, melee is only a close combat resort. You don't go running into a fire fight with a knife.

That said, those notes you made on the fire-range and accuracy would've improved the game a ton.

Devil's Third kinda reminds me of Wet. And before you kill me, first, Wet isn't bad, and second, I'm not saying they play anything the same. Rather, some of the stuff you can do and the way combat plays out reminds me of it.

In Wet, you can go into slowmo pretty much whenever and chain actions. The slowmo is the only way to not get shot to shit. Even though you have a sword, if you tried to use it without slowmo the enemies will destroy you. The majority of enemies have guns in Wet and there's no cover system. The ability to slow down everything is the only defense you have really.

I actually really want to play Wet again. It had an interesting system that I feel if they could improve it, would be a great game. As it is, it's decent.

I always liked WET, got a copy of it for my birthday. Pretty cool action pieces, nice music and fun score-system. Sure it wasn't amazing by any means, but had a lot of fun while playing it.

I feel Devil's Third gains a lot more when playing on Score Attack though, embraces its more arcade nature.

Another video by Cvit.



Never played the game, so I can't say anything.

Bought this game on launch day. I distinctly remember the store clerks asking each other if this game that just came out was good. It's frustrating seeing the game's worth evaluated on the single player when the game was clearly intended to be a multiplayer experience. While the online server for multiplayer was not set up for critics I don't recall any of them amending their reviews to factor in the multiplayer. This game's true value (multiplayer) was essentially left to word of mouth.

The online - Yes, you were limited to only playing the latest unlocked game mode since the community was so small, but there wasn't a problem starting a game for that current mode everyone would be playing as long as you understood that games were played usually on Friday late afternoon. The best mode I played was 'Chickens'. You ran around frantically obtaining chickens of varying colors for points; e.g., blue chicken - 100 pts/sec, red chicken - 200 pts/sec, golden chicken - 1000 pts/sec. People would have a flock of chickens trailing behind them and if you killed a player, you'd get some of their chickens (more chickens were awarded for melee kills!). The game ends when someone reaches a set amount of points or when time runs out. It was all wildly amusing, showed off the parkour system well, and prevented camping. Pretty much the most fun I've had in this genre, way better than CoD: Modern Warfare 2.

Before the game's server went down there were enough people to coordinate switching to other game modes whenever people wanted. I unfortunately never got a chance to play a full-scale clan battle, which was technically the main event of the multiplayer; it allowed you to build your base, which worked perfectly with the Wii U GamePad, and then you could invade other bases or defend against attackers. I only had a small skirmish with someone. Had I gotten into Discord around that time period I would have tried it out more... I really hate always online model for multiplayer.

Gabriel Phelan Lucas wrote:Lack of offline multiplayer functions like a wave mode against ai that would reuse multiplayer maps for offline use, that way one could really use the map to elevate the core gameplay.

It would have been great if they straight up copied TimeSplitters 2's Arcade League. The game's multiplayer felt exactly like that.

Has anyone tried this on CEMU? I will never own a wiiu, but I am really interested in this. Especially how it led to this site. Of the gameplay I have seen, even Roy's playthrough, nothing really seems special or unique. But it's Itagaki so.... I will forever be interested

Apparently it runs pretty smoothly on CEMU from what I'm seeing on Youtube. I wonder if someone can get it to run with M&K, because the controls were always my biggest issue with it.

In regards to it being special or unique, you have to play it. It isn't any of those things per-se but it was in that generation of games, at least to me. I bought Devil's Third soley because games at that point in time for me were getting dull, to the extreme. It was all the same. Devil's Third was this breath of fresh air for me. Just this weird PS2 like game where enemies kill you in seconds with a bonkers plot that goes nowhere and every trope thrown in a blender. Delightful!

Regarding the video though, completely agree with VERT1. Really, really enjoyed my time with the multiplayer, even though it was very short. If it had launced on a bigger system as multiplayer only, it might've taken the spotlight in some cases - fantastic time with it and really wish I'd come back.

Devil's Third is a gem that's never really going to be capable of being experienced again just because so much of it was tied to being experienced as an online game. The single player and score attack is decent, especially if you know enemy weaknesses (notably the black armored soldiers, which are usually considered to be damage sponges, die in two melee shots if I recall correctly), but the multiplayer really was where you could tell Valhalla Games wanted you to have all kinds of fun with.

In the online mode, you could go it alone as a mercenary, or after ranking up a little bit, you could join a clan. I personally joined a clan after lone wolfing it for a while and getting recognized in online matches by the clan leaders of the two top clans. They liked me so much that they ended up sending me invites to join their clans with the in-game customized "clan propaganda".

Upon joining a clan, you became a part of a constant struggle for territory between clans. Each map represented a portion of territory in the United States and you could see which clans had control of each territory by looking at the multiplayer menu. You'd be assigned a place to build your base after joining a clan and be tasked with fortifying it with defenses and placing buildings and traps to make it hard to attack should a siege occur. This all played into the Siege mode where one clan would attack another in hopes of destroying their customized base and gaining territory.

This stuff was wild and really innovative. If the game was bigger this kind of clan conflict would have been even more impressive as I'm pretty sure diplomacy and chat communication was a big thing for clan leaders. Clan leaders had their own private chat for discussing clan matters if I recall. If the game was more popular you'd probably have people that were dedicated mercenaries too that joined either side for siege battles and weren't a part of the greater clan struggles (we had a couple players like this who left clans to become mercenaries over clan drama, was neat). I think because the game was so small, clan leaders ended up setting up times for sieges to occur so as to prevent going in and destroying a base when no one on the other side was around to stop it (I think this stuff ended up happening regardless though as clans grew more competitive some became more slimy lol). There was a whole rather light economy thing going on with making more money to build fortifications and chatting with other members of your clan for fun and sometimes talking strategy for siege battles. And if you really weren't into the base building stuff, other clan members could do that in your stead I believe.

And that's just the clan stuff, the more traditional quick get-in-get-out modes like battle royal and team deathmatch were all awesome. Probably the only shooter where I actually love all the modes and it's a bummer that some of them weren't always very active. Having a clan helped organize when you could play those modes. All the weird and unique modes were so much fun, Chickens: where you tried to maintain the largest trail of chickens, Ignition: Bringing a bomb to an enemy bombsite to detonate it, Carnival: throwing fruit into a giant blender that would rise and sink into the ground at different spots in the map, Close Quarters: Melee Weapons only (not the best of modes because the melee was so limited but the lethality of that mode was palpable), Gladiator: everyone starts with no weapons, just their fists, and random weapons will spawn on the map leaving everyone trying to run to points of interest to get weaponry, and etc. etc.

The modes were really great. The maps were too. The whole switching between first person shooting and third person melee action seems like it doesn't really work or that it works with caveats if you only play the single player. However, in multiplayer, the blend worked perfectly. Killing two players with a shotgun in the middle of a melee skirmish, slashing a guy in half with a katana while they're sniping with their back to you, and one hit killing people in a small building by throwing a literal sledge hammer right in their face. It all worked really well with the map design and both options felt suitable to use for a variety of situations. The weapon variety was great with everything from flamethrowers and axes to rocket launchers and tomahawks. Albeit this stuff wasn't as balanced as it could have been, one of the bigger tragedies with this game is that it never received balance updates and a select few players would abuse exploits with rocket launchers that were straight up incapable of being countered due to how easy it was to be staggered by explosives.

But yeah, really great game. Probably one of the best experiences I've had with an online game and it's probably the sole reason I'm really open to playing them nowadays. It had great mechanics, charm, and character customization. I know some people ragged on the multiplayer for having some microtransaction elements, but they really were so minor at the time. They gave you so much of the in-game currency dedicated to the that microtransaction stuff for ranking up and you got a ton of it for getting all the collectibles in the single player. I got pretty much everything I wanted without having to drop a cent nor feeling pressured to. I remember being being confused when some reviewers brought it up as it was extremely tame in comparison to bigger budget games. It's still not great to have mind you, as their is some good gear with some stat bonuses that you inevitably won't be able to get without putting in some serious time ranking up or ponying up some cash. But if you had specific stuff in mind that you wanted, you definitely could get that specific stuff with just the currency they give you.

But yeah, I'm done rambling I think. I really wish the team was able to give it another shot because it really is something special, but I doubt it. Interestingly enough they released Devil's Third Online for PC in the west under the name of RockShot as free-to-play title on Steam but it got shut down after a mere three months. I remember trying it for a bit, but my PC couldn't run it very well at the time and I'm pretty sure a ton of maps and weapons were missing along with the microtransaction element being considerably worse (renting weapons for usage if I recall correctly lol).

If any of you are interested in some of the wild tales of the Devil's Third clan drama along with a wealth of information regarding the online component this Reddit post from one of the most notable players at the time is a treasure to read. I haven't read the whole thing in a while, but the funny thing about it is that I'm pretty sure some of the information I was told from my time in a clan was slightly different from the stories presented here. Real aspects of war, differing perspectives and the like playing out in a video game. lol

Devil's Third Drama

Holy shit that multiplayer thread is absolutely insane. If this game had come out 10 years ago like it was supposed to, with those ideas, it truly could have been a gamer changer.
If NG2 is a game that is 7/8ths finished because of tecmo, Devil's third is like a game 2/6ths complete.
Such a shame.
I pray to fiend that Itagaki's next title has the budget to be properly finished. Dude is clearly a genius.

The interviews surrounding Devil's Third really show that Multiplayer was a heavy focus. Nintendo had asked him to deliver a unique multiplayer experience to get the masses onto the Switch. Sadly, a focus on a rushed singleplayer foiled that.

Great post Gouf! Read the whole thread and overall really agree with what I'm reading. Thank you for sharing this! I think it would be worth making an indepth article, interview or whatever on Devil's Third's multiplayer and the possible influences it could've had on future games in the genre - if at all. Do you think modern titles took something from it?

What the...

I don't think Devil's Third directly influenced anything, but I have noticed other games play around with similar concepts to the ones Itagaki seemingly came up with many years prior. I guess you could say other developers were starting to catch up with his ideas a bit just because the concept for Devil's Third was ahead of its time.

Before Devil's Third, in 2013 there was a free-to-play game called Dust 514 and the whole deal with that was its connectivity to the space fleet MMO Eve Online. In Dust 514 you essentially played as the ground infantry mercenaries for Eve Online players. You'd fight their wars and play a part in how the economy and politics that players took part in during the MMO were shaped. They advertised how like an Eve Online player could send down an orbital strike to players playing Dust 514. Pretty wild sounding stuff at the time. Can't imagine it was all true, just given the nature of video game marketing, but I never really looked into it that deeply. Wasn't fond of the game because of typical free-to-play annoyances and the game just not being all the fun to play. But it was interesting and it is kinda similar to Devil's Third's online which focused on factions, albeit the faction and fighting portions were split into two completely separate games with how they they implemented it in Dust 514 and Eve Online. Was always curious how the player perception settled for Dust 514 when it shutdown a couple years later. Might be worth a look.

For Honor has a factions system that's admittedly not nearly as interesting or involved as Devil's Third. When you start the game, you pick one of three factions and your performance in different modes affects your faction's claim on territory. It works in seasons I believe. Whichever of the three factions had the most by the end of it got some type of cosmetic reward or currency or something. Then during the next season everything resets and the cycle begins anew. No real interaction between other players, just a team thing to join to make you feel like you're a part of some kinda nebulous bigger picture. Never cared for it in that game, just never really felt all that tangible or anything.

I guess you could say viable melee combat in more competitive online games is starting to become more prevalent too which is something that Devil's Third really tried to get going.

Devil's Third was really unique in a way because it brought a sort of player driven MMO vibe to a shooter. The stuff that happened in this game is really reminiscent of the type of stories you only really hear people talk about in MMOs. Even stuff like Fortnite doesn't feel like that because it's not player driven stuff that causes change, but rather developer content updates. The map may change in Fortnite, but it ain't because of anything an individual or group of players did. I've heard Destiny is pretty much an MMO. Maybe the player to player interaction there is slightly similar, but regardless it woudn't have stuff like clans and territory struggles.

Anyhow, overall I think games are starting to take individual bits and pieces of the ideas Itagaki came up with in Devil's Third, but none have really put them all together like he did.

After browsing Itagaki's wonderful facebook page, I decided to finally get this running on CEMU.
It actually runs at 50 fps, compared to the wii u's 30-20 fps it feels pretty good. Melee feels very snappy and I can tell Itagakii worked on it right away.
I put it on hardcore in the options, why doesn't it ask which difficulty you want at the start?

Edit: Is it possible to melee big mouses' first phase on chapter 2. I tried 20 times unsuccessfully, then just mowed him down in 3 seconds.

What are your PC specs? I might try emulating this at some point as well.

Ryzen 7 3700x, 2080 super, 32 G ram. There are videos on youtube of much lower still running decent. Emulator's are mostly CPU based, that's what matters.

Let me know if you do, I can give you my shader cache for the game. Cemu builds shaders as you play and unless you restart your pc they stay. The only issue is it causes the game to hitch up real bad as it does. Downloading other peoples shaders makes this problem go away.
Cemu is a really weird emulator, it's not really great imo compared to pcsx2 and xebra, it's just all there is.

Is it playable with M&K? Found that for some reason aiming with the controller felt really 'off' in that game and I could never figure out why. Would love to play it on PC.

I assume you can map M&k, haven't tried. Being able to change deadzone and sensitivity thresholds made the stick aiming feel much better. I would hate to do the melee and dodging with a keyboard personally.

I found an infinite loop on Saha with the tomahawks. The roll attack can be chained seemingly forever, really cool find.

Ugggh Ludmilla. She is a good boss if you have a shotgun an LMG, or fight her barehanded. I had neither and got tired of having to throw my wepon at the start every time as she rushed me. So I turned it down to normal mode for her. Barehanded it almost felt like a decent NG boss, almost..

I like how there is a ninja stair gauntlet at the end lol.

Overall I enjoyed the game. It is a cover shooter from 2010. Reminds me of something like Kane and Lynch or Dark Sector. The melee really adds a lot of options because it has the only I-frame move. Dodging not regenerating your health was an interesting choice. There's just a lot more to think about than most cover shooters. Itagaki said "NG2 was a game they ran out of time to balance", but was a complete game.
This seems like a game that just was maybe 4/10ths finished, and obviously multiplayer was where the
focus was.

In this live stream they play the single player for 10 minutes then soley multiplayer.
This video also has some rare footage of Itagaki's naked eyeballs at 1:02:00



It is crazy how many weapon attachment combos that are only in multiplayer. They should have put that variety in the campaign. You don't get to see the SCAR's iron sights until the last level, and it is the gun you start with almost every mission.

With all of that being said I played at a rock solid 50fps. There is just no excuse for how bad that game ran on wii u.