Mdk7 from GAF on Red Steel 2

I played the game at E3 and got a little disappointed with it: the graphics were nice and the art surely stunning, but the gameplay felt sluggish and the controls were not as mind blowing as i expected them to be (the Kendo in Wii Sports Resort was sooooo much better in every single way).

Last week i played it again and frankly i was pretty much blown away by the improvements.
The graphics are now fuck-amazing (visuals are super crisp and clean, colors are vibrant and it runs sooo smoothly... 60fps FTW!!), the controls work very well in terms of responsiveness and feeling (i love the fact that it's a truly phisical game, a real swordfighting experience that makes you sweat!) and the action is brutally intense (the rhythm is just perfect, you keep switching between swords and guns in a furious alternation of melee and ranged attacks).
Despite the steep learning curve it just plays damn good, really.

There's only one aspect that frankly (still) disappointed me: the game design is a little demodé, with one room full of enemies after another and corridors between them... A structure that was perfectly fine in 2000, not so much in 2010.

But really it went pretty much from "no thanks" to "drool drool day one" for me.
Oh and Jason VandenBerghe is the coolest guy in the biz, period.

Edgecrusher^

aspro said:

gamingeek said:

In this case the motion controls were not the selling point for me.  I'm not against all motion control.

I just popped it in to see how it looked and it won't work on my PS3 (some kind of memory card problem).  

Sweet justice!

KIRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!

I need to look through the PDF manual for the demo. I don't know if there is a lock-on or not. Were you using the Classic Controller? The Right Stick on there controls the camera and makes it MUCH easier to deal with while playing. Did you like games like Phantasy Star Online in the past?

SteelAttack said:

Yes, butthurt. Like when I surprised you with my girthyness.

 

Would have been a great time to post that Superman comic cover. "Bite the pillow son, I'm going in dry".

The controls are great, weighty, and efficient <3 Monster Hunter

Just take 10 mins in an empty area to learn the controls. Start with the sword + shield as it's kinda the easiest to get the hang of, and can block (some others can too).

Get the hang of running around while rotating the camera first. It's not hard. Set the camera height you prefer that gives you a good look of your character and the area and other than that only rotate it, you won't need to change its height again. You can tap L to auto center the camera to the direction your character is facing, even that can be sufficient for most monsters (PSP lacks a 2nd stick so I tend to auto center a lot in MHFU instead, as I don't like "the claw" people use) if you adjust your tactics a bit but it's best you learn how to rotate the camera well.

Get the hang of sheathing and unsheathing your weapon. You need it unsheathed to attack, you need it sheathed to use items (actually, I found I can use items with it unsheathed using the remote + nunchuck, but that's probably not possible with all the weapons so learn how to sheath and unsheath anyway...). With CC controls the sheath button also uses items, so you press Y once to sheath your weapon, and once more to use the highlighted item.

To change the highlighted item, hold down L and then use A and  Y as if they were the directions of a d-pad to change what's highlighted, a potion, or sharpening stones or whatever else. Try using a potion, using a meat thing and using a sharpening stone to learn how to quickly switch between them and learn how long each takes to be used so that you don't do it as a monster is 2ft from you ready to attack.Sharpening your sword after it's gone blunt will take precious seconds.

Learn the evasion maneuvers. With the weapon sheathed you can run, sprint using the R button, and during running or sprinting perform a roll or dive with B. With weapons unsheathed those aren't available (no sprinting either) as each weapon has its own character moves.

With the sword and shield you can simply perform a roll by pressing a direction and B (with CC controls). So, when you see a monster preparing to do some move (it should be quite obvious for most attacks in the demo), just roll to the side or backwards or wherever if you're within the attack's range. That won't always be enough, so you'll need to combine it with also running off to the side then rolling or whatever depending on the monster and what attack it's doing. You'll learn each monster's patterns and attacks and what range each attack has with practice.

With the sword and shield unsheathed you can also block by holding down R. It's not 100% instant and it doesn't override attack animations so you can't just use it at the last moment or after a mistake, to block succesfully you'll need to know your enemy and that the attack is coming.

For attacking, just unsheath using the attack button (X with CC). If you do it standing he unsheaths normally and you can then press it repeatedly for a simple combo. If you do it during a run he will start with a jump attack that is useful as it covers some distance and can help you position better. A can also perform different attacks, and if you want to do the jump attack again while your weapon is already unsheathed you press A and X together.

With the sword and shield you can also perform (new to Tri) shield bashes. With enough shield bashes on the head you may stun the monster for a few precious seconds as well (previously only hammer strikes could do that) so whenever there's an opportunity for a shield bash it's good to take it.

I only played the demo once so I'm not entirely sure but to perform it you either move forward and press A (again with CC) able to do a 2-hit shield combo, or it's on the + button (I don't think so, that would be a little cumersome, the + tends to be for not frequently used specials and stuff from what I saw).

Depending on how you switch up hits during a combo you can also have shield bashes among slashes from what I've seen in videos, but I'm not entirely sure of how each combo is done yet so you'll need to experiment yourself for that. Simple slash combos should be more than enough for the demo's monsters.

So, yeah, go and kill those herbivores in the beginning of the map using all these moves, or some small pink dinosaurs, then take on the boss after you've grown more accustomed to the controls.

You'll want to mostly attack the boss not directly in front of it but from the sides or behind to begin with so that you can see when it tries to face you and start attacks easier and be able to dodge better. It has some swirling attacks that you need to learn to identify and get out of the way from as well though.

There are various other tricks you can use to help you. In the same way you used items before, you can use a flash bomb to blind the enemies in the area (they will still attack and stuff just not as good). You can set down a trap that if the boss passes over (use yourself as bait with the trap between you and the monster) it will get paralysed for a bit letting you score free hits.

You can do various other things in the demo like fish, gather items, and stuff, but they're mostly useless in the demo. Also, press A next to the blue crate in the beginning to get some extra items in your inventory, not that you need them for these monsters, it gives you plenty to begin with.

Here use this video as a guide. See how the monster is tracked with the camera almost all the time, and even when it's not, he knows where the monster is.

^ Yeah, I've done all of those things, Agnates. I even cooked some meat that I took from an animal, which gave me a stamina boost. I just don't find it much fun to play. I think this will be a love it/hate it kind of game. Unfortunately, I fall in the latter category.