This is spinning out of control in typical Foolz style, where we'll debate back and forth for 10 or something posts and in the end realize we were both agreeing in the first place.
robio said:Hey you know what game is sweet? Harvest Moon. I can combo the fuck out of picking turnips.
Totally has depth. Not once have I seen a huge flashing red indicator warning me a turnip is going to wither on me from out of my FOV. They just wither and it's all improv from there.
“At first it was easier but when the testers said, “This is too difficult”, I made it more difficult.”
-Tomonobu Itagaki
robio said:Hey you know what game is sweet? Harvest Moon. I can combo the fuck out of picking turnips.
I should play more Harvest Moon. I think I still have one on 3DS...
Ravenprose said:I should play more Harvest Moon. I think I still have one on 3DS...
I would suggest playing Stardew Valley if you have not already. It's the best Harvest Moon game in 10 years.
robio said:
I would suggest playing Stardew Valley if you have not already. It's the best Harvest Moon game in 10 years.
I plan to get it. I never played Harvest Moon but I like games like that.
Archangel3371 said:“At first it was easier but when the testers said, “This is too difficult”, I made it more difficult.”
-Tomonobu Itagaki
Damn right.
Gagan said:We had one last year slick Nioh.
It doesn't stack up favorably to a bunch of action games, much less its own predecessor in terms of fluidity. The zoomed in camera inherently makes things clunkier and gives you so many blind spots. So you can't rely as much on enemy tells n sound effects (especially given all the noise in the game), so to offset it they had to put some dumb ass pointer around the dude that tells you when a goon is coming from behind you. Making it honestly in your best interest to have an enemy behind you, because as soon as that shit turns red, just fucking dodge n wail away. There ability to break lock on is more disorienting than useful in comparison to other action games of its ilk. In contrast to the older games (which lets not front, were DMC for children) having a fixed camera at least meant you always had a clean n consistent view, and could rely more on proper tells instead of a glorifying "HIT THE DODGE BUTTON FAM" marker that lights up glowing red just to make sure you get the point.
Added bonus the moves you unlock while useful for crowd control are on fucking cool down. So you really can't link too many of them in all that many expressive ways. Cool downs by their nature are more rigid of a system and force you to wait before you can use the move again. "bu bu then they would be unbalanced for how strong they are if they weren't on cool down"....yeah welcome to game design 101. In good action games those moves are either weaker so you can use them more often moment to moment n make a more versatile move set or the start up requires some effort from the player and they bcome an option later into one of the more elaborate combo paths. The older games had a magic meter, Bayonetta has a magic meter for instance, and in their case there is usually a method to fill up your magic meter by targeting specific enemies n what not. In Dad of War? Yeah let's just drop that shit, that might be too overwhelming of a concept.
The lack of jumping gimps aerial moves, it takes away a dodge ability, it takes away another option you would have to close the gap. Again, jumping might be too much of an overwhelming concept for the player according to our lord n saviors at Santa Monica. Just let them hit heavy, n mash away for the simplest fucking juggle option anyone could come up with.
So as far as player expression is concerned? You don't even need the best combat engines to shit on it. Revengeance is more expressive, The older God of Wars are more expressive, Otogi, God Hand, The Wonderful 101 take your pick as far as 3D Beat em ups. Fuck even Nier 2 the battle system itself allows for shit like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRS1GvHCgFkBecause in the case of Nier 2's its mechanics weren't its problems. It's difficulty n tuning were, that and the rpg bullshit bogging the game down. Which actually still applies to Dad of Bore. Because even in comparison to From Software's games it wouldn't stack up favorably as far as captilaizing on its depth. Dark Souls has less moves overall, but those games are built around their enemy variety n combat spaces. The depth is extrapolated from the different scenarios the game can present from oepn fields, archways, high, low turrain, environmental hazards. The works. God of War plays more in line with how 3d beat-em ups tend to work which is a closed off combat area, where you fight some dudes and move to the next combat area. Problem it's not as expressive as other 3D Beat em ups to get away with that shit. That and why in bluest of blue hells did the enemy variety regress from the older games?
How is it that I've seen 7 different shades of some big ogrel that either will just lumber around trying to stomp n punch me, or lumber around trying to stomp with some pillar or some shit. Dad of War barely has anything going beyond the main mooks besides a revenant, ogre, travelers, n were wolves, meanwhile in the first 2 hours of God of War 3 you fight chimera, centaurs, minotaurs, madusas, cerberus, giant animated satutues. And that game kept going.And then what are you even left with when the combat is mediocre? The puzzle solving? That shit isn't even good in the old games, much less now when it's even more paste swilling friendly. The platforming? Yeah man thank god we have Uncharted's brand of brain dead traversal systems where all the player does is hold up, and is never in any real danger or challenged in any meaningful way.
Oh did I mention the game does the whole "this enemy is only weak to this one type of weapon you have" full DmC (ninja theory) style, which weirdly enough still deeper than this game by at least sticking to a base framework tied to Devil May Cry.
What does the rpg bullshit add? Stuff to make the higher difficulty a joke, because eventually your armor can just eat way more than enough damage to let you get away with shit. A dumb ass upgrade system tied around tripping 25 dudes, and then 50 duddes. Or my personal favorite, something that is mind numblingly stupid when even actual action games do it (See Revengeance, DmC, God Hand), where you don't actually unlock a new move, you're unlocking a damage buff for one of your old moves. Which doesn't change gameplay, it just means you can do more damage. Hooray!!These aren't difficult concepts to grasp if you've actually played real action games and actually value depth, and not just the greatest hits of metacritic and if the game is pretty or not. As far as more technical n expressive combat systems? That list is basically any quality japanese beat-em up made post Devil May Cry n Onimusha. Because they weren't strictly relying on press the awesome button for something cool to happen on screen. They demanded more of the player.
You prefer this game to those? Mozel tov. But you would be imperically incorrect in assuming the game is anywhere near as technical or as expressive as the games mentioned. In a pretty measurable way you'd be incorrect in pretending there isn't a gap in terms of depth between those games, or even action rpg type games like Dark Souls n Bloodborne, versus what you get in God of War. If you don't value depth n challenge in a game? That's fine. I do however.
I've played every single action game you mentioned, don't even try to act like you know more about this than me. This God of War makes enemy crowd control and variety in placements a key part of combat in a way most other games do not not. It's almost RE4 like in the way you need pick and choose which enemy to disable to target first, the incredible axe allows great versatitly in that it's your primary attack weapon but it can be a tool to freeze an enemy. It's also your projectile weapon but using it means you go to hand combat for a few seconds, hand combat that opens up a different type of attack which is beneficial against certain enemies. Plus once you get chains now you have three entire options not to mention the boy which is a huge part of combat. Maybe you play on baby difficulty but combat in this game against the toughest enemies requires mastery of combos, range attacks, atreuis, and lots of dodging and parring. For a game with enemies off screen I never felt at a disadvantage. Yes I few times when you have projectile shooting enemies across the screen and enemies in front it can be annoying to notice the projectile coming, but that's only when things get really hectic.
I have no clue what your complaint is with enemy variety. I just played GoW3, yeah it has a lot of different enemy types, but so does GoW. Are you just lumping all humanoids into one category? Some are armored, some are dashing all over the place, some stand back and hurl fireballs at you. The armored knights are like statues. Witches are like gorons. The troll is basically the cyclops. Werewolves the Cerberus. The floating eyes the flying shit. The big dragurs are minotars. But the enemies in this game have more moves, use better tactics, come with better encounter design that takes into account level design. Most of GoW past games was managing grunts while chopping at the big guys then using magic and rage when best needed.
You complain about cooldowns, that's better than a bar that can just empty in the middle of a fight and never have use until the fight is over. Plus I guess you never experimented with armor sets cause you can make sets that cooldown moves much faster, once you get four of them you mix the timing of your attack so that one is almost always available, this is a way more flexible system than the GoW magic meter. Plus you can add buffs, power certain attacks. I made a super healing build where I had four different ways to heal my character during a fight, completely customized by me. And you can't praise Nioh then trash RPG loot systems in an action game when Nioh is the ultimate loot power up your move game.
Nioh is mostly souls on speed, still very much about one on one combat, lots of in for attack get out of the way for defense. That game relies on stats too much, it has a bad difficulty curve where at some point you can just wreck everything in sight including bosses, at that point the combat system doesn't feel as interesting where one or two moves can get you the best damage. Nioh maybe deeper, it's not as fun or interesting as this games combat. The feel of combat is a huge part of it, it doesn't matter how many moves you have, how fast the reaction time is, it's how well the actions feel to perform and everything in this GoW feels like it has weight, feels like I am in complete control. Like in past GoW games youcan just mash some buttons and your attacks sweep a massive area and clear loads of enemies, yeah you need to dodge and shit but major attacks kind of did all the work for you. Range combat was justbauto lock on shit. Here you need to get up and close with every enemy, you need to air juggle them, or freeze them to the ground, or use the walls to stun them, if a flying enemy is around you have to aim and throw. Total control of every action against every enemy, it feels better than most games with the panned out camera does.
You completely ignore the skill tree which gives you TONS of moves to learn throughout the game, not just increase the damage the move makes, so you are completely wrong about that. Again you praise Nioh when it's a far worse offender of that. The biggest sin this game has is no dodge offset or move canceling, but no GoW game had it. Yes you need to take into account that if you perform certain specials you will be vulnerable, but this can be just a part of the strategy of fight enemies, hit them with a stun attack then go into the special so that you know they can't attack you. If chaining attacks is your thing you can keep an enemy airborne chaining attacks, arteries, switching weapons and kill an enemy before they hit the floor. The depth is there, the chaotic nature of some of the encounters don't really let you have the time to do so though because attacks are coming from everywhere.
In a landscape where these games have felt similar for a while it's nice to have something that looks and plays differently. Not to mention the structure of the game which is way beyond what a DMC or Bayonetta even attempts. It's a true action adventure game but with the combat that is second tier to only the best of the genre.
Dvader said:I've played every single action game you mentioned, don't even try to act like you know more about this than me.
I do and I will continue to. There is a difference between having played the games and understanding the games.
Dvader said:I've played every single action game you mentioned, don't even try to act like you know more about this than me. This God of War makes enemy crowd control and variety in placements a key part of combat in a way most other games do not not. It's almost RE4 like in the way you need pick and choose which enemy to disable to target first, the incredible axe allows great versatitly in that it's your primary attack weapon but it can be a tool to freeze an enemy. It's also your projectile weapon but using it means you go to hand combat for a few seconds, hand combat that opens up a different type of attack which is beneficial against certain enemies. Plus once you get chains now you have three entire options not to mention the boy which is a huge part of combat.
That is widly disrespectful to Resident Evil 4 as that game's shooting engine had way more going for it. Having rigid enemies that only respond to one type of weapon isn't a boon in the games favor, but a detriment in terms of moment to moment play. And it isn't like fast linking weapons is nearly as viable or robust enough as it is in Japanese action games or hell even older God of Wars where that wasn't much of an option.
Dvader said:Maybe you play on baby difficulty but combat in this game against the toughest enemies requires mastery of combos, range attacks, atreuis, and lots of dodging and parring.
Sorry slick your projecting game is gonna have to get better, I play my games on hard. In this game's case "Give me God of War". So try a new a downplay.
Dvader said:I have no clue what your complaint is with enemy variety. I just played GoW3, yeah it has a lot of different enemy types, but so does GoW. ]
Layers to it lad. God of War 3 has 40 counting its bosses. New one has 28 counting its bosses.
In a pretty measurable way God of War 3 flat out has more enemies. So does Nioh. So does Otogi. So do definitely the better action games. Dark Souls, Bloodborne. Need I continue? Instead of building on the enemy types, they regressed to compensate for the new set of systems and what limitatiosn they force on the combat.
And lol of course the behind the enemies were never a problem. You have a fucking pointer telling you when they are coming, which is my complaint lol. The combat comes down to make sure you take care of the people hitting you from range first, and after that parry what's in front of you since the window is pathetically large even on higher difficulties, or dodge roll and wail away. What combo mastery? Because the big mother fuckers come down to dodge some, get some hits, pull back, get some hits. As far as any sort of strategy or tactics it's fairly simple. Which is fine for most action games, so long as you know the mechanics allow for more robust decisions. Which this one is slacking on. Because as far as combos go, it simply doesn't have as many to really work with.
Dvader said:You complain about cooldowns, that's better than a bar that can just empty in the middle of a fight and never have use until the fight is over.
lolwut? No sunshine. Bayonetta n God of War both have meters that dictate certain shit you can't do, it was part of the combat to manage that meter, and the different things and decide when n what you were going to use to manage it properly. The kicker was when shit got really hectic you were supposed to be able to navigate the chaos and find the stuff you needed to kill to feed you more meter. In God of War's case it was those boring as QTE finishers. Which aren't exactly my thing, for how drawn out they were, but the logic maintained the same. Build up some combo here, use your magic as well, you get someone stunned enough or a medusa with a circle on her head, and you immediately get over there and get your much needed refill.
A cool down is that minus the managing or interesting decision making. You're just waiting for a counter to go down. 15 seconds, 25 seconds, 35 seconds, etc. There is no incentive there to actually get aggressive n get on it a bit more.
Dvader said:Nioh does things
Crazy concept slick, me liking Nioh, doesn't mean I like its RPG elements. In fact I lean towards the game would benefit greatly if it was more action game and less RPG. Because yeah the loot system is bullshit and cripples difficulty. Which would still be an issue with Dad of War. It adds a whole lot of redundancies. Which is what Dad of War does. With the kicker being Nioh's combat is still deeper. You unlock more command moves, unlocking different versions of Flux absolutely changes how you play the game, how you deal with the yokai, ditto with the different launchers, grabs you can unlock for any given weapon. Or the different ways you can trigger ki pulse like wind within or whatever the fuck its called. So again I can acknowledge Nioh has a similar problem, but Nioh's problem is offset by a deeper combat engine n better enemies across the board.
I appreciate good game feel as the next person. But this is a two pronged problem. A deeper combat system that allows for more expressive play is still gonna be the deeper combat even if the other combat system has better polishing effects, which is what you're describing. Or "juice". And Nioh's not exactly a slouch there. In fact very few Japanese action games actually have poor game feel. God of War if anything has often had poor game feel be it how fucking feathery the blades of chaos have felt then and now, or how jankily Kratos animates when slashing with an axe. Yes congrats they added beefy sound effects to get the point across that Kratos has had some donuts, truly some marvel of game design. But I rather have a game that plays quicker n more fluidly.
Because God Hand similarly uses that closed in camera, but God Hand's evasive options are far quicker, it's not beholden to "mah immersion" so will actually go through a wall to make sure you still have a good view, and enemy tells are better suited for that type of game.
And NIoh's combat isn't just good 1 v 1. That game routinely throws 3-6 enemies at at time, and some of its better bosses are optional fights where you deal with 2-3 of the hardest bosses in the game at once. Positioning actually matters in Nioh since there isn't an obvious get out of hit free marker to make sure you are always safe. Otherwise, yeah sure wrecking people with your spirit animal thing can trivialize the difficulty, but challenge by itself isn't my idea of satisfying. The player has to have viable options to create a satisfying challenge. And I'd rather have a more expressive set of mecahnics than a game that's just harder.
Dvader said:The biggest sin this game has is no dodge offset or move canceling, but no GoW game had it.
lolwut? The bad writing, the puzzles that are simplistic and keep you honest, the nothing platforming/traversal, or how limited you are in terms of combat options aren't sins now? But one mechanic that's really only found in one studios games are its biggest sins? I like Dodge offset as much as the next platinum games mark, but you can take that mechanic out of Bayonetta and it would still be a deeper video game. Hell it's not even correct to say God of War never had cancels. God of War as a franchise has simply had less animations you could cancel and as a result less links between command moves. Which hasn't changes in the series, but you've taken options away from the player, and those cancels are still more readily available in other action games.
Dvader said:The depth is there, the chaotic nature of some of the encounters don't really let you have the time re.
This is rationalization bullshit. Plenty of better action games play faster, throw more enemies at you, are harder, and still leverage their depth better. It's not that its far too chaotic, you simply don't have much beyond the simplest juggle in the land and pause combos. Which admittedly I'm stunned they even had pause combos.
Dvader said:In a landscape where these games have felt similar for a while it's nice to have something that looks and plays differently. Not to mention the structure of the game which is way beyond what a DMC or Bayonetta even attempts. It's a true action adventure game but with the combat that is second tier to only the best of the genre.
Two last things.
1: All the same? Because DMC doesn't play anything like Ninja Gaiden which doesn't play anything like Bayonetta which plays nothing like The Wonderful 101 which plays nothing like God Hand which plays nothing like Revengeance which plays nothing like Otogi, which, you get the point. Plenty of differences in how these games handle combat. And in the case of Nioh n Dark Souls, far better balance between RPG builds n action combat that either has more robust command moves (NIoh) or better level design (Soulsbourne shit)
2. More importantly who fucking cares that they went for some "true action adventure" thing like that's something to be proud of? Being a jack of all trades isn't commendable worthy. I'd rather have the one tricky pony that is excellent at that one trick, than something that tries a bunch of things and is mediocre at all of them. Because outside of combat, nothing Dad of War offers is all that robust as a gameplay loop. The puzzle solving n "platforming" are glorified filler. The subdued walking segments where the game pretends me a bunch of hack video game writers can tell a story, isn't my idea of some compelling narrative. Because I don't have a diet rich in shit enough to get perked up about a fucking video game story.
But more to it considering your thread is hyping up the game as some soon to be classic, genre elite game, it's pretty concerning that the game is so shallow at its prominent gameplay loop: the fucking combat. The game has delusions of grander in terms of scale and a whole lot of filler, I'll take my action games that actually make good on the stuff they are excellent at any day of the week, twice on sundays.
I await your next half baked attempt to police how other people judge games, because you couldn't handle an opposing opinion on one of your precious video games.
SupremeAC said:This is spinning out of control in typical Foolz style, where we'll debate back and forth for 10 or something posts and in the end realize we were both agreeing in the first place.
I think they understand each other, but simply disagree.
In the time it took you guys to write all that, you could have eaten a pussy.
edgecrusher said:In the time it took you guys to write all that, you could have eaten a pussy.
Maybe they were doing that while typing...multitasking.
Personally, I like being a gentleman and focus on the task at hand.
edgecrusher said:In the time it took you guys to write all that, you could have eaten a pussy.
Dude, we are not in North Korea. We do not eat cats.
robio said:
Dude, we are not in North Korea. We do not eat cats.
Would be awesome if they served cat when/if Trump and Kim Jong-Un meet.
"Yes mister Donald, we have heard you greatly enjoy our national dish of pussy"
I can't do this whole quote sections thing can cause this site and my phone hate each other. I don't know what you are doing with this enemy list thing, as I showed basically every enemy type in GoW3 has some kind of equivalent in GoW4. If there are fewer enemy types it's by so few that it doesn't matter and the enemy type so in gow4 are more interesting to fight. Souls and Nioh are absurd with the amount of enemies they have (though Nioh gets really repetitive, with its standard types). DMC never had that many enemies, neither doesn't bayo. The standard action game has around 30 types, GoW is right around there.
Your example of navigating combat to raise your magic bar is a poor one. There are only a handful of fights in GoW3 with sirens or special enemies who actually give you magic when you brutal kill them. Few fights have chests around to refill. The grand majority of time the fight has no way to refill any magic. Contrast that to four slots with about 20 different moves to choose from, all with different levels of cooldown some as short as 15 seconds. Moves that give all kinds of attacks, some ranged, some buffs, some heal, some are AoE, some stun and each can be customized even further with level gains. Screw that a stupid magic button that lets out some crappy AoE attack every time you so happen to have energy is better than managing a bunch of moves. Not to mention how much better rage mode is in this game with its own set of attacks.
You can say the DMC and Souls/Nioh type games are deeper than this but to say the old GoW games had better combat is ridiculous. And I greatly enjoyed past GoW games combat, it's no where as interesting as every battle is in this game. Every encounter feels great, the challenge modes are a blast compared to them being rather annoying in the old games.
The only reason GoW games are as good and better than many action games is cause it is half action adventure game. Shit on the story and adventure elements all you want, doesn't change the fact that those additions make this a more interesting game than Nioh, than Bayonetta, than many of this just action games. Maybe all you want is combat, then fine this game won't reach the highs of the others, but I rather play a zelda with shitty combat than a DMC cause Zelda offers so much more. GoW offers so much more than most action games while having a combat system that feels unique. But you don't care about any of that, cause you seem completely incapable of seeing anything past your prism of critique. It seems like anyone who likes anything you don't is just a fool who doesn't have standards, anyone who doesn't like something you do doesn't have the expertise you do. Or maybe you taste is just different cause as you said you rather have the one trick pony, I rather have the game that tries a lot more. And that's ok, there doesn't have to be a right or wrong with what kind of game you like more.