What are you playing right now?

Most of what I wrote of MP is true of its sequel. There are few minor additions like quick reload during bullet-time, physics engine (enemies trip over and get stunned) etc. Bullet-time is more generous this time (Never run out of it), enemies seem more accurate, but that might be my impresssion.

They notably upped the cinematic side of things. There are more cutscenes (more serious this time) and there is even one level completely devoid of gun-fights or any other hazards (Part I, Chapter 6).

Honestly, I don't see myself replaying those games, at least now.

Started DS Director's Cut. Only did the first couple of deliveries. Game seems pretty cool, lots of cool imagery and I like how Sam feels to control. That said, what's the best difficulty to start with? I didn't go with VH (which is weird, but good, that's already unlocked) but with H instead. It doesn't seem like a game that's challenging on N tbh.

>difficulty
I've played standard DS on H and it wasn't challenging. It's pretty hard to die in the game. As far as I know, it only affects the combat encounters and not the traversal aspect. Voidouts could have been interesting way to make navigation more varied or difficult, but in the game it's just no-go zone. You really have to loose on purpose to trigger one and it only happens when BTs catch you.

You can start on VH, most difficulty is arbitrary sadly. My biggest gripe was that elements like the wind don't pop up nearly enough, while the later half of the game is pure 'mountains'. Had hoped higher settings would play more with those influences, but it's just damage values I think.

> voidouts
Note that you can use voidouts to your advantage. For example near the wind-farm you can do a void-out on purpose, this nukes the area and removes all BTs from that location, allowing you safe traversal to the mill over there. Makes 5starring that area a lot more smooth. There's a few other areas where it works.

>it's just damage values I think
Read on

Spoiler:

that VH makes your equipment ruin faster, make enemy drop more loot and you get more resources at the start of a mission, plus the damage values and some AI changes to the BTs. Maybe I'll just switch to it and be done with it, can always drop to H if things get too intense.

Giving MK11 a try.

I've started Banjo and Tooie, one of the few classic adventure games I've never got around finishing.

I am playing Sniper Elite 5 with my friend. Sniper Elite 5 is improved but was not revolutionary from SE4. I played a bit(stage2~3) and was dissapointed, and shelved it.

Recently, my friend, who enjoyed MGSV very much, suggest me to play together so I restarted it. My hype was gone so I can see SE5 as itself, and yes It is a good game and a great co-op game imo. I usually role-play as a supporter, and my friend took a part of a sniper. This game is a stealth game, but like MGSV, you can run and gun so sometimes we play it like this game as a battle royal game. Feign attacks, Holding a sit-in, Ambush...

Very fun to play. I still prefer SE4 but I can recommend this game.

I was also very mixed on SE5. SE4 was great, and gave me a good mix of Splinter Cell vibes and something unique. But SE5 just...went. I played a few stages and just forgot about it.

>mixed on SE5

Yes, It is still a good game, I can`t erase the impression that this game is just an expansion pack rather than a proper sequel. It has QoL improvements and thanks for that, but anything else is not so changed. And I don`t know why, But I proper SE4`s maps (aesthetically).

The Italian style of SE4 felt very consistent, with all the vinyards the plantlife etc. Very distinctive style. Agree this feels more like an expansionpack (nothing wrong with that tho). But I also feel SE4 got kind of tired at the end. I remember thinking 'glad that's over' around the last mission, so starting up what is exactly the same game didn't get me excited either.

Luckily, I got some money today so... I tried Street Fighter 6.

I played tekken3 and tekken tag a little bit in an arcade center long ago, and played guilty gear XX # reloaded, demo of DOA6 but never get into this genre at all. But many friends of mine love this genre, and they said that it is very accessible so I give a try.

I am literally a begginer of fighting games, so I don`t know that this game is good or bad or even fun, now. played 4.5 hours but usually doing combo traing(although I get into rank match and be a rookie, of course). Anyway modern control were very fitted well to me especially with hori gamecube controller, and I liked the fighting style of juri.

I think that Tutorial is quiet solid, but UI of this game is fucked up. I really hate I can not fix my control scheme when I am in combo challenge.

Royta/Raeng wrote:

> stylemeter game
What title is that?

Æon Flux. Lot of cool stuff going on in this game like picture below. Lots of those dramatic camera angles. You'd probably enjoy it cause of its Metroid-style ball action and general sense of high speed acrobatic maneuvering.

I've been playing Streets of Rage 2 whenever I didn't have time to play something else. It can be beat in an hour, but it doesn't feel that short. It's probably because of amount of interesting encounters and constant action that the brain has to process in this span of time. Games nowdays really forgot how to make the most out of their run time.

Tactics Ogre Reborn.

Bought a game named as "BETON BRUTAL" in steam summer sale.
It`s a first person platforming game, but only with jump and sprint(sprint jump make you go up higher). There is no wall run, no double jump, no wall-kicking. And its goal is very simple, go top of the stage.

But idk why, This is my zen-game. It sometimes need you to make a leap of faith, and that height is already dizzy as hell. There are some clever level designs and psudo-checkpoints, so I recommend you guys to try this game.

Still on pause, but NBR+ NUR+ redux in GoWII (Lowlands Caverns). Been too busy helping the kids learn GoW proper to progress my own run(s).

>topic title
I'm not playing jackshit for a while more. When I get the chance I'll finish MHGU so I'll be free from the MonHun curse and I will get onto something else (joking, I will play GU until I die, or not).

Tactics Ogre Reborn and Okami.

Played a little of Disgaea 5 but doesn't seem to have much to it. Don't think JRPG can match up to Tactics Ogre.

Going to get the Saga Frontier Remaster tomorrow.

Was playing Boltgun but had to stop around the 70% mark due to how repetitive the encounters are. The game completely runs out of ideas less than halfway through and the number of high health enemies makes fights draaaaaaag.

Got Wanted Dead for dirt cheap and played it for like 30 minutes. Not sure if I’m missing something about the combat but none of it seems like it makes any sense. There doesn’t seem to me much to the shooting and the melee is such a risk. What am I doing wrong?

And I’m still trying to muster the energy to finish FF16. I just don’t care. The combat is flashy but bland and the enemies suck. I also hate the grimdark aesthetic. Give me FF7/10 or even 13’s more imaginative settings.

Mostly juggling Okami and SMT3 Hard Mode. The latter is mostly taking up my time, big time, at least when I have playtime.

> Wanted Dead
Stick with it, you really need to get some of the unlockable moves (skill tree bullshit) to get the combat going.

DOA 5&6 most of the times. Also, SH3 extreme is downright brutal.


>Wanted: Dead
Admittedly, shooting isn't all that amazing by itself, neither is melee. Nades are a must for flashing out enemies. When I play it I think of guns as dmg tools or use them to pick off some enemies form distance to get close. I think that's what they were going for - close-in toward the enemy to slice with katana, use cover to avoid shots, shoot some enemies.

>Don't think JRPG can match up to Tactics Ogre.
Okay, you got me curious now. I was thinking the same thing for a while, but for V. Is there any differences between Reborn and the vanilla versions?

>what am I playing
Okami, mostly. Trying to get some enemy info during my spare time, but it's going pretty slow owed to the fact that I lost my progress twice.

>Reborn vs vanilla
Yeah tons.
The combat is the same but tons of tweaks.
Some QoL too. Some grinding stuff removed.

>tons of tweaks and QoL stuff
Kind of like Onimusha 1 and Genma? Seems like this got released fairly recently, so I doubt my PC can handle it. Still, let's check the requirements… wait, what? I have exactly what it asks of me, what a coincidence.

So this means I'll be able to play it. I'll be sure to speak with you whenever I get around to it.

On an unrelated note, I got LR: FFXIII. Works pretty well on my PC, was a bit scared of it running badly, since I heard lots of bad things about the XIII ports in general (some people even said that a modern graphics card struggled with it, which is crazy, since that's a 9 year old port). That said, I just wanted to make sure it ran okay. I'll play it properly later.

>Kind of like Onimusha 1 and Genma?
Far more than that. And huge changes too.

>I'll be sure to speak with you whenever I get around to it.
Ok but I don't know that much. I'm still learning how stuff works.

What game is that?

Started FFVII:R. The combat has a nice blend of JRPG and action, but the action side is a bit weak (I'd say the game is 70% JRPG and 30% action game). A lot of emphasis is put on enemy weaknesses and choosing the right materia. So far the combat has been really, really easy, even though it's confusing sometimes (with all the character switching and particle effects). I hope the challenge increases later on or with Hard Mode.
Also the game has lots of info directly in game, the best strategy to use against the enemies, what the spells do etc. They even say you what the stats are about, and in my experience RPGs usually don't bother with that.

Playing Ghost Recon : Advanced Warfare 2(360 version, on XSX).

It has a weird charm, It is easy to die and just wating under cover is not a good idea in this game, but it is still more casul than Classic R6(1~Raven Shield) or Ghost Recon 1. Except for too much helicopter turret sections, It is well balanced tactical shooter imo.

Cry of fear on pc. Pretty good, atmosphere is excellent and is one of the most Cary games I’ve ever played for sure. Besides that, the game is just ‘ok’ so far.

Omar73874928271728 wrote:Cry of fear on pc. Pretty good, atmosphere is excellent and is one of the most Cary games I’ve ever played for sure. Besides that, the game is just ‘ok’ so far.

Man, didn't expect to see that name pop up here. Never finished the game, though, probably because I was scared of Sawrunner since it's a nerve-racking enemy, ahah. Still, it seemed pretty good, though a few things here and there annoyed me, such as the inventory not pausing the game, and the arguably excessive use of jumpscares.

IIRC, Cry of Fear was very much inspired by Silent Hill in terms of atmosphere, which is good, as there ain't that many games like Silent Hill.

Royta/Raeng wrote:What game is that?

Prince of Persia on crack.

Spoiler:

I played 2 games

Hitman:WOA EP3
Halo4(coop)

Firstly About Hitman:WOA EP3. I really liked Hitman:WOA EP2`s large and bold stages, but it seems that devs want to go back to classic designs with some twists. They are objectively all good except the last "epilogue". But I only feel fresh when I`m in English stage and China stage. Others feel same-y, I saw it, I`ve done it. I don`t think that I will play this Episode again and again like Hitman:WOA EP2.

Oh, And I used cloud streaming of Xbox windows app, and It runs almostly perfectly. Very impressive.

Secondly About Halo4. Eh... I am not into halo series. I really wanted play Halo 3 when I only had PS3, and I recently get MCC and played 1/2/3/reach. Honestly, I liked reach the most. Others with open-ended approach didn`t appeal to me. Especially my expectation to 3 was high, so It lets me down badly.

So, Halo4. I don`t know how Others feel this game. Because I only played this game with a friend, and It really helped us to beat this game on Hero difficulty. I was like a recon/sinper so I could easily get watchers, and My friend was like a tanker/assault forces so He marked on a knight. We both had a fun time because that play-style is what we would enjoy, But it was that. Not great.

If the coop design is same as a single campaign, I can`t imagine how people get through this hell-ish difficulty. The watcher is primary target because it acts like a priest/magician in other games so if they are on the stage, it would be hard to deal with others. But they are so tiny and so mobile which makes you use a precision weapon like a sniper rifle while dealing with frantic dogs and tank-y knights.

We had a good time, but also we hated death-star-like flight section, We complained about how bullets are so rare. And I felt the lack of dynamics. Covernants themselves are less intersting to deal with, and on the top of that, Prometheans and covernants rarely team up. Prometheans` weapons are usually hit-scan ones so I expeceted a classic halo moments that I swap both hit-scan ones and energy ones while dealing with both factions. But it didn`t happen.

> Halo3
I never could click well with this one either, later-on I talked to some big fans of it and it is mostly beloved according to them for the fantastic multiplayer and how the story closed everything off, which I can respect. The campaign itself is very 'meh' for me though.

In a sense we've never had a 'perfect' Halo campaign which sucks. Halo 1 is fantastic, but struggles around the middle and has a ton of reused areas / mirrored areas. Halo 2 is the best imo, but has the horrible Arbiter levels and is a nightmare on Legendary. Halo 3 is mid. Halo 4 is a slog once the aliens arrive and Halo 5...yeah. Halo Infinite had a good idea, but a lot of the main missions are horrid and the open world soon becomes an empty world.

> halo 4
It is "ok". It starts out pretty solid with a great first level, but a lot of internal mechanics just don't work. The balance of plasma/bullets is out the window, the teleporting enemies are just downright broken and a lot of weapons were nerfed badly. It is also glitchy as hell.

> bullets rare
Sadly they really wanted to push those Promethean weapons, which are nearly all ass. In general the entire weaponpool is poluted by their inclusion, making UNSC and Elite weapons far more rare and also harder to replenish. In general the beauty of Halo's combat system is that you had two weapon slots, with UNSC weapons being weak but easy to replenish, while Elite weapons only had the 'single clip' forcing you to constantly scavange. As a result you were very likely to always have different weapons in your inventory as you used a weapon, emptied it, and switched to what was available. That was the charm.

I'm currently replaying one of my favorite games ever, Thief: The Dark Project.

God, the atmosphere this game is capable of creating is incredible, and to think that, not only was it ahead of its time when it came out, it's still so enjoyable and still holds up even as of now, despite some clunkiness here and there. Not only that, but to this day, Thief still has no equal in some respects when it comes to stealth gameplay.

For example, I don't think any other stealth game since then (aside, perhaps, from SC: Chaos Theory, which had background noise as a mechanic), ever tried to fully replicate, let alone surpass, Thief's sound based gameplay, with different surfaces producing distinctly different levels of noise, which is a real pity.

Continuing FFVII:R. The combat has opened up a bit with lots of different materia and abilities (still missing some). There is a lot to like overall. Different weapons are catered to different uses, so you can mix and match any character to any role you want. I like using Cloud as the designated spellcaster using the Mithryl sword for example. Also every character has some fun quirk. Barret has the charging animation that can be skipped if you use it after the last hit of your basic attack, Tifa's charged attacks increased damage on staggered enemies (for everyone) and Cloud Punisher Mode increases ATB a lot with counterattacks. These can be done by either blocking in Punisher Mode or by switching to it at the right time.

The game also tells you a lot about which strat to use against enemies, but there is still room to experiment. In general the focus in on staggering, so you want to find out how to pressure enemies and then to use the Focused abilities (or magic they are weak against) in order to fill the stagger gauge. After that you want to use Tifa's charged attacks and more burst damage abilities like Cloud's Infinity End. It can feel a bit flowcharty but you can still use lots of different setups to kill the enemies/bosses.
Weapon abilities are all somewhat useful and so are spells. Poison works against lots of bosses and so does sleep. Hell you can also silence some of them too. I'm not that big of a fan of the offensive spells since they are all too similar, but at least they aren't pallete swaps.
Also got the Parry materia and is super fun. Love how it has a different animation with different properties for each character. Tifa's parry is a slide and it launches humanoid enemies, pressuring them.

The biggest problem so far (outside the non-combat stuff which is all meh to atrocious) is that normal grunts are a non issue. You can basically button mash against them and they'll die in a couple seconds. Weapon upgrades also feel a bit pointless, since you can basically pick 80% of the upgrades of any given weapon (don't know if you can max them out).

Still Tactics Ogre.

Planning on going back to DQ11 for a challenge run.

Might grab the Alan Wake remaster because I've been getting this itch to play it again.

There's going to be a sequel too. Hope they do some interesting stuff with light.

Zapan wrote:I'm currently replaying one of my favorite games ever, Thief: The Dark Project.

God, the atmosphere this game is capable of creating is incredible, and to think that, not only was it ahead of its time when it came out, it's still so enjoyable and still holds up even as of now, despite some clunkiness here and there.

When I played Thief : The Dark Project first time, I thought that the "adventure" part is unnecessary. I asked myself "Why do I have to fight with stupid zombies or dinosours? Why do I have to play awkward platforming sections while I can steal and pass out gorgeous mentions?" but after playing Thief 2, I realised that the "adventure" parts are very good tweaks and pace breakers.

That stupid zombies and dinosours are not good by themselves. But with traps and platforming, They work their role, making players more careful about health and preventing them from losing tension. And that "stupid" things make the game more mysterious and horrfying. There would be things you can not expect. With sound design, This game really holds up today.

Except for Thieves` den. That stage was objectively unnecessary.

> thief
I own the games and still need to take a dive into them. Big fan of the genre but never took the time sadly.

>VII:R
Interesting notes. Good to see that there's some value to be found in a game with Stagger. They went quite a long way with it.

>what am I playing
Some Naruto games I had played when I was a kid. I mostly just wanted to get informed about basics again so I could give SBK informed notes, but I ended up playing 1 and 2 from beginning to end, in no small part because they're relatively short (especially 2). They're decent, I'd say. They both have stats and some RPG mechanics in accessories, hitstun decay, damage decay (with a few tools ignoring the latter), and a few other things. The bad thing is that most humanoid bosses lack telegraphs, the campaigns tend to be really repetitive (especially 1's, with its over reliance on protection missions, fetch quests, etc.), melee by itself isn't that good (you need to carefully pick your openings against bosses just to use melee, that or spend meter to open them up *so if you've ran out of this, you'd have a pretty tough time in trying to land a physical hit without getting hurt in the process*).

But for those wondering, the games do offer a few ways to work around stats. Not nearly as much as KH2 does, but you can still beat the final boss from 1 at base stats, in 3 minutes. The final boss from 2 shuts down one of those options, but it can still go down relatively fast (and easily) with your remaining tool.

>Stagger
It's not that bad, even though it's too central as a mechanic. The good thing is that most enemies react to your hits, so you don't feel like you're hitting a brick wall most of the time. Bosses don't give a fuck but you can still play around with Sleep and Stop, and a lot of them do react but only for specific actions. It also helps that they go down somewhat easily also without staggering. Still, I'm enjoying the game quite a bit, but my thoughts will get more clear after Hard mode.

>hitstun decay and damage decay
DMCbros, we're getting our ass kicked by a Naruto game...

>enemies react to your hits
Neat. Can't remember if the first mob in Lightning Returns did so, but hopefully Stagger has less presence in that game as well.

>Sleep and Stop come to save the day
Excellent, very glad to hear statuses are seeing good use, especially for working around lack of reactions from bosses.

>go down easily without Stagger
This is also music to my ears. Hopefully Hard allows you to this.

>Hard mode
Heard items get disabled in it, so I guess it depends on how much you were relying on them. Though not sure if there's any other significant change besides this.

Note: Do you have Intergrade? Be interested in hearing how's the Yuffie bit. I've been told that it's notably more Action-y, but guess some of it has to do with Yuffie being on her own (no party members, so it leans closer to the mentality of a traditional Action game). The next part of the remake will most certainly not do this, but I'm still interested if they'd still keep improving.

>DMC
Still wish your kit had more variety/utility (especially melee). So while it does have those mechanics, DMC is still likely better in terms of combat depth. Enemy variety is also pretty low.

Note: One of my biggest disappointments with the second game is that the newly introduced collision system isn't used all that much, if at all. Imagine playing a bowling game, except the targets can move. To rub more salt into the wound? These are scaling collisions (they keep up with the increased enemy health as the game goes on). On top of that, it's quite unsafe to go for these, especially when you're swarmed with enemies (no Plume equivalent to keep everything in control, though that probably wouldn't work either, as you need the 'agent' to be standing in order to weaponize it against its allies). Oh well, there's always GoWII to look forward to, since there is a lot for me to do in that title.

> Stagger in FF7R

I actually heard complaints about this from someone I know; Mainly in how it simultaneously uses a stagger system which is all about maximizing damage, but also damage gates for phase transitions, which invalidate the excess damage that you can dish out while a boss is staggered.

https://www.backloggd.com/u/wondermagenta/review/112177/

Campaign mob fights run the gamut from boring to soul-crushingly tedious (those goddamn sewer fish guys,) while any fun you could be having with bosses is knee-capped by absurd damage gating and forced cutscene transitions that will eat any excess damage you put out that moment. This aspect should’ve been a top priority with the boss design considering how much combat revolves around slowly building up this Stagger bar, where the majority of the fight is spent purely setting up the boss for when you can finally lay the smack down (which, just like for FFXIII, already does a lot to make individual actions feel linear and meaningless.) The way all that damage will regularly evaporate into nothing due to factors completely outside your control feels like having a bag of Tetsuya Nomura-shaped bricks dropped right on your nutsack just as you’re about to cum.

Of course, this is all secondhand info. I can't confirm or deny.

nepu47 wrote:

Zapan wrote:I'm currently replaying one of my favorite games ever, Thief: The Dark Project.

God, the atmosphere this game is capable of creating is incredible, and to think that, not only was it ahead of its time when it came out, it's still so enjoyable and still holds up even as of now, despite some clunkiness here and there.

When I played Thief : The Dark Project first time, I thought that the "adventure" part is unnecessary. I asked myself "Why do I have to fight with stupid zombies or dinosours? Why do I have to play awkward platforming sections while I can steal and pass out gorgeous mentions?" but after playing Thief 2, I realised that the "adventure" parts are very good tweaks and pace breakers.

That stupid zombies and dinosours are not good by themselves. But with traps and platforming, They work their role, making players more careful about health and preventing them from losing tension. And that "stupid" things make the game more mysterious and horrfying. There would be things you can not expect. With sound design, This game really holds up today.

Except for Thieves` den. That stage was objectively unnecessary.

I always loved the more "esoteric" missions, but I can understand why some might not like them, or like them less.

First of all, those levels are often more confusing to navigate, which is not helped by the far less detailed maps (though the game explains quite well why they are that way, and it nakes sense). 

On top of that, some of these missions have sparsely distributed loot, while still requiring you to find most of it.

Then there is the fact that stealth, while technically possible, is far less viable against beasts like zombies and burricks, either because you can't move their corpses away, thus making their friends inevitably suspicious, or because it's much harder to know when they are getting suspicious when compared to human guards, not to mention there are often not enough shadows to hide from them effectively. Which means that you either end up fighting them, or allowing them to find you and then fleeing.

But yes, the Thieves' Guild is actually the worst level in the game, due to confusing level design and some unclear objectives, yet it still has good moments and atmosphere, like the mansions of the thief leaders. Yet, while I don't truly dislike the mission, I still take over 1 hour to complete it, due to how confusing the level is.

@Phoenix
>Intergrade
Yep. Yuffie's segment is next. I've also seen that completing it unlocks a new superboss for the main game.

>any other significant change on Hard
Resting points (benches) don't regenerate MP, so that resource becomes a lot more tight (which is fine since spells are pretty powerful in this game). Enemies are all lv.50 (the max) and some get new moves. There are also some new encounters in the combat simulator.

>DMC is still likely better in terms of combat depth
It probably is, but I find funny how a game that is so combo focused lacks damage and hitstun decay when a Naruto game from the mid 2000s has them. It's not like Itsuno didn't work on fighting games before.

@Firma
>damage gates for phase transitions
These happen and it's annoying but it's not that prevalent imo. Stagger also resets on phase transitions, but that's obviously by design.

>wondermagenta review
Agree and some things and disagree on others. It's true that some bosses go down a lot faster with the right setups, but after the mid game you should have enough materia space to cover most weaknesses. I only had problems with the final bosses because the game doesn't tell you which party members you'll team up with, so I had to restart and give good materia to everyone. Also disagree with the notion that standard attacks don't do enough damage, especially Barret's Overcharge and Cloud's Punisher Mode (and its counterattacks). Aerith's Tempest and Tifa's uppercut also do good damage, and none of these require ATB. That being sad, the game is more about macro decisions than micro decisions, so positioning, hit reactions, dodging etc. take a bit of a backseat compared to which ATB command to use, when to use it and on which enemy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

> hitstun and damage decay
> in a fucking Nutella game
Now I've seen it all.

Got any footage?

>Yuffie's segment is next
Awesome. Looking forward to read your notes.

>a new superboss
Bahamut?

>MP Regen disabled
Ah, right, I recall reading something like that. So what are your options for replenishing it on Hard?

>enemies are Lv 50
Even at the beginning? Speaking of levels, how friendly is the game to low level?

>new encounters
Anything worth looking forward to?

>probably is
Definitely. Would bet DMC's evades get the job done. Naruto's is more of a 'get out of the way fast' sort of deal (with some noticeable startup). Blocking doesn't even exist (except for bosses, but for them, it's just a damage reduction). You can probably see why melee isn't something you'd want to be using without setup.

>why a combo focused game lacks fundamental combo mechanics
DMCbros sure appreciate this being brought up. Not even DMC4 did anything to remedy this, either.

>macro decisions
Kind of sounds like what I've heard about XIII.

>Nutella
Kek.

>hitstun decay in these games
It only applies to the amount of time an enemy can stay airborne, so you can't keep juggling them forever. The second game introduced infinites (not sure if the first game has them, but I haven't found them) on the ground, but that eventually causes enemies getting dizzy (unless they're immune to this).

>got any footage
Nothing that shows a pretty clear picture on these mechanics existing at all, but I can record a very short video to show them at work. Went over hitstun decay lightly. Damage decay is pretty straightforward, but perhaps not that well implemented (it's tied to hitcount, which means an enemy doesn't necessarily have to be in hitstun for damage decay to take place *which is why tools that ignore these are appreciated, just wish melee got something like this*).

>Bahamut?
Weiss. Only available in Hard Mode and only if you completed the Yuffie part.

>Even at the beginning?
Yep. It's also interesting that once you unlock Hard Mode you can immediately play any chapter with it enabled. Action games usually make you replay every level at a higher difficulty if you want to unlock chapter select for everything, so it's a welcome change.

> how friendly is the game to low level?
Not much I'd say. There is no way to turn off EXP gain, and everyone (both dead and characters not in your party) get EXP. Also Hard Mode is NG+, so all your progress gets carried. If you want to do a challenge run, I guess you could mix and match these rules to your liking: no accessories, no armor, no materia, no damage, starting equipment (or using other, more gimmicky weapon choices, like the Nail Bat for Cloud or the melee weapons for Barret), one character only (only controlling one character without giving any materia to the others), no weapon upgrades (or weapons only at lv.1). The last one is the condition that most resembles a low level run since the bulk of your progress is found in the weapon upgrades rather than the level of your party. Also, weapons have levels in this game, and each level unlocks a certain number of upgrades, so you can also limit the level at which you want to stop upgrading. There is also an accessory that inflicts Toad on your party but Toad in this game is very limited, but I guess someone could make it work.
Another thing worth mentioning is that unique abilities aren't tied to levels. Abilities are (at first) tied to weapons, but you can gain access to them independently of the weapon if you use them a number of times in a certain way, like using said ability 3 times to finish an enemy.

>Anything worth looking forward to?
Apparently there is another superboss outside of Weiss and there should be new mob encounters in the combat sims. Don't know for sure, but will post about it when I get there.

>options for replenishing MP
Outside of the refills you get at the end of a chapter (and after completing some sidequests) you can break boxes in the enviroment that sometimes will give you a mako shard, giving all your party like 8 MP (even though I think it's percentage based rather than a flat value). You can theoretically break every box, reload your savefile and do it again to replenish everything, but where's the fun in that?
In combat MP regenerates automatically, albeit very slowly (1 MP every 20 seconds), but you can upgrade certain weapons that improve the rate to 1 MP every 18 seconds or 1 MP every 10 seconds. You also have MP regen materia, but you can only pair it with other spells. Aerith has an attack that gives her back MP every time she uses it (and it's much more effective against staggered enemies). Lastly, some weapons have a passive that lets you regain MP if you take damage.

>DMCbros sure appreciate this being brought up
B-but muh guardflying...

>Weiss
Name doesn't ring a bell. Would have to look it up.

>can play any chapter once you unlock Hard Mode
That sounds pretty neat. So you can face the final boss right away, if you so desire?

>not friendly to low level
I see. Not a huge deal, since I've heard of other run types, most of which you've already noted.

>Nail Bat
I think I remember somebody using that (?) weapon with Aero. They were used against one of the human bosses (one of the Turks), and Aero knocked the boss towards the player, which allowed Cloud to basically play human baseball. Not sure if that's effective, but it was pretty hilarious.

>Barret's melee weapons
Oh, he gets those in this part?

>no weapon upgrades resembles low level
>weapon upgrades matter more than levels
Noted. So in theory, you could beat the game at Lv 1 (level proper, not weapon level), and it wouldn't make much of a difference?

>Toad
I wonder if there are solo Frog/Toad videos. With some other restrictions, one could make it resemble FFV's Lv 1 Frog solo fights.

On a slightly different note, I wonder if anybody bothered to make such videos for the original FFVII. I wonder if it would even be possible at all.

>unique abilities aren't tied to levels
I see. I was going to ask if this was the case, given that levels are forced (like in Super Mario RPG, and low level in that game is the worst thing I've ever done in a JRPG).

>gain access to unique abilities by doing something with the weapon first
Kind of sounds like how Drives are leveled up in KH2.

>yet another superboss
Oh? There's more than I thought.

>will post it when you get there
Looking forward to this.

>end of chapter refills
>break boxes to get MP back
Good to see that there's options to restore this resource.

>8MP
That sounds low. How often do you get these shards? How much does the average spell cost to use?

>break boxes, save, reload, repeat
Nice that the option exists, but as you note, it doesn't sound too thrilling in practice. Would rather learn to manage MP as effectively as possible.

>Aerith has an attack that gives her back MP every time she uses it
Are the returns decent? Sounds a bit like Osmose.

>B-but muh guardflying
Or Inertia....

Note: Learned some new things about the Naruto games by glancing over a TAS for each. Some of it is useful tech that can be somewhat replicated by a human.

This reminds me of how much one can learn by watching the work of others (so you can learn stuff you may not have thought about doing). Which is why communities like this one are very important. And this also reminds me about somebody who preferred staying out of communities and liked learning things on his own.