Welcome new members (introduction topic)

Birdman wrote:martial arts
Which?

Hey man,

I practice a form of traditional Japanese martial arts called Taijutsu.  You do martial arts as well?

Royta/Raeng wrote:As noted before: welcome Hicho9! I was constantly wondering where we knew each-other from, but Kaze and Kensei ring good bells man. Great to see you around!

It's funny, what you're living right now is probably going to end up being my future. Getting married next year, probably children after all that. Glad to hear you can still play what you want. I am a bit afraid I won't be able to dive into 'huge' games anymore, how are you experiencing that?

And good games. I didn't get deep into Sekiro myself. Same with Messenger after I heard it was a Metroid like game (hoped it was just a straight up platformer). You ever played Shinobi?

Thanks man!!

And congrats on the upcoming wedding! Haha, well, life definitely changes with the wife and kid---can't play as much as I used to for sure. I still get to play a good deal but it is just for shorter periods more sporadically...like an hour or two maybe a few times a week, etc. For the most part, not a big deal---still can play the bigger games, just takes alot longer to finish them :). But yeah in general I gravitate away from the huge games now. I want more of a game that is going to give me a quick fix of enjoyment (action games are perfect!).

On games, yes, PS2 Shinobi is one of my favorites. Loved that game! Have not played it in years as don't have a PS2 anymore but that is a game Sega is crazy for not bringing back. Ryu Hayabusa, Strider and Hotsuma are like my holy trinity of top action gaming ninja!

On Sekiro....yeah, I feel very conflicted about the game. On the one hand, it was awesome (I love Tenchu and Nioh, so it does the historical Japan thing beautifully) and it had some great moments. But I found the combat, while cool at times, in the game got old pretty fast. I don't really have any desire to go back and play it again really. Some great ideas in the combat system but alot of missed opportunities to make it great I feel....

The Messenger is a really fun 2D action title! Nothing amazing but fun. I just wish they would do another 2D Strider someday honestly. There is another 2D ninja action game coming called Cyber Shadow which i am excited for.

@Birdman
I keep forgetting that I actually did haha...

@Hicho9
Good to hear man, I can imagine my situation will be quite similar when it comes down to it. Do you play games with your kid(s) as well? Or are they too young right now?
Loved Shinobi as well, might be one of my favourites in the genre. You tried the sequel? I still have trouble getting into that game for some reason.

We're pretty much on the same page considering Sekiro. The topic on the game on this forum went pretty deep into it, worth a read I'd say!

You do martial arts as well?
I did Muay Thai and TKD for a while. Taking a break now though.

Royta/Raeng wrote:

@Hicho9
Good to hear man, I can imagine my situation will be quite similar when it comes down to it. Do you play games with your kid(s) as well? Or are they too young right now?
Loved Shinobi as well, might be one of my favourites in the genre. You tried the sequel? I still have trouble getting into that game for some reason.

Yeah! My son just turned 10 so he is in prime gaming age haha! We have played alot of games together over time, mostly Zelda games as you'd expect, Hollow Knight, The Messenger like I mentioned, Shovel Knight, Mini-Ninjas, etc. I'd say Hollow Knight and Breath of the Wild are his two favorite games, although thanks to me getting the X1X recently (for myself and NG!) he also is loving Ori. He mostly plays on his own now as he doesn't need me anymore haha.

Ditto on Shinobi, but I never did play the sequel. Not sure why, I was just never drawn to play it. Not having a sequel with Hotsuma really bummed me out at the time I think. I know this is kind of dumb/petty, but with most games I really prefer to play as a male protagonist and rarely feel inclined to play games with a female lead. Nothing against women of course haha!

Birdman wrote:You do martial arts as well?
I did Muay Thai and TKD for a while. Taking a break now though.

That's cool man. I originally started martial arts with TKD at first, though decided after a year it was not the art I was looking for.

I don't like it either. Too many stupid rules designed to cover its glaring weaknesses. The teacher even told me, after I asked why I couldn't use low kicks, is because they destroy TKD. No grabs, elbows, hooks, knees, uppercuts, and you get disqualified for attacking too hard. A complete joke. I kicked some people in the face in sparring and got told off. Hard to avoid when no one blocks properly.

Me and my friend only went to learn a few kicks that MT didn't teach, and those kicks are some of the best there are, but not when stuck in the box that is TKD.

No worries, I can understand. Unless we're talking horny 14 year old Roy who only wanted to pick Ivy in Soul Calibur II, I can fully relate. My biggest gripe (I've played it) with Nightshade is that it is really easy and misses that atmosphere and pressure. Mechanically the game is better I'd say, but it really misses a lot.

Hotsuma is playable by the way, as is Joe. Just need to unlock them first.

who only wanted to pick Ivy in Soul Calibur II
This is still me in every SC. Speaking of, I should check what SC6 is up to.

Hello there, I'm The Lord of Zeal, my real name is Lavos, and I eat time. I was gonna destroy the world in 1999 but some kids stopped me.

With all jokes aside, it's great to be here. I'm kind of a noob in the genre, although I have played action games before I never really tried to get very deep into them, simply played to finish them and only played with some mechanics but never took things much seriously, until I found this site and the well written articles and the members of this forum, which have been very informative and really peaked my interest in the genre. I've been lurking here for some times, finally decided to make an account to seek wisdom.

Currently I'm playing God of War 2018,
And doing some challenge runs on Castlevania Circle of the Moon and Prinny: can I really be the hero?
Also gonna start the PSP GoW games.

Welcome! We are happy to have you here. What action game do you like the most?

Thanks mate.
I would say the God of War games (the original ones.) Specifically Chains of Olympus, while I can see the other games like GoW2 are better, but CoO was my first action game. Also God Hand really love that game, after I'm done with the games I listed I'm gonna do KMS and No damage on God hand.
But my opinion may change on what is my favorite after I try out more games in the genre.

Greatful you didn't Zeal! 1999 is when The Matrix got released and I really enjoy that film, so thank you for sparing us!

Jokes not withstanding, great to see you here. When I saw your name pop up I thought "hey, he made the jump! Cool"! Always had fun talking stuff with you on twitter. Hope you will find your jam here! How's God of War 2018 working out for you so far?

Royta/Raeng wrote:Greatful you didn't Zeal! 1999 is when The Matrix got released and I really enjoy that film, so thank you for sparing us!

Jokes not withstanding, great to see you here. When I saw your name pop up I thought "hey, he made the jump! Cool"! Always had fun talking stuff with you on twitter. Hope you will find your jam here! How's God of War 2018 working out for you so far?

Thanks mate, glad to be here and I already found my jam. I'm going through some topics in the various action games and various other games section and seeing really great stuff. Plenty of games I didn't know about and plenty of games I know but didn't spent much time on, makes me really excited to play them, for which I thank you and the other users.


And as for God of War, while I don't really wanna compare it other games much, but even then this game has questionable things and things make you wonder "why didn't they just copy that?" Or "what were they thinking?"

Like the parrying is super easy, but it still could have added different bonuses depending on the timing of the parry, like the game Furi. Parrying takes no skill imo.


The rpg mechanics are one of the worst imo, feels like they're forcing me to just get the strongest available armor that increases my level. At first when I saw a text saying "different armor changes the way you approach combat" made me happy but I soon realize that really isn't true and the game kinda forces you to increase your level.
Which led to one of the weirdest experience,
I was nearly level 4, when I was on an Island and found a realm tear that spawned three Hel walkers who were at level 6, and I can't parry or block any of their attacks and died in one hit. But then I changed an enchantment that was higher level but common, so what it did was that it decreased my stats, but increased the level and then I could kill those enemies as I was able to parry and block some of their attacks.


And of course the kid and his arrows are overpowered add that with some terrible level designs where you can hide in a place and the enemies won't attack you and you can spam the light arrows get them stunned, kill them with the grab and went back to hiding, I did this in that find the ring side quest for the dwarf.
And there are also areas where you can leave and the enemies will kinda reset and then come back hit them and leave until they die, I did this with higher level enemies that could just one shot me.


Sorry for spewing this long crap, you guys probably know all this, but it's just weird to me how this game got this much praise, it's still a good game and has good ideas and great story and world, but I don't think it deserves the praise it got. I guess I'm kinda disappointed since this is the 1st action game I played in a some time and one of the 1st action game I wanted to get a deeper into the combat.
I'm gonna fight one Valkyrie today, heard that they were great bosses.

You're pretty spot on. It's the case with a lot of games though, they have their upsides and downsides, even all our favs. Depends on how much the downsides ruin the experience for a person.

I wasn't able to continue in GoW, but I really liked the axe-throwing and various properties (some of which we discussed in the Astral Chain topic) though I don't like the fact that that stuff becomes less useful, to useless later on, or the RPG system, for the exact reasons you noted.

I liked how Atreus played as an AI partner. I've played a few games with this element (Haunting Ground, Chaos Legion, Over Zenith, Overlord, to name a few), and I found it pretty decent here, though overpowered like you said.

The retreating enemies thing is quite dumb. I once did this by getting on and off the boat. A lot of older games won't stand for this and the enemies will crowd your 'safe' position so you have nowhere to go but back into their loving embrace.

Knack 2 has this issue, but only in some areas. Mostly you're boxed in with them. I'm doing a new challenge run right now and had to make a rule that you can't cheese enemies like this.

Anyway, glad you're here and taking in all the info you're reading.

Birdman wrote:You're pretty spot on. It's the case with a lot of games though, they have their upsides and downsides, even all our favs. Depends on how much the downsides ruin the experience for a person.

Yes that's true.

I wasn't able to continue in GoW, but I really liked the axe-throwing and various properties (some of which we discussed in the Astral Chain topic) though I don't like the fact that that stuff becomes less useful, to useless later on, or the RPG system, for the exact reasons you noted.

The RPG system in general seems like designed by people who don't know much about RPGs. Like the Luck for example, how the hell does an action game or rpg that has luck as a stat not have critical hits?
Oh and not to mention the runes. Jesus Christ, these things are overpowered. I was fighting an ancient and usually I would have to stun it three times before it can be killed, but if you attack it with the Ice beam rune, once it's stunned you can pretty much do it in one shot. I think you don't even need to stun it. When I find the next ancient I will try to attack it with that rune, the moment it tries to attack.

I liked how Atreus played as an AI partner. I've played a few games with this element (Haunting Ground, Chaos Legion, Over Zenith, Overlord, to name a few), and I found it pretty decent here, though overpowered like you said.

The retreating enemies is quite dumb. I once did this by getting on and off the boat. A lot of older games won't stand for this and the enemies will crown your 'safe' position so you have nowhere to go but back into their loving embrace.

Knack 2 has this issue, but only in some areas. Mostly you're boxed in with them. I'm doing a new challenge run right now and had to make a rule that you can't cheese enemies like this.

I mean they can easily solve this issue, by either giving the enemies their health back (while they do get their health back with the leveling up thing, that can be quickly stopped with the arrows), when you leave or by giving you less Xp if you do something like that.
And of course as you said they can always make the enemies wait for you at your safe position. This is particularly stupid because doing this you can take out really high level enemies without getting any upgrades.
Just spam your runes, get on your boat, let the cool down end and spam some more. I was able to take down three level 7 enemies at early level 4, who were capable of one shotting me and I can't block or parry their attacks.

Anyway, glad you're here and taking in all the info you're reading.

Thanks mate, I'm also pleasantly surprised to see great discussions about games in other genres.
Also extra thanks to you, because of your inputs on Chaos legion and Knack 2, I'm now pretty interested in those game even though I didn't give them a try due to my ignorance and the shitty reviews and now I wanna try them out, also saw some of your posts on CL on gamefaqs, which seemed pretty great too.

By all means Zeal, seriously, good to see you so active! No need excusing 'long crap' haha, we all come from that stuff!

And yeah, God of War has some weird choice. Some things I really enjoyed and thought were novel, or at least interesting, but the whole focus felt wrong throughout. The gear system is actually quite similar to later titles of World of Warcraft. Originally in that game all that mattered were the stats, but the level of the gear wasn't important. So you'd have a level 50 character walk around with a level 19 ring for instance, if that ring had a really good effect. But later-on they retweaked it, and the level of your gear was more important, basically taking all those smart choices out.

I think for GoW (and I cover that a lot in my article) they really should've just done away with the whole RPG aspect. The whole point of it in the game is to allow you to take on foes that are stronger than you...that are only stronger than you because of the RPG mechanics. It also feels a tad weird to beat a fight purely based on your numbers and not how well you played.

It isn't that well regarded anymore I feel. When the honeymoon phase past more and more people started posting negative things towards it. But its sales and reviews do speak highly of it, by far the best selling action game of all time.

Considering your commentary, how would you have liked to seen it done differently? Have you tried the older God of Wars?

> overpowered
If you want to see some fun setups, I'd recommend this little channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzGRD0m3lv6hCfDqdgwYPag/search?query=god+of+war

Fantastic little channel with emphasis on 'efficient' tactics.

> now wants to try out little games you once didn't think of trying
Great to read this, seriously. That's what this board is for, welcome!

Royta/Raeng wrote:By all means Zeal, seriously, good to see you so active! No need excusing 'long crap' haha, we all come from that stuff!

Thanks lol. I'm actually having a good time here, reading the threads.

And yeah, God of War has some weird choice. Some things I really enjoyed and thought were novel, or at least interesting, but the whole focus felt wrong throughout. The gear system is actually quite similar to later titles of World of Warcraft. Originally in that game all that mattered were the stats, but the level of the gear wasn't important. So you'd have a level 50 character walk around with a level 19 ring for instance, if that ring had a really good effect. But later-on they retweaked it, and the level of your gear was more important, basically taking all those smart choices out.

I think for GoW (and I cover that a lot in my article) they really should've just done away with the whole RPG aspect. The whole point of it in the game is to allow you to take on foes that are stronger than you...that are only stronger than you because of the RPG mechanics. It also feels a tad weird to beat a fight purely based on your numbers and not how well you played.

That's generally what I felt. And the battles where the enemies are higher level than you i.e the ones with purple bar and the one's with skull can still be beaten without any damage, but fighting them don't really feel like that you're using the mechanics smartly or anything, but just avoid and spam, in simpler words tedious.
I could be wrong though as I haven't seen everything the game has to offer, but that's how it feels as of now.
BTW have you seen the streamer Faraz Khan, who beat the game at level 1 give me gow mode?

It isn't that well regarded anymore I feel. When the honeymoon phase past more and more people started posting negative things towards it.

With the exception of the diehard Sony fanboys no one seems to care about it anymore, it really feels like flavor of the month, like your average AAA game nowadays.

But its sales and reviews do speak highly of it, by far the best selling action game of all time.

Well technically it's an action adventure now, so it isn't the highest selling action game. Actually now it has more in common with games like Witcher 3, which kinda scares me that they might just double down with the RPG mechanics even more to match games like that.

Considering your commentary, how would you have liked to seen it done differently? Have you tried the older God of Wars?

I have played the GoW 1,2 and the psp games. The ones I played the most [as in tried all the difficulty modes] were the psp games especially Chains of Olympus. I really love that game but mostly because of nostalgia and because I haven't tried other games as much as that.

BTW I'm thinking about replaying CoO, is that a good game for challenge runs?


And as for how I would've liked GoW 2018 ,well if the game remained the way it is, I would first fixed the camera, at least give the players options or do it like God Hand or Tekken where the camera goes through walls or obstacles, give a map where we can see the enemy positions like GH.
I also feel like parry or dodge is way too easy, but they can always make it like furi or something similar to that. Like if you parry normally then that will act in the same way it does now, but if you do sort of a perfect parry maybe that'll give some bonus like the counters will do more damage or maybe some perk will activate immediately or enemies stun bar will fill up quicker, I liked the time slowdown talisman which rewards you for perfect dodge, so maybe I would like to see some like that (although I don't think there is much use of that time stop). I also wish they would tone down atreus a bit, that kid really is overpowered.
I would also like to see some enemy variation, almost all the light enemies feel the same to me, same with the heavy enemies. I feel like instead of being immune to attacks and such, I feel like enemies depending on their level were different to each other ( like they will have different attacks, speed, aggressiveness depending on their level or something like that), that would be better. Because I don't find any difference between a low level and high level enemy except for the fact that the higher level enemies are like damage sponges, whereas the lower level enemies feel like they're made of glass.
Also maybe different uses of the runes maybe like some magic in the old gow games, and I also think it would be better if they weren't cool down based, but rather based on something like the orbs in the older games, and depending on your action you'd be rewarded with those orbs. Like if you perform this action like say juggle an enemy or something you get exp, but you wall pin him you get MP orbs or something like that.

These are some ideas I suppose, I could be wrong this could make it worse or something or maybe there are far better ideas. I have yet to play and learn about other games, including the older GoW games, I'll replay all them seriously this time.

> overpowered
If you want to see some fun setups, I'd recommend this little channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzGRD0m3lv6hCfDqdgwYPag/search?query=god+of+war

Fantastic little channel with emphasis on 'efficient' tactics.

> now wants to try out little games you once didn't think of trying
Great to read this, seriously. That's what this board is for, welcome!

Thanks I'll check the channel out. It seems he has some really good stuff on other games as well.

Yeah God of War 2018 really wants you to use its RPG mechanics, which is understandable, and having it influence gameplay beyond numbers is interesting. But honestly taking away 'smart play' feels like a weird punishment. Perhaps having enemies have more attacks or be more agressive (since you're weaker in their eyes, easy pray) would've been a better fit.

Not a big fan of Faraz personally. He's just a guy that sits, plays the whole day and doesn't use tactics or smart play, just brute forces his way through by throwing his body at a brick wall. Most of his gameplay is...lacking in my eyes.

> RPG mechanics
With the popularity of Souls and its ilk, you can easily expect it to worm its way into more and more games, even with titles by Platinum Games like Nier and Transformers. It is a really easy way to make games accesible for casual players (don't learn the game, just get higher stats).

> CoO
Well regarded as I recall. If you don't mind a wall of text, you can talk to user SBK91 on Gamefaqs. Very well regarded God of War player. He'll easily show you some basic runs you can try out and what's fun and what not.

> GoW2018
Some good ideas and notes, agree with most of them. Right now it is pretty weird how the camera works, especially considering if you don't look at the enemy you get warnings, making off screen enemies easier to dodge.

Royta/Raeng wrote:Yeah God of War 2018 really wants you to use its RPG mechanics, which is understandable, and having it influence gameplay beyond numbers is interesting. But honestly taking away 'smart play' feels like a weird punishment. Perhaps having enemies have more attacks or be more agressive (since you're weaker in their eyes, easy pray) would've been a better fit.

I think so too.  

Not a big fan of Faraz personally. He's just a guy that sits, plays the whole day and doesn't use tactics or smart play, just brute forces his way through by throwing his body at a brick wall. Most of his gameplay is...lacking in my eyes.

Yeah I realized that too. I actually didn't see any of his videos when I posted that, but rather saw an article that said that he beat the game without leveling up. When I saw his videos on YouTube, it felt more like "beat it until it breaks." Not to mention some of his videos are 5-6 hours, which isn't something I can afford to watvh

> RPG mechanics
With the popularity of Souls and its ilk, you can easily expect it to worm its way into more and more games, even with titles by Platinum Games like Nier and Transformers. It is a really easy way to make games accesible for casual players (don't learn the game, just get higher stats).

Yeah I realized that.
I hear the new Star wars game is gonna be like Sekiro.

> CoO
Well regarded as I recall. If you don't mind a wall of text, you can talk to user SBK91 on Gamefaqs. Very well regarded God of War player. He'll easily show you some basic runs you can try out and what's fun and what not.

It was his channel that you recommended right? He has got some good stuff in that channel. And thanks for that recommendation.

But does he has any account on Twitter or something? I would rather ask him there, if not I'll make an account on gamefaqs
But I don't really wanna. I already have deleted two accounts on gamefaqs because I couldn't take the crap they spew.
Last I visited the place was about two months ago as a lurker, and I went there after a long time and what do I see in the PS4 boards? this shit.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/691087-playstation-4/77843730?page=7
Just read the post 73 that quotes the user lambchip and read some of the comments by the user crimsongear.
I mean this is equal parts hilarious, sad and cringey. Some users there have serious issues.

> GoW2018
Some good ideas and notes, agree with most of them. Right now it is pretty weird how the camera works, especially considering if you don't look at the enemy you get warnings, making off screen enemies easier to dodge.

I hope they'll fix the camera at least or give us different options in the next game. There have been a lot of instances where I pretty much died because of it.

GameFaqs users are generally thicker than pig shit and hate games.

Hey everyone. I saw this forum mentioned by someone on Twitter and it seemed pretty great. I’m actually really terrible at a lot of the stylish fast paced action games I’ve seen mention on here, I’m much better at puzzle games like puyo puyo or taisan puzzle dama series but I still enjoy and like to play them. My favorites are Bayonetta 1, Shinobi, MGR, and silent bomber.

Well we are always happy to have new people around. Welcome! Never heard of the Taisan puzzle series before. If it is okay, was your username just something you thought of at random?

Welcome, mate. The more people this site gets, the merrier.

@Nadster
Yes pretty much. No story behind it.

Birdman wrote:GameFaqs users are generally thicker than pig shit and hate games.

To some users it seems shilling their favorite consoles and trolling on other console boards or being generally toxic, is more important than the actual games.

@Bambooness
Great to see you here! Welcome :) Hope you have a nice time. You don't need to love action games to tinker around here, we also have a sub-section for non-action titles that you can find here (https://stinger.actieforum.com/f11-various-other-games). I've never been into games like Taisan myself (don't have the patience haha), but no surprise though that you then also like a game like Shinobi which is more like a puzzle in and of itself. Do you like action games that play more like that? What titles are you currently playing :)?

Hey yo everybody! Remember me Raeng? Im from Gfaqs. I asked on the NGS2 board there.Then I found this awesome site. Cheers mate!

Hey Anti! Welcome to the site! :)
How are you doing? Still playing Sigma 2?

More...souls...

Yeah Im on Chapter 8 on MN mode. Hate the girls chapters, maybe except Momiji. Damn I think ayanes going to be a nightmare lol. I hated that chapter even on mentor.

I can understand that man. I had the same feeling. Rachel's chapter was okay for since you can practically skip it thanks to how overpowered she is. But I always hated Ayane's. Really wish they'd kept the girl-chapters as a seperate mode for those interested in it.

@royta
You know I’ve never really saw shinobi as a puzzle but it makes a lot of sense. Right now I’m playing ninja gaiden black. It’s one of the harder games I’ve played before.

@Bambooness
Yeah, I always saw Shinobi more as a puzzle action game, how you need to string combos together and learn the lay of the land. Where are you now in NGB? What difficulty?

@royta
I’m on normal and currently trying to fight alma for the second time near the pyramid. She’s more obnoxious than the first time I fought her

Awakened Alma can be really hard! If you want a specific tip, when you dodge one of her attack rushes (where she charges at you) do Light Light Heavy with the Kitetsu. This homing attack tends to really wreck her. If you want more tips, let me know or ask in the NGB topic here :)

@royta
Thank you! I’ll try that

Hello, everyone! A kinda personal note, I must say that I'm not really an English speaker, so I'm sorry if you see any typo here, I'm still learning.

To be honest, I think I can count the amount of action games I've played with one hand, since I can't find the parts needed to fix my PS2 where I live. I think the only great "action" game I played is KH2FM, and I'd say 1FM is good (evidently, I don't know how they compare to other ARPGs or Action proper games, I'm just going by what most people like SBK or Hotel say about it when comparing it to other games. That said, I do think they are pretty good on their own).

My interest for Action games pretty much started somewhere in March, where I started to ask for recommendations (I still have my notes lying around somewhere), some random day, I had this thought: I'm having a lot of fun with KH2FM, but... I want something else. What if there is a game that I can deem as fun, or even better than my (current) favorite game?. And long story short, that's how my interest in the Action genre started. I found this site by seeing Raeng's sig on the DMC5 board (yes, I'm also known as Millenium85 in there).

Not sure how many of you are familiar with those games, but I haven't played them on Lv 1, so I don't know just how good the mechanics are, yet.

Also, Raeng, I forgot to ask you this, but does NUR, PAIN and such only apply to GoW?

Welcome Phoenix/ Millenium! Glad you're here, hope you enjoy your stay! And don't worry about the typos man. Where are you from? Your English is fine!

If you're interested in Action RPGs, there's a pretty sizable topic active on that right now with Kayaam who is our resident expert on Tales games and KH:
https://stinger.actieforum.com/t344p50-action-jrpgs#8408
Maybe that's something you'll find interesting!

> DMC5 board
I knew that board was good for something!

> NUR PAIN etc
NUR is an older term, but PAIN originates from GoW's community for sure. Based on an anime term as I recall from one of the players. But you can fit them into any any game. For instance with Ninja Gaiden it would mean just using what you start the game with and no healing or upgrading.

> familiar
I haven't played KH sadly, it is on the eternal backlog that I fear I might never get to. I'm mostly a big Ninja Gaiden fan. But dabble in the rest too of course!

Thanks. I won't say specifically where I'm from atm, but I can say that I'm from Latin America, or to be a little more specific, South America.

Yep, I'm interested in ARPGs too, and I've seen people mention the Tales games along with KH and Dark Souls whenever I ask for one. Also, not too long ago I saw SBK and some other users saying good things about FF XIII: Lightning Returns' combat, which kinda shocked me since I thought the XIII trilogy was universally hated.

NUR is an older term, but PAIN originates from GoW's community for sure. Based on an anime term as I recall from one of the players. But you can fit them into any any game. For instance with Ninja Gaiden it would mean just using what you start the game with and no healing or upgrading.

Noted. Thanks for the info.

I haven't played KH sadly, it is on the eternal backlog that I fear I might never get to. I'm mostly a big Ninja Gaiden fan. But dabble in the rest too of course!

I see. I thought my backlog was big, until I saw most people's backlog on GameFAQs (mostly 200-300 games). I've got like 80-90 games I want to try, but my list of Action games consists on 33 games. Remember that one list I posted on my topic in the DMC5 board? Well, I added a few other games, like Wonderful 101, ZoE 2, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (got interested by your article), and of course, Lightning Returns.

Also, since you're an NG fan, I'll ask you this. How does NG3 (vanilla/RE, whichever is the best) compare to the other games in the series? I almost never see anyone bring it up, people mostly talk about NG Black or NG2.

>Lightning Returns

And that's another game to inevitably distract me from just about every other game right now.

The game I was supposed to be working on was Tales of Xillia, but that hasn't gone anywhere for about a month now. Well, that, and me generally just not wanting anyone else to actually see me playing it, consider how much I cringe at Teepo. Would be great if I had some headphones I could use on it, but my signature pair is only 3.5mm, which the PS3 does NOT have for some reason.

And regarding the original Ninja Gaiden 3...

Uh...

Lemme just copy-paste my NeoGAF rant that I had made a few months back.

The game chugs. Hard. Constant frame drops, and constant slowdown on normal. It wasn't like in Ninja Gaiden II, where you could kind of excuse certain moments of slowdown, because it came from hordes of enemies rushing you from all directions, throwing explosives at your face. It's just terribly optimized no matter what difficulty.

You are stuck with 1 weapon the entire game. That is, unless you get the DLC weapons, which is total bullshit for a Ninja Gaiden game. Not to mention, that said weapon cannot be upgraded, until the game feels like giving it to you. What the fuck? And said weapons basically snap any vague semblance of something resembling balance in half.

Walking sequences are everywhere. Razor's Edge had a few walking sequences that were really annoying. However, there are so many more walking sections in this game. They somehow managed to fit in walking sequences in fights, where Ryu's arm hurts, and then you just instakill your way through a crowd of enemies. This is what Team Ninja actually used their creativity for: Putting walking sections in fights. Because that's exactly what action games needed.

Steel on Bone is absolutely broken. This isn't the fun kind of broken like Guard-cancelling in Darksiders, which to that game's credit, allowed you to be more creative in combat. We're talking "Ruins the game" kind of broken. It triggers COMPLETELY randomly, and there's no limit like in Razor's Edge, so fights end up with you just mashing square or triangle, and combined with the zoomed in/shakey camera when doing those moves, it made me quite dizzy sometimes.

The difficulty is completely fucked. The game is in one of two states when it comes to the difficulty: One is so preposterously easy, you can crack open your laptop, put down your controller, and read some news article or whatever the hell you want while mashing square with your index finger. No, I mean it. Give it a try for yourself, and you'll see that it actually works. And the other is so ludicrously cheap, and unfun, that it forces you to constantly repeat the same attack string. Some enemies are immune to Steel on Bone later on. Combine that with the lack of dismemberment, and the absolutely insane health of them, and that just loops neatly into the "Repeating attack strings" problem.

The game doesn't play by its own rules. Moves sometimes work against enemies, and sometimes, it does virtually nothing. Steel on Bone would sometimes work, and sometimes wouldn't. Sometimes you could use Ninpo, other times, you just couldn't use it for some reason.  Sometimes, UT was disabled as well. This is probably one of the worst offenses that a game can do: Not play by it's own rules.

It's extremely glitchy. Constant freezes, infinite loading screens, crashes, hangups, dropped inputs, the works.

(And yes Roy, I actually DID finish it on Normal, and then got around halfway on Master Ninja mode. I also gave some of the trials a try. Deleted it off my PS3 within a week. That was fucking traumatic.)

I'm honestly willing to bet $100 that anyone that said that "DmC was a franchise-killer" back then, that it "was the worst action game ever made", or even just an example of a bad action game have never played Ninja Gaiden 3. The original DmC was just mediocre. Ninja Gaiden 3 is flat-out awful on all levels, among all audiences. Fortunately, both got re-releases that made them actually good.

No worries man, no need to get personal with details. It's all good! Your English is more than fine, I'm not a native speaker either (Netherlands). Enjoy your stay!

> FFXIII-LR
The whole FXIII series is badly regarded by the general public mostly for bad reasons. Namely the convoluted plot, lineair level design and more. But the meat of the combat is generally considered to be top dollar, especially by action-fans. Lightning Returns especially nailed this from what I know. I only played the demo sadly and it is still on that eternal backlog (one day...), but I've talked to numerous players on it and I really liked what I heard.

> Ninja Gaiden 3
The vanilla version should be avoided unless you want to have a laugh at the community's expense or don't value your time. Razor's Edge however is a complete turnaround. Opinion has evolved over time, but I'd like to think the general concensous currently is that it has the best combat in the series, but is stuck in a bad foundation. It still has the horrible levels and enemies of the vanilla version for instance. But it is really...really good. I would recommend NGB and NGII over it though.

@TheFirmament1
The ptsd is too strong for me haha. Normal Mode was 'okay', but Hard and Master Ninja was just a test of patience especially without the DLC weapons. I agree people that cry about DmC have no clue as to what the Ninja Gaiden series went through. It died, then and there, beyond recovery.

Better get used to this style of posting now that I'm here, right?

>Ninja Gaiden 3
Wow, that sounds pretty bad. No wonder people never talk about it.

>Razor's Edge
I'll trust your word on it. Just by that reason alone, I won't remove NG3 from my list (I'll only play this version, and nothing else).

I just noticed, KH/GoW/NG have one similarity: Their second entry (I know KH's second entry was CoM, just bear with me) is regarded as the best in the series gameplay-wise, but the third entry generally doesn't compare to the first or second entries. From what I've seen, though, GoW III's decline in quality wasn't as sharp as, say, KH2 > KH3, or NG2 > NG3, and I think I even saw someone say that it does some things better than GoW I and II, but the point still stands.

Not sure if there are some people who prefer GoW I to II, but if there are, then that's another similarity they have (some people like KH1's lack of Reaction Commands and more limited arsenal compared to 2's, and I'm sure you've seen some people preferring Ninja Gaiden Black over NG2).

Ha! You can do whatever you want man, I just have the whole ">" format as a holdover from Gamefaqs. Can't get it out of my system!

> NG3
It really was forgotten as soon as possible. Razor's Edge came out less than half a year later, but the damage was (sadly) done.

> Second title
It is something I've generally noticed too. While I feel the first games really laid fantastic groundwork, a lot of these games really perfected it at the second title. God of War II is absolutely a stellar title. Resident Evil 2 is fantastic (though I do prefer 3). Ninja Gaiden II is a masterpiece. And Devil May Cry 3 (the true sequel) is a fantastic title as well.

I do prefer God of War 1 to 2 personally, but I can easily admit that the second title is better. Ninja Gaiden Black is often regarded as the better game in wider circles, but generally speaking the 'core' of the fandom prefers NGII due to its infinite skill ceiling and nuts gameplay (as well as added mechanics).

I'm curious reading this now though, what was so appealing to Kingdom Hearts to you?

>Posting style
I'm trying to find a style I feel comfortable with, so far I feel like using the quote button for small sentences, and I'll use the arrow (>) if I want to quote two or more parts of a text. If the quote button worked like GFAQs' (as in, no need to load a dedicated link for it to work), I'd just use that instead. But as it is, I'm pretty comfortable with this style right now. :)

>What was so appealing about KH to me
Good question. I've given the same answer everytime someone asked me this, but now that I think about it, I'm not too sure. I started playing vanilla KH1 in 2005. Someone invited me to play it, but it didn't seem too appealing at first glance. Then he mentioned "Squaresoft", and I was already curious about the game (I was a huge FF fan back then, and believe it or not, I didn't know this game had anything to do with Disney or Final Fantasy characters until I saw them in the game with my own eyes). I wasn't that big on Action titles back then, but something about KH1 had some appeal to it that I can't quite describe. Maybe it was the fact that I enjoyed sending FF characters flying into the air with the Stop spell everytime or spamming (mostly) invincible attacks and rendering them helpless for a whole month, or maybe it was one of the few PS2 games I could say that I beat without cheats at the time (GTA San Andreas, for example)... That person invited me to play it, but if you're asking me for a specific reason as for why I kept playing it... well, it's because I was having so much fun with it, especially since I wasn't too critical on games as I am right now (I didn't mind how any game worked at all, the only thing I cared about was having fun). A very casual type of fun, but then again, I wasn't into difficult games either (as you can see with my GTA SA example) until much later.

Then I got KH2. Long story short, I didn't have much fun with this game as I did with KH1 (aside from Sephiroth, the only optional boss in vanilla KH2). Not to mention that I had an easier time with this one compared to KH1, and as I said earlier, I didn't exactly mind easy games... but that somehow didn't apply to vanilla KH2. Go figure.

One day I was looking for something on the internet, and then I learned about KH2FM, and how it added multiple secret bosses, a new difficulty mode, but probably the most important thing that got me excited about it was Limit Form, the one that had access to the invincible moves I loved so much in KH1, and the best part was that I could use them at any time I wanted (in KH1, if you had all of them at once, the enemy had to be in a specific distance relative to Sora's in order to get the desired move. In 2FM, you can use any of them whenever you want to regardless of the enemy's position, if you had MP, that is).

As soon as I got it, I didn't waste any time and started the game on Critical, since Proud was not fun at all. I guess you could say that my interest for challenges in general started from the moment I beat Critical and the post-game bosses (I found all of them hard even on Level 99). Unlike KH1, this doesn't have any mystery to it. I thoroughly enjoyed KH2FM thanks to the harder mode, the bosses, everything. This game is probably my personal best game of all time, gameplay-wise.

TL;DR I guess you could say that it's thanks to that person for inviting me to check out KH1 that I got into the series at all. As for what I find appealing about KH now, it's definitely the battle system and the bosses.

Awesome! I can relate to that. A lot of those games from when we're younger were really more based on 'how fun was it to play'. I really felt I lost sight of that lateron in my life, relegating it more to what trophies I could get or what was a popular game to play.

Same goes with finishing games. I remember the first game I actually beat in 3d was The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Fantastic game, but I always tended to get stuck in games as a kid so beating them was pretty rare for me. I still remember the first game I actually beat, namely Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (SNES). Had such a blast playing that as a kid.

I didn't mind difficult games, or games with a challenge, but dying in games scared me a lot as a kid, so I tended to replay just the first chapter over and over. Doing it better, faster etc. Until I was more confident and then I'd move on to the next chapter.

I'm surprised to hear that KF2 changed so much over the years. I always hear people talking about FM, but never realized that that was also because it was just so much better. Always thought it was akin to DMC3:SE, better than DMC3, but DMC3 was already fantastic - if you get me!

Royta/Raeng wrote:Awesome! I can relate to that. A lot of those games from when we're younger were really more based on 'how fun was it to play'. I really felt I lost sight of that lateron in my life, relegating it more to what trophies I could get or what was a popular game to play.

Yep, I can definitely relate to that, except the bolded part (never owned anything from the PS3 generation, except the Wii, if you can count that). The closest I felt to obtaining trophies was obtaining in-game achievements in Mega Man 9/10. Not sure if trophies are the same as in-game achievements or if they're better in some other aspect, though. Still, getting achievements or playing the most popular game at the moment wasn't the reason I played any game (I'm still like that, by the way. Must be because, as I said, I never owned anything from the PS3 era onwards).

>Finishing games

It's cool that you can remember that, heh. The oldest game I played from the top of my head was either Super Mario Bros. 1 or Mega Man 5, but I dunno which one I played first. I remember that I was trying to beat SMB3 in my uncle's house, but got stuck at the final levels before the castle. I got a game over, and left it at that, since it was time to go home. As for which one I beat first... I've got no clue, lol. I didn't finish some of these until years later as a teen.

The first 3D game I beat was probably Mega Man Legends 2, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, or Crash Bandicoot 3. It's between those three games, I'm sure of that much, because I could beat all of them back then.

>Dying in games was scary
I can kinda relate to that, but what scared me the most were time limits. The one that left me a big impact as a kid was the drowning time limit in one of the Sonic games (also never finished any 2D Sonic game ever, only Sonic Heroes, which is a 3D game). It would be cool if I could see that stage one more time.

>KH2/2FM
Yeah, it felt like playing an entirely different game in a sense. I think most of the fanbase agrees that vanilla KH2 was a bit disappointing. Some examples:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/213-nonstop-gaming-general/78100116#12

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/228477-mega-man-11/78026838/928464091

By the way, thanks for reminding me that I should get the Special Edition of DMC3 instead of vanilla DMC3. I sometimes forget that there are two versions of said game.

Hello, everyone. I'm Vert1, #1 Nintendo fan. My earliest gaming experiences were on MS-DOS, Nintendo Entertainment System, and Game Boy. Things picked up from there when I got an N64 and rented what must have been every non-M rated game available on the system. (It's still amusing to think how lax people were at game stores in enforcing the ESRB; If they had age-checked back then I would not have been able to enter and win a small competition beating someone in Perfect Dark at EB Games, which I was then awarded with an official red Nintendo logo on a white t-shirt with the word 'NINPRO' underneath in smaller text.) At GameCube, I was heavily attributing to that system's console-to-games attachment rate at around one game a month. That and reading EGM, posting (arguing) on forums, buying and receiving older systems (SNES, DC, Genesis, NES).

I've got a lot on my mind that I want discuss here. Action game-wise, I have played Devil May Cry, God Hand, Shadow of Rome, Vanquish, P.N.03, Viewtiful Joe, and so on. My favorite 2D action game is The Legend of Kage [NES]; Ninja Gaiden 2 [360] is my favorite 3D action game.

Hello Vert, and welcome to Stinger! Pretty cool to see a guy who grew up loving Nintendo from start to finish. The SNES was my first console, and the Gamecube the first one I bought with my own hard-earned cash. How was it playing the SNES later in life, if I understand you correctly you skipped it growing up?

Feel free to join in on any discussions going on, or even older topics, new takes are always welcomed!

> ninja gaiden 2 is your favourite 2d action game
My man!

Royta/Raeng wrote:the Gamecube the first one I bought with my own hard-earned cash.

Same.

How was it playing the SNES later in life, if I understand you correctly you skipped it growing up?

Well, I didn't own it and can only recall one occasion playing it at someone's house, so it was more of encounters than an experience. (I distinctly remember encountering Donkey Kong Country at a store.) With that written, in that console era I made significant progress in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and The Lion King at the YMCA.

I gotta tell you it always felt odd listening to people talk about Super Mario Kart without my having played it. Finally getting to own an SNES later on was pretty cool since I picked up Contra 3 and played that a bunch. (And it allowed an enjoyable new ability to buy these games from an unassorted crate at EB Games versus today's eBay shopping.) That was nice to experience in that time period alongside my friend renting Contra: Shattered Soldier, which I remember how hilariously the bosses in that game decimated our progression efforts.