Hack n' Slash games

[Foggle]

So Ninja Gaiden 3 is basically nothing more than playable pornography for sociopaths?

What. The. Fuck.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yes. They are so right. The one thing that pretty much all fans of NG2 for in terms of both evolving the gameplay to an even deeper and more tactical level as well as just looking bloody damn cool and visceral is what we didn't want to see return. I'd MUCH rather see a bunch of whiny British terrorists who all look exactly the same and make up 90% of the enemy count than a diverse array of ninjas and demons with creative designs and abilities, and I'd much rather have my combo system hampered by slow-down that totally kills combo potentials by getting your sword jammed in some dude's nasty crotch while you're slicing through him, rather than hacking down tough enemies and cutting off arms, legs, and heads left and right with deadly speed. I mean, Hayashi's version of the game clearly sounds MUCH more exciting.[/sarcasm]

Just as a fun fact for all of you guys who don't really play NG games out there: Did you know that nearly everything Hayashi is doing with NG3 so far is actually literally the polar opposite of what almost all fans want to see in the game? I'm not even joking. Just go to any NG community board, look for whatever threads they have about "lists of NG3 wants/NG3 wishlists" that were were released years ago (well before this game was even announced), and compare it to what Hayashi is giving NG fans with NG3 (taking into account that he said that he TOOK NG FANS OPINIONS INTO ACCOUNT).

Really, though, I don't think anyone can quite understand how sad I'm feeling about what this game is turning into. I now have to face the fact that I'll never get a true sequel to Ninja Gaiden Black, which is by far my favorite game of all time.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Oh, look, I found MORE good news about what's happening to the 3rd game in one of my favorite series.[/sarcasm]

Just for the record:

Ninja Gaiden Black was about 20+ hours on average (first run though; as a speed run could be completed in less than 4 hours by very skilled players who knew their way around the game), had tons of replay value, and had a full mission mode to boot with 50 missions, all with their own separate difficulty settings and scoring and leaderboard uploads to boot.

Ninja Gaiden II was shorter but still pretty meaty, at about 12-13 hours for people who were already familiar with the gameplay from the first game and about 15+ hours worth of gameplay for everyone else who were newcomers to the series, on average.

Since Hayashi clearly knows that fans loved how NG games gave you more bang for your buck with their story-mode than most other hack n' slash games out there, he made sure to "please" us in that department to....with an average length of 8-10 hours (and knowing him he's probably making it out to be longer than it truly is or will be when its finally released).

Oh well, on the bright side I doubt that I would want to play more than 8 hours of a game that forces me to use only one weapon type and sacrfices its core combat system and the element of strategy and replay value for flashy scripted events and repeatedly tapping a single-button when your blade gets jammed into some bloke. Brilliant.

I can't believe that I'm actually saying this, but as much of an arrogant ass-hole as he is, I SINCERELY miss Itagaki at this point. I never dreamed that Team Ninja could go so horribly wrong without his leadership and guidance. They even managed to make his old DOA games look like masterpieces at this point (and I don't even care about that series).

I really hope that Devil's Third manages to have that same spirit of what I would expect from a fully fleshed out NG game, at the very least, in terms of having great content and lots of challenging but fun difficulty. At this point its the closest thing that I'll ever potentially get to a true NGB sequel (and considering that its a shooter, a completely different genre than hack n' slash, that's pretty damn sad).

[gunswordfist]

I hate short 3D games

[Rynnec]

New gameplay footage of DmC.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/tgs-11-devil-may/720943

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/tgs-11-devil-may/720944

*sigh* Just as I expected. Slowed, dumbed down combat and mechanics.

A few good things I'll say though. I do like the chain weapon, I thinkg it would lead to some awesome combos in a proper DMC game. And I think the enviroment in the second video looks pretty cool, and blows the ones from the other DMC games out of the water Other than that, meh.

[gunswordfist]

I'm scared to watch. I did like the weapons I slow in the other videos though.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Man, I've put over 35 hours into Hard Corps Uprising, and that's an 8 stage game. It's all about content.

We'll see how Hayashi fares on that level.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Based on how scripted the NG3 demo looks and how he's even gone so far as to completely remove items and weapon upgrades and such from the game, I doubt that this game will hold up for more than a single play-through (especially since I believe that he is also doing away with the multiple harder difficulty modes up to Master Ninja mode, and is just going with a Normal and Hard difficulty setting).

The thing about the previous NG games was that aside from just being genuinely long relative to the length of other action games, they were also had high replay value because there was a lot of room for player choice. For example, even putting the harder difficulty settings aside, one could still find plenty of reason to replay the game on the same difficulty alone for multiple reasons, from reasons ranging from going for 100% completion (like finding all of the chests and hidden golden scarabs and such), to going for the highest ranking Karma scores, to trying to get the fastest speed-run time through the game, to going for a handicap run and purposely missing all health upgrades, not using any ninpo magic throughout the entire game, and limiting weapon upgrades to only the wooden sword (which is by far the weakest weapon in the game until you upgrade it to its max level, in which case it becomes the "potential" most powerful weapon in the game if the player is skilled enough to use it properly).

If NG3 at least had this going for it than I wouldn't mind its shorter length, but as it stands this game is seriously only looking like a onetime rental to me (since obviously I'm still going to play it if only because it bears the Ninja Gaiden title).

I'm not pleased that the extra time that could go into fleshing out the single-player more is instead going into making multiplayer modes that nobody ever asked for. At least I could understand the appeal of co-op to NG fans, since I have truthfully liked the idea of taking on hordes of tough enemies with a couple of buddies, but going for a deathmatch mode just seems stupid for a game of this sort (which is confirmed to be in the game). I mean, in that case why not just make a completely separate brawler type fighting game, rather than shoehorning something like that into this game?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, the DMC HD collection comes out in just a couple of monhts, and I'll finally be able to try these games out properly for myself, from start to finish, rather than playing large chunks of each game like I used to on my friend's PS2.

I'm honestly thinking that I'll just pick that up to get my hack n' slash fix over Ninja Gaiden 3. I never really thought I'd be saying that, but basically the way NG3 is going, I'll probably just wait for it to get a huge price drop before bothering to pick it up. It doesn't even look like it has enough content to be worth half-price, let alone being priced at a full $60 as if it were a complete package. Honestly, an 8-hour single-player mode and a shitty multiplayer that's community will be dead in under a week is a new pitiful low that this series has sunk to.

At any rate, the DMC collection looks much more appealing to me since I've never played any of the games in full before, and at $40 I find it reasonably priced for me since I haven't exactly played the hell out of the DMC games on the PS2, so there is still plenty of content in those games which I have yet to experience. Of course, the way I see it, the price can be divided up into $20 for DMC1 and another $20 for DMC3, whereas DMC2 is more like Capcom's crappy bonus content just for the sake of completeness (in all honesty I'll probably give the game a fair shake, though, since its there and I hear that its pretty short and easy, anyways).

[Foggle]

DMC 2 really isn't that bad of a game. It's easily the weakest *good* hack n slash I've ever played, but there's still fun to be had if you can look past its many flaws.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

From what I've heard, it really only has one major flaw, which is just that its "meh" all-around. That's how my friend described it to me, anyways. He said that its just really generic and uninspired in every regard, but on a technical level there's nothing too bad about it. Basically as he put it, the level design is "meh," the enemies are "meh," the action and combat is "meh," and the story is "meh," which is technically true of all DMC games but in this case its more noticeable because Dante has been turned from a corny one-liner spewing character (that's actually really entertaining for it) into a plane generic boring action game character. So, basically I get the impression that its just one of those games that isn't bad for a casual play-through, but that is just completely derivative and forgettable on every level. That said, sometimes generic action games like that can be kind of fun if you just want to play casually and don't care about much else. I have to be in the right mood for that sort of thing, though.

[Spark Of Spirit]

These HD collections are crazy. If only I could get a HD Contra collection, Ratchet & Clank Collection, a Red Star HD port, and a few Capcom games, I could shelve my PS2.

[Rynnec]

Eh, depends on the game really. In some cases, buying the games used would be much cheaper than buying an HD Collection.

That being said, I'm hoping for a Kingdom Hearts Final Mix HD Collection so those games can finally see a release overseas.

[gunswordfist]

DMC 2 really isn't that bad of a game. It's easily the weakest *good* hack n slash I've ever played, but there's still fun to be had if you can look past its many flaws.

Amen on that, brother. Whenever I get the collection, I'm going to try out DMC2 first.

These HD collections are crazy. If only I could get a HD Contra collection, Ratchet & Clank Collection, a Red Star HD port, and a few Capcom games, I could shelve my PS2.

Order me up Castlevania, Power Stone, Metal Slug, Mega Man X, Streets Of Rage, 2D Zelda, Metroid, TMNT, Secret Of Mana and Earthworm Jim HD Collections and I'll be happy.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

A Power Stone HD collection would be great. There is that PSP collection, but to me PS games aren't really meant to be played on handheld consoles, as I can't imagine playing it on such a small screen since the characters would end up looking like specs on a screen like that.

As for other HD collections which I would love, I can think of at least a few:

Jet Set Radio HD Collection
Resident Evil HD Collection (consisting of RE 0, 1, 2, and 3)
Oddworld HD Collection (both the PS1 and XBOX games)
Otogi HD Collection
KOTOR HD Collection
Soul Reaver HD Collection
TimeSplitters HD Collection