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

[Foggle]

I didn't know Prey was out and assumed Persona would interest you more than it. This turns my world upside down.

I was actually more excited for Persona 5 than Prey for the longest time, but I just can't get into turn-based games (or really long ones) right now.

Anyway, Prey is amazing. Like jaw-droppingly good. I had pretty high expectations for this game given the pedigree and leaked design document but it is fucking sublime. It's full of original ideas, grants the player even more freedom than most games in the same genre (e.g. Deus Ex, Dishonored), and has unparalleled atmosphere/storytelling. Every weapon feels great to use, including a gun which shoot globs of a hardening substance that freezes enemies & lets you climb up any wall, grenades that grind enemies into crafting materials via a black hole, and a foam dart crossbow that has a surprising amount of uses for puzzle-solving & stealth. The level design is stellar both from a gameplay and a narrative standpoint - the Metroidvania-style space station is super fun to explore and every single room is lovingly-crafted to feel organic & lived-in. The aliens & corrupted robots are creepy as hell and the story is really engrossing. The music is by the Doom 4 guy and it's just as awesome. (I haven't even gotten the power that lets you turn into a coffee cup and roll around yet!) Forget being better than the BioShock games, this might even be better than System Shock 2!

[gunswordfist]

I didn't know Prey was out and assumed Persona would interest you more than it. This turns my world upside down.

I was actually more excited for Persona 5 than Prey for the longest time, but I just can't get into turn-based games (or really long ones) right now.

Anyway, Prey is amazing. Like jaw-droppingly good. I had pretty high expectations for this game given the pedigree and leaked design document but it is fucking sublime. It's full of original ideas, grants the player even more freedom than most games in the same genre (e.g. Deus Ex, Dishonored), and has unparalleled atmosphere/storytelling. Every weapon feels great to use, including a gun which shoot globs of a hardening substance that freezes enemies & lets you climb up any wall, grenades that grind enemies into crafting materials via a black hole, and a foam dart crossbow that has a surprising amount of uses for puzzle-solving & stealth. The level design is stellar both from a gameplay and a narrative standpoint - the Metroidvania-style space station is super fun to explore and every single room is lovingly-crafted to feel organic & lived-in. The aliens & corrupted robots are creepy as hell and the story is really engrossing. The music is by the Doom 4 guy and it's just as awesome. (I haven't even gotten the power that lets you turn into a coffee cup and roll around yet!) Forget being better than the BioShock games, this might even be better than System Shock 2!

Wut?! I might have to upgrade my PC.

[Foggle]

Wut?! I might have to upgrade my PC.

Missed this post! Anyway, I beat the game last night, and it's the real deal all the way through. The ending is... disappointing, but unfortunately that seems to be the way it always goes with this genre (it was better than BioShock's, Dishonored's, and any Deus Ex's - plus less corny than System Shock 2's - endings, at least). Everything else is wonderful. I got around 28 hours out of the game, losing sleep each night until it was finished, and I loved every minute. Probably going to play it again soon. All in all, I think I really did like it more than System Shock 2, which is quite a feat. If it wasn't for Nier Automata, Prey would absolutely be my favorite game of the year so far. Definitely pick it up if my previous post made it sound cool to you.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Still playing a lot of Blazing Star on my Switch. The portability and High Score mode keep me coming back. The game is just a fantastic shmup. Really hope Pulstar arrives sooner than later.

[gunswordfist]

Wut?! I might have to upgrade my PC.

Missed this post! Anyway, I beat the game last night, and it's the real deal all the way through. The ending is... disappointing, but unfortunately that seems to be the way it always goes with this genre (it was better than BioShock's, Dishonored's, and any Deus Ex's - plus less corny than System Shock 2's - endings, at least). Everything else is wonderful. I got around 28 hours out of the game, losing sleep each night until it was finished, and I loved every minute. Probably going to play it again soon. All in all, I think I really did like it more than System Shock 2, which is quite a feat. If it wasn't for Nier Automata, Prey would absolutely be my favorite game of the year so far. Definitely pick it up if my previous post made it sound cool to you.

Cool! And I've beaten none of those games even though I own 2. 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

As for Game of the Year, so far, I'd probably say that my clear first pick would be Nioh with Nier: Automata coming in at second, but then again, those are the only two games from this year that I've actually had the time to play so far (and I still haven't even finished one of them and have the DLC for the other waiting for me).

Overall, though, my lifestyle just doesn't let me take on too many things at once, so I have to be really selective about the types of games that I play. In that regard, you can pretty much see why I'm not much of an RPG guy. While I do still definitely want to play Bloodborne and will eventually make my way through the rest of the Souls games, and while I unabashedly love Nioh, and enjoy the hell out of Nier: Automata, I am a bit worried that action games in general may take the ARPG route instead given how much more popular this genre is becoming lately. On the one hand, I do enjoy games of this nature and if it allows developers to create interesting combat systems like in classic character action games while appealing to a broader market without having to dumb down the actual gameplay, then I'm all for it, but that also means that I will inevitably have to miss out on a lot of these games in the future due to time constraints.

The thing is, as much as I really do enjoy some of these games, my favorite genre still remains to be specifically the character action breed that melds nuanced hack n' slash style gameplay with a shorter but infinitely more replayable mission-based structure. Rather than leveling up your character or worrying too much about what kind of stats you have in your build, the upgrading is strictly limited to broadening your character's move-set and abilities, and emphasis is put more on mastery of the game's mechanics as opposed to making your in-game character grow stronger.

While I love Nioh and Nier: Automata, one thing that will prevent them from ever surpassing the likes of Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, or Bayonetta for me, personally, is how the RPG elements sort of hurt their replay value. In Nioh's case it is absolutely possible to take on the main game at just level one, but leveling up even further and then wanting to go back and play an earlier stage is hampered by the fact that you'll have to de-level your character if you want to actually take it on with some level of challenge. While the game does have harder difficulty settings, the same general logic applies there as well. On the other hand, Nier: Automata seems to go by trying to scale enemies to be around where your level is (which, I believe, kind of defeats the purpose of even having a leveling system in the first place), but where I believe this backfires a bit is that it ultimately limits combat whenever you want to fight certain enemies from an earlier area and you are too over-leveled to the point in which you will automatically kill them in just a couple of hits.

Ultimately, the point that I'm trying to make is that this genre of ARPG's has its own share of weaknesses, the biggest of which being that it feels like I have to commit to spending hours at a time in any of them in order to make any worthwhile progress. For just one or two games every now and then like the two that I'm currently playing, that's not such a big deal. But if all character action games move in that direction, then it'll be really disappointing for me since my favorite experiences in all of gaming come from the best games in that very genre. I can pick up a game like Devil May Cry 3 and play any given mission on any difficulty of my choosing and not have to worry about anything but the action and the game's combat mechanics. I don't generally use items (which aren't needed if you are good enough to not get hit most of the time), and my upgrades don't make it so that I kill enemies too fast, as it's the difficulty setting which determines their health. That's a game where I can sit down and play for 30-minutes and have a memorable experience, whereas with the games that I'm currently playing I can't play on most weeknights as I can't afford to stay up late, and thus the time in which I have to play them is rather limited.

The much, much shorter version of what I'm trying to say is that, basically:

Make Devil May Cry 5 already, Itsuno.

[Foggle]

Automata actually doesn't scale enemies to your level, which makes it extremely easy if you do all the side quests as you play through the main story. I think by the end of the game I was at least 5 levels higher than they expected me to be. I kind of wish they didn't bother having RPG mechanics to that extent, to be honest. The original Nier and the Drakengard games have "level ups," but - much like Ratchet & Clank - they don't do anything except make your health bar slightly longer and randomly restore your HP during battle, so the fighting is always balanced properly like a real action game. The heavier RPG elements of Automata don't play to Platinum's strengths as a development studio and it really shows with Normal being too easy and Hard being too difficult. I like the core fighting and shooting enough to want to try doing my next playthrough on Hard, but I hope the next Yoko Taro game goes back to the simplified RPG format of the first Nier and maybe only has one well-balanced difficulty setting (with an auto-mode for newcomers or folks who just want to see the story).

I've played through four of this year's games so far: Nier Automata, Prey, Resident Evil 7, and Yooka-Laylee (and I'd rank them in that order). I'll be getting back to Yakuza 0 soon and after that I've got my sights set on Nioh. I'm also thinking of finally using that PSTV I got for $20 to play Caligula and I'm marginally interested in Gravity Rush 2. I'll get around to Breath Of The Wild and Persona 5 eventually but neither really jumps out at me so I might wait until I buy a Switch for the former and the inevitable re-release for the latter.

[Mustang]

Tried to finish Persona 5. Fatigue hit me hard. You can tell when you're near the end or at the end, but goodness gracious these dungeons just goes on forever, and it reminded me why I stopped playing JRPG's in the first place. As great as this game is the dungeons are filled with excessive padding and it's to the point where I don't even care anymore. Here I wanted to start a New Game + once I finished this run, but that's definitely out of the question now. Perhaps I'll come to see how it ends within a month or 2, but right now, I'm done.

Onward to Ultra Street Fighter 4 and Street Fighter 3.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've been playing a lot of DMC4SE recently. It's funny, because despite all of my issues with this game, it still never ceases to amaze me how much the combat mechanics alone make up for all of the shortcomings. There are definitely things that hold the game back from true greatness for me (mainly the fact that it's still basically not fucking finished after all of these years), but the actual thing that you play DMC games for in the first place is so good that it puts the combat in most other action games not named Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta to absolute shame.

That said, every now and then the game's sins rear their ugly head, and most of this comes in the form of Dante's missions. It's so aggravating too, because even if you're basically forced to repeat Nero's missions but in reverse, I'd still be fine with that if that's all that they were, since Dante's combat is so fundamentally different from Nero's that it pretty much feels like a different game anyways. That said, some genius in the design team felt the need to shoehorn gimmicks into most of these stages, such as a countdown timer until an explosion is triggered or poisonous gas slowly draining your health throughout the course of the mission. These are horrible ideas that actually work against the focus of combat and really take away a lot from an otherwise really fun playable character with an insane amount of depth and nuance to his arsenal.

By far, though, the worst is mission 14 with those grabboid type demons that emerge from the ground at regular intervals and try to swallow up Dante while you're in the middle of combat. It's not that bad on the lower difficulty settings, but on Son of Sparda or above it becomes beyond infuriating, especially when you're trying to focus on fighting tougher enemies like a Blitz, which appears at the same time that you are fighting the Assaults. That's a full-fledged combat scenario in and of itself that will take a lot of focus for an ordinary player such as myself to overcome. To add a mechanics in there that will punish you by instantly transporting you to another room if you fail, in which you have to compete a sub-fight, and then resetting the whole encounter only for the same process to repeat until you finally clear the room without getting caught. It sucks all of the fun out of any fight when you have to worry about being caught at any given moment that you're on the ground, and while you could argue that this challenge is meant to encourage getting better at staying in the air, it's not like an average player will be able to master jump-canceling within the span of a single level. In all honesty, if they took out the penalty for you being caught and replaced it with just being damaged each time Dante got grabbed then I could at least tolerate the level. But, as it stands, it's a tedious affair and really forces you to try and cheese the whole thing by playing in the most boring and safe way possible. It's really the worst of the gimmicks that this game has to offer, and I'd argue that it's by far the worst levle in any of the good DMC games. Hell, as a gimmick I'd even unabashedly say that it's worse than anything in DmC, and that's saying something considering how loaded that game is with pointelss gimmicks.

Putting that aside, I have been enjoying my playthroughs with the other characters so far. Vergil is an awesome character but I'm saving the best for last, so I've only cleared the first few missions with him so far. Meanwhile I'm on my Lady/Trish run and so far I'm most of the way through Lady's initial playthrough. She's certainly an interesting character with a unique focus on ranged-weapons that makes here stand out from any other playable DMC character in the series' history. That said, while her combat mechanics in and of themselves are quite interesting and could almost make for a great character to play as in their own full-length game, they don't mesh all that well with the enemies of DMC4, which are also interesting in and of themselves, but clearly they were really designed for Nero, and every other character (including Dante) kind of had to have their mechanics designed around fighting these enemies, except none of them suit those enemy types quite as well as Nero does, even if they are still fun to play by themselves. I will be getting to Trish soon, but as it stands, Lady is a fun deviation, however I don't see myself ever really coming back to playing as her past this initial playthrough.

[Mustang]

I lied. Not only did I finish Persona 5, I'm currently doing a NG+ run as well. I couldn't actually follow through with just not finishing a game and the end is right there. Hell, where I decided to stop playing to the actual end took roughly 7 hours to complete. That's just unnecessary. Anyway, there are some Persona's I want, and won't feel like a complete badass until I get them.

Spoiler

MC 2nd Persona
Yoshizune
Cu Chululain
Michael
Cybelle
Metatron

[close]

I think once I get those I'd feel like I can let the game rest a little bit. I think by the time I finished the game everyone was at lvl 77. My stats were maxed (still maxed). Confidants were maxed except for 3. Personally don't care for strongest weapons, accessories, etc. Anyway, great game despite the longevity.

As for Ultra Street Fighter 4. I've been spending time in training mode as Evil Ryu. Cr.MP, CL.St.HP, Axe Kick, Cr.MP/Cr.LP, L.Tatsu, Shoryuken is truly insane. I think I've only connected maybe twice. I'd say it's about as hard as trying to pull off Dudley's CR.HP, St.HK, EX MGB, if not harder since you have to make sure you're in range as well. I can only imagine trying to go for a reset after the L.Tatsu into another damaging combo. The Daigo's and Sakonoko's truly have my utmost respect for grinding and doing even harder combos.

Ryu on the other, I've been trying to find some stylish combos to practice but haven't been able to find any, but I don't find him boring anymore, thank goodness.

Edit:

So I finally tried out Injustice 2. I don't regret it, but at the same time it's not for me. The controls are very weird. Motions like v > or <> just feels awkward. In a sense I guess you can say it's the same as doing a quarter circle forward motion, but when I see something like that my mindset automatically thinks of trying to do exactly what I see.

For a person that's seeking extra content in fighting games this would be a goldmine for them. The multiverse provides plenty of things for a single player run and the story gives you a chance to play as quite a few people. As for me, my feathers starts getting ruffled when I see limitations being put on me to make things challenging. That's the type of stuff I don't need. That said, the gameplay from what I've seen and experienced isn't deep, at least not as deep as Street Fighter or Guilty Gear, but for being a relatively simple fighter, I think once one get past that hurdle of the controls I think they'd have fun with it.

I don't need to talk about animations do I? Stiff as hell.

Personally, I just need a tutorial, trial, training and online function (and they need to be very deep and robust) and I'm good to go. But Street Fighter 5 is already like that. My problem with SF5 is that Capcom is focusing on the tournament side of things and isn't really doing anything to make what little those modes do to be robust. Then again, I probably spoiled myself with Guilty Gear Xrd a bit much, but I do feel that any fighting game going forward need to take a page from Xrd. That ish is deep. (Not to mention that I don't really care for any of the characters in SF5 nor do I care for Capcom dumbing down the game)

Oh and a bit of customizing or a color editor can go a long way too.

Anyway, Injustice 2 will not become a main fighting game for me by any stretch of the means. It'll be more of a fun get together with friends.

[Rynnec]

Does Injustice 2 have the option to change the inputs to more traditional FG motions? I distinctly remember that being a thing in the first game.

[Mustang]

It probably does. I just haven't explored it yet. I played with the default setup assuming that it was the only way you can play the game. Stupid me.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I recently finished Route C of Nier: Automata. I think I'm going to hold off on endings D and E for some time since I kind of want to clear more side-quests and such before I finally cap off this game, but I'll be taking a break from it for now. Overall, though, it's a very interesting title, and one that I'm very glad to have played, but in all honesty I have some mixed feelings about it that I will possibly elaborate on in the future.

I picked up Transformers: Devastation and Bloodborne a while ago, though I'm not terribly far in either. Transformers is a lot of fun albeit very simplistic for a Platinum developed beat-em-up game, but man are these environments the most bland, lazy things that I have seen in quite some time. I mean, I know that this game was clearly made on a tight budget, but even other low-budget PG games like MadWorld and Anarchy Reigns have more interesting looking environments than this. Still, the game is fun for what it is, and I especially would have loved it as a kid.

I can't really say much about Bloodborne yet, except that while the graphics and art style look gorgeous, after over a hundred hours of playing Nioh, this game feels jarring to play running at only 30 FPS; though, obviously I will get used to it. But it's also jarring to go from Nioh to this because of the lack of a "Ki-Pulse" type of mechanic. It just feels so wierd to have to wait for my stamina to recharge normally after months of always using timed button presses to speed up its refill speed. For such a small addition to the Souls formula, ki-pulsing really is pretty game-changing in how important it feels to the flow of combat. It's sort of like going from Sonic 2 or 3 back to Sonic 1 and feeling that something is missing without the spin-dash.

[Dreamer2]

I like reading through your posts on games, even when I haven't played them yet, so I'll be interested in what you have to say about Bloodborne, because it's a game I've been thinking about picking up after I finish my run through the Kingdom Hearts stuff, which probably won't be for a little while.

Your posts on Nioh are probably the main reason why it's on my radar.

[Foggle]

I recently finished Route C of Nier: Automata. I think I'm going to hold off on endings D and E for some time since I kind of want to clear more side-quests and such before I finally cap off this game, but I'll be taking a break from it for now. Overall, though, it's a very interesting title, and one that I'm very glad to have played, but in all honesty I have some mixed feelings about it that I will possibly elaborate on in the future.

It won't take long to get the other two endings (maybe 30 minutes?) and I really advise doing them soon because they make the game so much more meaningful and cap it off beautifully. Also, there's a certain story-important side quest you can't do until you're level 99, so you wouldn't be able to completely finish the game until later anyway (if you wanted to, that is).