What Are You Currently Playing? 6.65: Neighbor of the Beast

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

You mean the platforming ones? I heard that if you do the transforms/summons/whatever-the-hell-they-are-called wrong, the monster eats you but I've never gotten any of those wrong. I just died from doing a QTE jump or two wrong a few times.

I'm talking about the jumps. If you just miss a single button-prompt, you die and have to redo the whole sequence. That's something I could get over, but there are several cases where I did a fight without taking any damage (a requirement for a Pure Platinum medal), and then I died on a QTE sequence, essentially destroying both my score and the money bonus that I would've gotten from it, which is kind of a big deal since shit is expensive in this game.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

My god....that dinosaur boss fight in Ninja Gaiden 3....worst....boss fight....ever....

This just proved to me that Hayashi doesn't understand a single goddamn thing about how to balance a game. Before the game felt less responsive than previous games to me, but I couldn't tell how much of the damage I took was my own fault and how much of it could be blamed on the game just having shitty response to my inputs. Well, this boss fight just confirmed how royally Team Ninja fucked up without Itagaki around. First off, there are several times where I clearly put a direct input for a slide and the game just didn't pick up on it, and I got hit for no good reason at all. Then there were the numerous times where I had to wait a whole second after a combo to be able to do an evade (in Ninja Gaiden, a single second of time is like an eternity in the heat of battle). This ensured that I could only use short combos and only manage mere chip damage to the boss each time I got to attack. That in an of itself was bad enough, but this also had to be one of THOSE boss fights like Sanctus from DMC4 (and if you don't know what I mean, look up a video of the final boss fight on DMD mode). Basically, during the second half of the fight, the dinosaur turns all of its body except for its head into metal, basically making only its head vulnerable to attacks, meaning that you can only hit it whenever it decides to stumble and stay on the fucking ground long enough for you to hit it. Mind you, it's not like you can control when it falls, or if it even stays down when it does. No, that would be actual good design for a game. Instead you have to just wait it out, and it can take forever before you get an opportunity to hit it, and even if you do, you'll easily botch it if you aren't standing in exactly the right spot to capitalize on it. And, even in those cases you can end up literally missing strikes because of horrid hit detections. So, basically, this boss fight is only difficult because of terrible design, not because it's a legitimate challenge.

Fuck this game and fuck Hayashi. I need to play some more Bayonetta to wash the taste of bad hack n' slash gameplay down.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

For as much as I love about Bayonetta, I fucking hate the Alfheims. They are gimmicky and completely unfun. I'm probably going to just skip them for the rest of the game. The rewards you get for completing them really aren't worth the aggravation.

As far as optional challenges in action games go, I still say that NGB's fiend challenges are much better than the Alfheim's in Bayonetta or the Secret Missions in DMC games. At least their are no gimmicks with those. It's just straight up combat challenges, doing what the game does best, which is the way that it should be.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Playing Shovel Knight.

If you have a gaming PC, 3DS, or Wii U, you really need to get this. It's excellent.

[gunswordfist]

I saw Screw Attack play it live. It looked like Duck Tales meets Megaman. Of course that means you want to marry the game.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I saw Screw Attack play it live. It looked like Duck Tales meets Megaman. Of course that means you want to marry the game.

The pogoing is similar, but it's more like Mega Man meets Castlevania. Only with a lot of secrets and a lot to do, if you're a platformer fan, there's no way you won't think it's awesome.

And yes, it's the best indie game I've ever played. 

[gunswordfist]

That's high praise!

[Spark Of Spirit]

It's made by Ex-WayForward staff, including staff from Contra 4, A Boy & His Blob, and Double Dragon Neon, so quality was always expected from me. But, yeah, it's pretty great. I don't have any complaints.

[Foggle]

Playing Shovel Knight.

If you have a gaming PC, 3DS, or Wii U, you really need to get this. It's excellent.

It does look pretty great! I'll be sure to pick it up soon.

Right now I'm playing Wolfenstein: The New Order, and it's excellent. It has detailed level design (with multiple paths and secrets!), awesome guns, fun stealth, cool music, and smart storytelling. I'd definitely recommend it to fans of the previous games or Half-Life!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'll pick it up when it comes down in price.

Meanwhile I'm almost done with my first proper playthrough of Bayonetta. I just decided to stop torturing myself by skipping all of the remaining Alfheims. The game is much more fun without that frustration.

I also love how this game does the boss fight chapters, since the bosses have plenty of different phases and are actually fun to fight. Certain other games could learn a thing or two from this (I'm looking at you, DMC4 Mission 18).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I think that the second fight with Jeanne is my favorite boss fight in Bayonetta. Don't get me wrong, the third fight is cool, but there's something about having the boss fight interrupted after every life-bar just for the sake of cool action sequences and cut-scenes that doesn't sit well with me. As awesome as it looks, I'm still not the one controlling the action in those instances, and I can't help but just want to get back to the fight right away. I feel that the second fight is good about going light on the cinematic stuff and is a straightforward, no bullshit affair.

The rest of the boss fights in Bayonetta are fun enough, though they do tend to rely on repetitive and predictable patterns (at least on Normal difficulty), so I'm not as wowed by them. That said, I should point out that NGB and DMC1 are perhaps the only hack n' slash games where I really like most of the boss fights. Every other action game ranges from being mixed to crap, in that regard.

Putting that aside, the rest of the game is great. Aside from a few enemy types that I don't care for, this is probably the most polished hack n' slash game that I've played. Aside from the QTE segments, there isn't a single part of this game that I hate. Even NGB (which I admittedly still like more than this game on the whole) has some sections that I just flat-out don't like or find frustrating, as does every DMC game, but Bayonetta so far is the only game of this sort that is generally free of the bullshit that your almost guaranteed to find in fast-paced action games.

I believe that the only thing that holds it back from being my absolute favorite in the genre is that, while excellently done, I don't really find the enemies of this game quite as interesting as the AI and mechanical design of the enemies from NGB or the DMC games (particularly the first one, which was ironically also done by Kamiya, so clearly he knows how to do interesting enemy and boss design).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I have some money to spend and I was looking at Amazon to see the prices of some PS2 games that I wanted to try. Most of them are available for pretty cheap, as expected, but why the hell is Yakuza 2 so expensive? I understand that it's long out of print, but so is every other PS2 game, including the first game, so it kind of baffles me.

Anyways, I'm thinking of hitting up God Hand (which is also kind of expensive), and some R&C games, which are actually pretty cheap.

[Foggle]

Yakuza 2 and God Hand had very small print runs in the US (especially Yakuza 2), so they're pretty expensive now. God Hand was only like $20 for a new copy just a few years ago, though.

While I do recommend you play Yakuza 1 as the story and music are excellent, the English dub can be extremely cheesy and the gameplay hasn't aged that well (also, load times, load times everywhere). Try to pick up a copy of Y2 whenever you can - that's when the series really takes off.

I think they were still printing copies of the original R&C games for PS2 even after the PS3 launched, so it makes sense that new copies are still cheap. Like with Yakuza 1, I wholeheartedly recommend you play the first game, but keep in mind that its shooting controls can be really clunky compared to the sequels due to the lack of strafing. Since you enjoy older 3D platformers like Sonic Adventure and Mario 64, I personally think you'll still love it, however. Just keep in mind that some series fans (such as Spark) don't really care for the original R&C.

While the PS2 has what is by far my favorite video game library ever, sadly many of the best titles for it are long out of print and/or hard to find outside of the internet.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I was planning to start with the first game in each series, anyway. I can't wait to get back to R&C: Up Your Arsenal. I played that so much with my friend, back in the day, and it was insanely fun. Sadly, I'll never have an opportunity to play the multiplayer in that game with anyone again. It was so goddamn addicting, I tell you. When my friend bought over his PS2 whenever he came over (or when I came over to his house), that alone comprised roughly 70% or what we spent our time playing.

I also might hit up both God of War games for the PS2 of I can find them for $5 or less, just because even as biased as I am with that series, they are still the only major hack n' slash titles that I've never fully played. So, if they are cheap, I don't see why not just going through them (they certainly can't be worse than any incarnation of NG3, and I managed to cave in for that piece of shit, so these will probably seem like gold in comparison).

I'm also thinking about Resident Evil but I've decided to hold off on that until I get a Wii and play REmake first. I might hit up Fatal Frame 2, though, as far as horror games go. But I'm assuming it'll be another expensive one, so that might not be for a while. Right now I have $50 to spend on a cluster of relatively cheap games, or just a single expensive one, so naturally I want more bag for my buck.

[Foggle]

Knowing your taste, and going by Amazon used prices, I'd say that for $50 you should get:

Ratchet & Clank 1-3
Shinobi (maybe swap with The Red Star if you already have this or don't feel like playing it again)
God of War 2 (personally, I think this one is the best in the series)
Jak & Daxter (I love Jak 2 and parts of 3, myself, but the first one is the only one I can really recommend)
Viewtiful Joe
Onimusha 3: Demon Siege

Also, while Fatal Frame 2 is the best one, I think 1 and 3 are almost as good (especially 3) and usually a lot cheaper. And I only recommend picking up Yakuza if you can get the second one as well.

Hope that helps!