The Purity of Action

One thing I notice about newish action games that could be interesting to me is how I try to estimate how much they are diluted.

I am appaled by how Samurai Jack has a skill tree and that Astral Chain seems to have whole chapters without any action.
The only menu screen I find acceptable is when I press the pause button. -Paused-

As a result I'm reluctant to purchase and play those and instead turn to the dawn of video games. When technical limitations kept things simple and clean enough, and not least of all challenging.

One stick and two buttons ( there's an Freudian image ), enough to survive and conquer legions and triumph over adversity. This is not a lament about complexity. It's about filler elements. Today many players expect a certain "length" or duration to consider it worthwhile.

That's where the rub is. Developers who don't comply risk getting mocked for their honesty. If they inflate their creation with other elements they will placate the sweaty masses, some who call special moves in fighting games "gatekeeping" (no kidding!).

So where does that leave enthusiasts who just want a single player rumble? You tell me below.
I'd say the power era is gone since the last SD gen of consoles. When production costs and sales where close enough to warrant a more experimental approach. And what now is reminecent of that are only echoes.

When I play an action game I usually find myself thinking "it'd be nice if I didn't have to do this random uninteresting platforming section" or "it'd be nice if I hadn't spent the last 5 minutes walking around for the sake of exploration".

I know people like to have some moments for breaking up the pace, but to be honest I'm really not about that. If action games had interesting stories then maybe I'd like more cutscenes, but let's be honest...they don't.

I find that I don't really enjoy action RPGs because of the sort of dilution you meantioned. The "filler" there is replacing player improvement with number-driven character improvement. I'd much rather learn a new technique or strategy than just come back to a fight when I'm a higher level with a higher damage output.

I dislike quite a few mini-games in various action games but some don't bother me too much especially if the combat systems are good.

Action/TB RPGs don't bother me much anymore. They used to but once I found how much build variety some have and lots of interesting mechanics I started to love them. There is still strategy and player improvement just in a different way.

Some types of grind drive me nuts though.

While I understand where this is coming from, this is mostly a case of the presence of a ton of 'bad examples'. Astral Chain is filled with side-content that isn't interesting for anyone, Wonderful 101 is stuffed with mini games, Samurai Jack has weird side-scroller segments, Shadows of the Damned turns into a shmup from time to time, Killer is Dead has the sex mini game, Yakuza has hours or 'mash X to skip text'. The same goes for bad examples regarding gameplay elements, bad tutorials, bad mechanics like skill-trees.

But a bad example doesn't inherently mean it is a bad thing by default and should be avoided.

I think distractions aren't bad as long as they use the game's mechanics for instance, and the absence of them can really ruin a game. Viewtiful Joe, for all its greatness, is almost tiresome to play for me as it really is just arena after arena after arena - same with Razor's Edge.

Games like Ninja Gaiden Black and Resident Evil 4, hallmarks in the genre, use their mechanics smartly outside of combat. Ryu's in-combat mobility is tested or can be used to speed up exploration, while Leon's gun and knife can interact with the enviroment to explore.

A good pacing helps with this a lot as well. For instance Astral Chain's infamous Chapter 8, where after a long set of combat you suddenly have a huge chapter of nothing but mini-games - the game practically commits suicide there.

Skill-trees are another good example. It is terribly done in Samurai Jack I feel and mostly exists to give new players a feeling of progression. But that doesn't mean the mechanic in and of itself is bad. While I feel it works better in choice-based games i.e. Deus Ex, Path of Exile or Final Fantasy where you make character build choices, I think it can still work in action, we've just haven't really seen it done well yet. Mass Effect's skill-tree was pretty nice though in the latter games.

What I will say is that Action games, especially now that they are more rare, are often at risk of being an action-game with a lot of filler, that's absolutely true and I think if we just have a few pure action games with well incorporated 'filler' i.e. not suddenly shifting genre or a push for gyro-controls, it would be far less troublesome.

Personally, I would wish for just one action game to come around that's challenging, doesn't have walking segments, skippable cutscenes, no mini-games, a single playable character, no skill tree. Just you and your skill. Feels like a long time since we had that and Samurai Jack almost delivered on all fronts for that I feel.

Good point on using the mechanics outside of combat, that makes things a little more interesting - like some of the jumps you can make in DMC1 with the stinger attack, Doom Eternal's platforming and combat requiring the same mobility etc. Spider-Man did a good job of this too, as the tools you used to get around the environment were very useful in combat too, but being a AAA console exclusive it just had to have some walkie talkie hand-holdie sections in case we forgot what the story was.

I do respect the frustration people can have for mini-game/genre shift sections but I prefer them to the moments where a game slows you down to a snail's pace. Sure, the mini-game sections in Kamiya's games arent amazing, but I'd take that over being forced to walk round slowly for a few minutes carrying a boar so story can happen in a game I'm really not invested in.

What is the next "pure" action game on the horizon? I shouldn't worry as I've got a massive backlog of action titles to try but it'd be nice to know we haven't been forgotten about. I've not seen too much of it but the Samurai Jack game looks like a mostly pleasant surprise.

Walky talky segments have to be the worst.

>upcoming 'pure' action
I don't think any game released these days will escape all these aspects.

Walky-talky is one of the things I just cannot excuse as it should either be a skippable cutscene, as cutscenes allow for much better levels of cinematography, or just be gameplay segments that you can dash through.

> mini games
My biggest problem with them is their quality. I love Super Hangon, but the Bayonetta motor game is just bad. Bad camera, bad controls, too long, too repetative. Same with some of the Shmup mini-games like in W101 or Bayo, because they are mini-games, they tend to have a lot less emphasis on the details that are supposed to make these arcade-games shine. The one that worked the best I feel was the Shmup stage in Viewtiful Joe as it at least used the game's core mechanics within it.

> pure action game on the horizon
ZERO

I wish that was a joke. I cannot think of a single one on the horizon. The closest we'll get is probably Resident Evil 8 and the rumored western version of Yakuza Isshin.

I must be one of the few people who doesn't mind mini-games...I'd rather take those mini games in Bayo or TW101 over that weird design of DMC5 in forcing you to play as V then immediately as Dante in the next mission. The mini games and combat at least have some clean mechanics if you look at them separately. You do nothing but combat in DMC5 but the design of having you to play as several different characters in various mission is just...odd.

With the price game is being marked up these days, sadly I feel like players just won't be satisfied with one "pure" action game.

I'm not exactly in favour of mini-games, but they're usually short enough where, if they're bad, they don't outstay their welcome too long.

> You do nothing but combat in DMC 5
I liked this, personally. Not been a fan of any of the platforming bits in any of the DMCs, the movement mechanics and camera don't really suit it IMO. The story was poor too, so I'm glad there weren't any forced story segments (from memory).

> Upcoming games
"Pure" action games are sadly just not consumer friendly for your average gamer. Graphics and narratives sell games. It's a shame that the feature of a game that makes it unique from other forms of entertainment is what people are less interested in. I'm grateful we've had Astral Chain, DMC5, DOOM Eternal over the last couple of years. Sekiro and Nioh too, even if i'm not a Soulslike guy. We'll have to take these small victories where we can get them...

Zenyn wrote:One thing I notice about newish action games that could be interesting to me is how I try to estimate how much they are diluted.

I am appaled by how Samurai Jack has a skill tree

I'm not too keen on skill trees either.

and that Astral Chain seems to have whole chapters without any action.

No. Only one time did I have a "can-I-get-some-combat-here?" moment. Chapter 8 has a decent amount of combat, it even allows you to skip helping out, but there is emphasis on racing that can be seen for whatever reason as non-action. And it does entertain the idea that you have taken to the inventive uses of the Legion. It does have what I am going to refer to as a "sensible issue": action that takes place because of a more rationalized setup or establishment that sensibly ties into a bigger story line structure. Justifying why you hit things. MadWorld [Wii], for contrast, had carnival mini-games as a regular occurrence that fit in line with the game's insensible world. Borrowing factory-line enemy-producing events from that game could work in the more organically grown events in a crime-busting open area of AC.

Going back to what you wrote about "dilution": does having a moment of peace (down-time) that lasts for 15 minutes that watered down for you in a 20 hour game? I had no problem with Chapter 8 as a whole; it is more about amusement than action. You may not like it if you are trying to 100% the chapter. The chapter shows off circuit-level design and shows promise. (Why I joined here was to discuss what's in AC to a small degree: surprise action moments wandering through otherwise peaceful areas.) The root cause of the dilution in my estimation was adding shops in action games, which when designed for bad game-extension purposes leads to too much time in the shop mulling over upgrades and items than decisively taking a loadout. Shinobi [PS2] = No Shop.  

Today many players expect a certain "length" or duration to consider it worthwhile.

We are used to hearing the old sinister word of "accessibility", now it is "engagement".

As a result I'm reluctant to purchase and play those and instead turn to the dawn of video games. When technical limitations kept things simple and clean enough, and not least of all challenging.

What do you play? I read a Top 100 Game Boy games article where the author on more than one occasion brings up ~30 minute completion time as to malign it as if it was detrimental for the game. It seems ~30 minutes was the norm when it came to a one-sitting game in the action series for Game Boy.

So where does that leave enthusiasts who just want a single player rumble? You tell me below.

Bayonetta 3. Astral Chain 2.

The whole emphasis on length being a metric is one gamers came up with, as replay value became less important for modern day players. Vanquish is a 5 hour game, at best. Zone of the Enders is worse. Don't get me started on half the PS2 or earlier era games like the gameboy games as Vert mentioned.

Length, graphics and review scores are the easiest metrics for people to base opinions on before purchasing a game. Game is 50 hours? Well at least I know I can escape my life for 50 hours then. Graphics look mighty fine? Well at least I know I'll be looking at a pretty game. You can't put good gameplay and replayvalue on the back of the box.

> Bayonetta 3
I keep forgetting this is a thing. I'd want to add Babylon's Fall but I'm sure RPG nonsense will make its way in there.

> mini games VS multiple character syndrom
Just feel they should be done well. DMCV handled multiple characters in an absolutely terrible fashion.

> astral chain
Honestly I hated the game until I beat it, but that's no secret anymore. Once I went past its Blue Cases and could just do combat ad naseum it was a fantastic experience. The optional 1 minute exploration between fights was all I needed to unwind.

> Downtime
For me at least, the issue isn't specifically that there is downtime, but what the game wants you to do during it. If the devs want you to take a break from the action then okay, but I still want to be entertained while the controller is in my hand. If I need a breather I can pause the game for a bit - I don't need a segment of boring gameplay for that.

> DMC5 multiple characters
Can anybody elaborate on these points? I know the game was criticised (in a fair manner) when it came out but I didn't realise this area was considered such a weak point. I suppose it is a bit "jumpy" between the 3 characters, especially towards the end, but I preferred it to the DMC 4 approach.

> Bayonetta 3
Genuinely starting to think it's not happening and they don't know how to tell us.

> Astral Chain
I too didn't really enjoy it until I started the postgame chapters and actually began to learn how to play. That's another issue for action games - your average player won't stick around for a second playthrough, or maybe even to finish side content. If they aren't fully entertained during the main mode they'll just drop the game for something else.

I think that's more than fair regarding downtime. What you want to avoid is that downtime becomes a completely different experience, i.e. that you do a fight where you can't do anything else but fight, then you have to explore the whole area to get all the items and exploration, and then on to the next fight. My favourite example of this done right is the farm-area in RE4: you have enemies, exploration items, collectibles and a save station - all in one area without one restricting the other. You can go explore, you can go fight, you can do them while doing the other etc.


> DMC5
It was more that it didn't improve it, but made it worse. DMC4 had two characters that split the game in half. DMCV has three characters with the first half focusing on two, while the later half mostly ditches V while focusing more on Dante. It is still not possible either to replay chapters with any character either. It also resulted in us having to do the same boss twice in a row.

In cases like this I'd say just do it the RE6 way, let us choose a character and we play the game with him/her. This constant flipflopping around means you might have just gotten a cool weapon or ability aannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnddddd....time to not play as that character for 5 hours.

> Bayo 3
I think it is going really well but they really regret announcing it so soon.

Varying positions on what is "on the side" all around I see.

Royta/Raeng wrote: Killer is Dead has the sex mini game

Hey, nohow! You're thinking GoW's silly straight-sex-game. KiD is about magnifico womanizing.  But you can keep above the cloth with the ladies to get what one would want from them: the sub-weapons. After that the player can revert to being a warrior-monk. True, it's filling.

vert1 wrote:What do you play?

Punch Out!! comes to mind. I know the SNES and Wii games. No filler. Awesome presentation. Going to grab the two ACA for Switch soon.
Mr GOEMON, Konami 1986. Also ACA and rare fun, at least to me.
I add Wild Guns, Natsume. Getting familiar with the original SNES game, but will check out the Reloaded remaster as well. It's that kind of fun.


After having a stint with an actual rpg for a week, I am sick of caves an' castles, muhlord. Cued up SEGA Kunoichi.
There are only the ones who find the prequel superior and the other, who never even heard of it.
It's fairly plain at what it does, but it was what I needed. Not that much 3-D Action that I know of that rely so much of "airplay". Going to fiddle more with it.

>Downtime

I think just a cutscene (That's still skippable) is enough. Or if the game is heavily movement-based, then I don't mind the odd quick segment of platforming. Just something that can still hold my interest in some way, or something that can be paused and skipped. Of course, with the nature of action games, platforming segments quickly become obnoxious when you gotta do them over and over again unless you put extra care in your level design to ensure that said platforming segment can be completed in multiple ways with certain movement tech.

>DMC5 characters
It's really jarring to go from character-to-character. You have these moments where you get used to whoever you're playing as, and then the mission ends. The last guy you just played as is then thrown into the time-out kennel for a few hours.

>Bayonetta 3
Seriously reaching some SMT V levels of radio silence. And even then, we got a trailer last month.

>what the game wants you to do during it.
Pretty much this. I loved fishing in Okami and some of the races were decent. Digging was ok.

>There are only the ones who find the prequel superior and the other, who never even heard of it.
I still have two sealed copies. Found it different rather than superior.

>3-D Action that I know of that rely so much of "airplay".
You might like Chaindive. Give it a look.

>enthusiasts who just want a single player rumble

Playing old games, mostly. I recently just did a few runs in Bulletstorm and it was nice to only have a screen for buying ammo, rather than unlocking innate abilities slowly throughout the course of the game. Unfortunately most people look for stuff like “progression” and “unlocks” when checking out a game but I don’t think these types are completely dead. I do have to give massive credit to Capcom lately; DMC5, RE2/3, and MM11 are almost entirely devoid of this kind of junk.

>mini games vs forced walking

I’m clearly in the minority here, but I’ll take the forced walking any day of the week as long as it’s kept to a modest amount. The mini games in Kamiya’s games are just horrible. The fact is, I only have so many free hours in a week, and so much effort I can put into something before completely losing interest. Games like Vanquish/TEW/GoW2 have some forced walking or cutscenes, so what, I can just get on my phone for a minute or two. In comparison, the shmup sections, detective crap, and things like it not only take longer but require input from me that ends up getting on my nerves and discourages me from getting back into the game. The fact that the shmup and motorcycle sections are ranked is just...no.

>small victories when we get them

For all the complaining that can be done about the industry today(a lot) we got plenty of great games this gen. The ones you mentioned, as well as stuff like Bloodborne(another masterpiece with no BS filler) and some excellent side scrollers(Bloodstained) I think shows that there’s still hope.

I think at the end of the day, an action game can easily be “nothing but fighting” and still be varied, it just has to do with presentation. DMC5 has a lot of boxy, empty arenas separated by empty hallways, so fatigue does set in sometimes, NG3 has wave after wave of repetitive enemies with empty hallways between. Games like RE4, Souls/Sekiro, MGS, Doom, are “nothing but fighting” for the most part, but integrate them into the level design and pace them out much better. Almost all 2D games are nothing but either platforming or a mix of action and platforming, and it was never an issue due to how those games presented the scenarios.

What ends up happening with a lot of action games as people want to see more and more cuhrayzee is that they always need to have a ton of enemies at once to pose a threat, so putting just a small number of enemies in smaller environments, or having surprise attacks in quiet sections doesn’t cut it because the game is constantly throwing upgrades and power ups at you. Obviously we all want to just destroy when we play an action game but devs can’t balance that and  having good scenario presentation. I always think of it like a good piece of music; there should be peaks and valleys and should pick up and dip to good effect, rather than the game just punching you in the face over and over again to show how hard or extreme it is.

They have to be so bad for me to care enough to drop a game.

Zenyn wrote:Mr GOEMON, Konami 1986. Also ACA and rare fun, at least to me.

The Goemon games are great for this discussion. I haven't played that one but I've got the first SNES Goemon. Maybe Astral Chain could borrow a few things from that game's towns. (Example: What would happen in AC [or any other modern game] if some NPC randomly appeared and stole your money?) All the minigames in that were a blast to play. There's even Gradius [AC]! Additionally, it might be easier to gauge boredom from a two player experience when it comes to down-time. The Goemon series shows three easily observable levels to all this: In The Legend of the Mystical Ninja, there was a little walking through towns to get to stages but stuff ("live-events") happened that kept you from being complacent; the single player N64 3D Goemon Adventure there was a ton of walking through vast spaces to reach new towns; the co-op side-scroller N64 Goemon game got rid of all that and sticks to levels only.

Other game-wise, I can remember playing Tales of Symphonia [GC] in 2 Player Mode and the problematic time-factor (or more accurately: timing-factor) of only one person controlled outside of combat, which unless you were knee-deep in a dungeon fighting a lot, would cause impatience.

Infinity_Divide wrote:>mini games vs forced walking

I’m clearly in the minority here, but I’ll take the forced walking any day of the week as long as it’s kept to a modest amount. The mini games in Kamiya’s games are just horrible. The fact is, I only have so many free hours in a week, and so much effort I can put into something before completely losing interest. Games like Vanquish/TEW/GoW2 have some forced walking or cutscenes, so what, I can just get on my phone for a minute or two.

You think there is an if/when a developer is going to subvert expectations of a forced walking segment in a game? I really thought Metroid: Other M was going to do a psych out of some sorts with this.

I just finished a Nightshade playthrough, which is about as pure action as it gets, so I wanted to chime in here.

I do think there's something to be said for a game that only aspires to do one thing and do it well, and of course that's what a lot of classics did. Even in Shinobi's (PS2) time, a pure action game with 100% of its focus placed on a small handful of mechanics had become something of a rarity. Games with more features were seen as more well-rounded and immersive, and they gave marketers more bullet points for the back-of-box copy. That's why Dead to Rights, a game that imo has great, satisfying gun action, also has only so-so beat-'em-up mechanics and is also full of mini-games ranging from "innocuous" to "stomach-churning" (excruciatingly long striptease rhythm game, I'm looking at you).

But in general I'm actually in favor of downtime. As much as I love Shinobi and Nightshade, they can get REALLY fatiguing. They're also so singularly focused on their action mechanics that the world feels like a hollow diorama. It may as well be a pinball machine. Now, that's not necessarily a BAD thing, but I do think these other downtime activities can help flesh out a game's world and characters effectively, and as long as you're going to create a setting and characters, you may as well mean it.

I started Astral Chain last year and shelved it only because I got busy with work. I was actually really really impressed with the breadth of content, and I guess I'm in the minority here because I thought the police station hub and open-world (more like open city block--even better imo) stuff was great.

It's not like any one activity was that compelling, but I do think these laid-back policing activities helped realize the setting and characters, and provided a nice breather from the strenuousness of the core action gameplay. Since a lot of this side stuff is optional, it also means you have a lot of control over how much downtime you have, which I think is great. Certainly better than forced walking segments, which don't feel much like downtime at all since you're still trudging down the tunnel, and not even at your own pace.

In fact, Astral Chain is the only Platinum game where I don't default to skipping every cutscene. I love Platinum, but I find most of their games' stories so pointlessly laborious. Like, if your focus is singularly on the action, don't pretend I'm supposed to care about the minutiae of these characters' trite backstories.

Astral Chain's more laidback "beat" sections do something I've wanted Devil May Cry to do for years. They show that the entirety of these cops' existence isn't just this one exceptional adventure. They're actually cops who do the job cops would do in this world, meaning they don't JUST fight epic monsters from beyond the other dominion--they'll also help you find your cat, talk to locals, or investigate a crime scene on a city street.

Devil May Cry established up front that this was Dante's BUSINESS--and yet we never see Dante just conducting business as usual. He is always 100% consumed with some exceptional occurrence that takes him away from work. Give me the Devil May Cry game where you get to hang out in his office and take ordinary (devil hunting) jobs. As it stands I think the setting has always been a weak point for DMC (is this supposed to be America??) Also DMC1-4's approach to "downtime" was to gatekeep progress with MacGuffins you had to find and use ("Looks like a Rusty Key could open this door!"), but I don't think this was a great solution because it often led to wandering/getting lost in desolate, echoey rooms, which is pretty lame at best and stressful all over again at worst.

(By the way, I think forced walking segments, including the ones in Vanquish, are typically inserted to mask a load time, so the idea was to offer a more seamless alternative to a static slate. Another tactic was Bayonetta's practice arena load screens, but it's kind of funny on the recent ports because everything loads in like two seconds.)

So anyway yeah, although admittedly I haven't hit Chapter 8 yet, I'm going to bat for Astral Chain's diversionary stuff.

I do think "pure" action is just too much of a niche for most publishers to consider, but it's become the purview of indies and there's plenty out there. I loved how Hyper Light Drifter basically took the Zelda mold and removed everything but the action, and then made the action feel really good. Titan Souls is Shadow of the Colossus truncated into twenty-second treks to each boss. Blazing Chrome is...a whole lotta blazing chrome.

As far as more modern stuff, I thought Malicious (PS3, PS4, Vita) was a refreshingly focused action game. Worth a look!