Hack n' Slash games

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Discussion time:

Alright, every now and then I'll start up some discussion questions to get some conversations going on random threads and random times. For now I'll do it for hack n' slash games, and I may do it for other game threads as well as animation threads later on.

Anyways, the topic of discussion is the DMC series.

How do you all feel about DMC1 and its creation and influence of the 3D hack n' slash genre? Also, how do you feel about the sequels, including 2, and of course 3 and 4 as well? Did any of them improve on the gameplay or make it worse, or are they just too formulaic and unwilling to take risks from DMC1?

And to elaborate on that last question with another question: How do people feel about Kamiya's statement that no developer had picked up the baton from DMC1 (in that everyone was making inferior action games to DMC1 since it came out) except for God of War? This if of course before he released Bayonetta, which he claimed would be the best action game of all-time when it came out, and while I wouldn't personally call it the best, I'd say it comes pretty damn close to it.

I'll give my thoughts on these later, but I want to hear what other people have to say about this.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I have only ever played Devil May Cry 1, but for me it was enough to satiate my appetite for the genre for a long time. I never played 2 because of the horrible impressions everyone was spouting about it, and by the time 3 came out, I had moved on to mostly GBA gaming at the time so I don't really know much about the series as a whole.

The first game was awesome at the time, it was almost like playing an over the top action anime or something, with crazy moves and bosses, and a fun setting and story. It set a whole new standard at the time. I haven't played it in years, but I still remember the experience being a real revelation.

And let's be honest, Kamiya and Itagaki have always had a rivalry going on so when he says only GOW comes close to the same impact you know he's doing it for a reaction.

IMO, GOW is basically the Call Of Duty of the beat em up genre. All flash, no lasting impact.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I have only ever played Devil May Cry 1, but for me it was enough to satiate my appetite for the genre for a long time. I never played 2 because of the horrible impressions everyone was spouting about it, and by the time 3 came out, I had moved on to mostly GBA gaming at the time so I don't really know much about the series as a whole.

The first game was awesome at the time, it was almost like playing an over the top action anime or something, with crazy moves and bosses, and a fun setting and story. It set a whole new standard at the time. I haven't played it in years, but I still remember the experience being a real revelation.

My opinion may be invalid since I've only really gotten the opportunity to play a few hours worth of both 1 and 3, but while I think 1 is a fantastic game for its time that has actually aged better than I would expect, I don't necessarily feel that it has aged perfectly. To be quite honest I feel that Capcom managed to surpass the 1st game without Kamiya's further involvement with DMC3 (I'd argue that DMC4 once again takes a step back in the series, but its still a decent game which I'm sure is probably a hell of a lot better than DMC2, on the whole). To me it made sure to capitalize on the elements that made the game really work in the first place, and that was the speed, intensity, and overall challenge of the gameplay. The levels were more linear but in DMC's case I felt that was a better choice since it lead to faster-paced gameplay. It also had a much improved combat system, and for some reason in DMC3's case its the only DMC game that seemed to elevate the enemy AI to at least a little bit above brain dead, in that they were actually fairly challenging since they attacked more often that in previous DMC games, and also of course more than in the later released DMC4 as well.

Also, while its still far from anything great and I'm don't put too much emphasis on this aspect of action games anyways, I thin that DMC3 actually had a pretty decent story, and also had some really over-the-top yet insanely fun cutscenes to go along with it. Overall it seems like the complete package for a DMC game, to me, but I still have yet to beat it, to be honest, so my opinion may change if I ever get to own a PS2 along with this games, where I can sit down and play them both a fair amount to really evaluate how I feel about each of them.

And let's be honest, Kamiya and Itagaki have always had a rivalry going on so when he says only GOW comes close to the same impact you know he's doing it for a reaction.

Interestingly enough, to add to this point, Itagaki basically did the same thing not too long before Kamiya said this. I mean that he actually praised God of War as his only worthy competitor, but said that he didn't find DMC to be any fun. To be honest, while Itagaki is the only one who gets called out on it, I have a firm belief that all game developers are a little arrogant, including Kamiya himself, but to be honest that's kind of a good thing since their big egos and huge level of confidence seem to play a big part in contributing to the overall quality of their games.

At any rate, its fine for Kamiya to believe and say what he wants, but personally I kind of disagree with his statement. I would argue that Ninja Gaiden really did pick up the baton after DMC, and it pretty much ran with it until Bayonetta finally came out.

IMO, GOW is basically the Call Of Duty of the beat em up genre. All flash, no lasting impact.

Agreed. And, to be specific, I don't hate God of War by any means. Sometime I act like I do but really I'm just more pissed at how much it has spoiled a lot of critics and fans, in that it gets treated like the standard that all hack n' slash games should abide by, which I think is a load of crap because aside from being the best looking and technically proficient (in terms of environments and graphics and such) game in the genre, it really doesn't do anything else better than any other game in the genre, IMO (unless you want to get into story, in which case I don't care about story when it comes to hack n' slash games, and while GoW's story may be better told than most other games in the genre, it still never managed to hold my interest, personally).

God of War on its own is a fine game I'm sure, but I just find its combat to be pretty stale, personally, and I'm not really the biggest fan of QTEs. The visuals are nice and all, but the thing is that after a while I feel that when other games catch up to it in terms of visuals, people may just find that the actual gameplay hasn't aged all that well.

[gunswordfist]

The main difference between a hack n' slash and a beat 'em up, from what I can gather, is usually speed. Though there are slow hack n slash games and fast beat em ups (Golden Axe: Revenge Of Death Adder and Viewtiful Joe come to mind immediately), they both seem to follow similar ideas.

Beat em ups are usually focused on anticipating at a leisurely pace and dealing out damage in a similar manner. For instance, in Streets Of Rage to get the most damaging attacks out of Axel you have to carefully time your hits to stun the enemy and space button presses in order to not knock the enemy over but do as much damage as possible such as a falling knee drop into a back-suplex on a rising opponent or three slow punches into a grabbing headbutt. Tactics vary on enemies, but you can usually go at your own pace and going fast, even with fast characters is usually a bad idea. Beat em ups are more about enemy encounters and less about level design, though both are important, the first is always more so.

From what I can tell, even games like the Warriors and God Hand follow this same principle.

Hack n Slash requires mastery of the level design itself and multiple weapons over anticipating enemy behavior. While it is important to know your enemy in every action game, knowing your weapons and what they can or can't do is by far the most crucial element to the design. As is knowing your environment in order to speed your way through.

Also, the main reason 2D games have platforming elements is because they can add dynamic situations into the combat to make it feel more exciting. 3D games don't do this as much because they are able to have a lot more going on screen and adding things like hopping platforms while fighting off 4-5 enemies and oncoming projectiles is too much for the average player. Which is why usually when they contain those elements, it is usually separate from the fighting.  With 2D you can see all the action going on, so platforming at the same time is not as much of a distraction from the action.

It all originates from Irem's Kung Fu, anyway. Then everyone got their own ideas and we got fighting games, beat em ups, hack n slashers, and even action RPGs based on the simple concept that game brought out.

But, IMO, I do think all of them have different styles to the same formula, so it is easy to see why some prefer certain takes on the idea over others.

I love doing stuff like that.

Discussion time:

Alright, every now and then I'll start up some discussion questions to get some conversations going on random threads and random times. For now I'll do it for hack n' slash games, and I may do it for other game threads as well as animation threads later on.

Anyways, the topic of discussion is the DMC series.

How do you all feel about DMC1 and its creation and influence of the 3D hack n' slash genre? Also, how do you feel about the sequels, including 2, and of course 3 and 4 as well? Did any of them improve on the gameplay or make it worse, or are they just too formulaic and unwilling to take risks from DMC1?

And to elaborate on that last question with another question: How do people feel about Kamiya's statement that no developer had picked up the baton from DMC1 (in that everyone was making inferior action games to DMC1 since it came out) except for God of War? This if of course before he released Bayonetta, which he claimed would be the best action game of all-time when it came out, and while I wouldn't personally call it the best, I'd say it comes pretty damn close to it.

I'll give my thoughts on these later, but I want to hear what other people have to say about this.

DMC1 is pretty much the only game developers used as a good influence. Besides that, we got bad GoW ripoffs and no game to my knowledge has been influenced by NG (unfortunately)

I like DMC1 the most due to how much fun the enemies and bosses are. The sequels have muchless exciting enemies imo. DMC3 improved the controls, camera and added some good new moves. That's about it. It still had the same overuse of backtracking and inferior enemies/bosses.

I like DMC 4's enemies and bosses more than DMC 3's. Not as good as DMC1's though. And like I've said before, I prefer Nero's moves to any version of Dante's. This game probably has the worst backtracking in the series though.

DMC2...it's okay for a hack n slash game, horrible for a DMC game.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

DMC1 is pretty much the only game developers used as a good influence. Besides that, we got bad GoW ripoffs and no game to my knowledge has been influenced by NG (unfortunately).

Well, yeah, DMC is an obvious one since it pretty much got the 3D hack n' slash game its big start, and God of War and NG took obvious influence from it (Itagaki claimed that he didn't take influence from DMC, but I know that statement is full of shit since there are some obvious design choices that came straight from DMC1 that he used in NG). But then for some reason every other talentless half-assed developer seemed to think it was a good idea to rip-off God of War from that point. I could understand being influenced by its large scale and big bosses and stuff, but really I would think that more games would want to try and rip-off either DMC or NG when it came to their combat systems, as its common knowledge that they are superior to God of War in that regard (in fact if I'm not mistaken, the creator of God of War even admitted that DMC at least had superior combat to any GoW game).

I like DMC1 the most due to how much fun the enemies and bosses are. The sequels have muchless exciting enemies imo. DMC3 improved the controls, camera and added some good new moves. That's about it. It still had the same overuse of backtracking and inferior enemies/bosses.

I agree that the enemy designs and level design were superior in DMC1, and that the developers got lazy with a lot of stuff in DMC3 and 4, but for me the reason I prefer 3 over 1 is mainly because of the improved combat, which I honestly find to be more fun than in the 1st game.

I like DMC 4's enemies and bosses more than DMC 3's. Not as good as DMC1's though. And like I've said before, I prefer Nero's moves to any version of Dante's. This game probably has the worst backtracking in the series though.

My problem with Nero is the fact that I think the Devil Bringer is way too overpowered. Using it to bring enemies closer to you to continue chaining combos is cool, but the fact that its so easy to spam it on enemies to take them out faster and easier really hurts Nero's combat, IMO. They should have at least made it harder to do that by punishing you for spamming the Devil Bringer as an attack, or only allow it to be used to deal any sort of damage while in Devil Trigger mode. I try to avoid using it too much, myself, but then there's the other problem that I have with Nero, which is basically that he's restricted to just one weapon set throughout the entire game. I would honestly much prefer it if Capcom had at least given him another couple of Weapons in the game like they did for Dante, so that I could experiment with more combo possibilities rather than relying on his one sword and magnum.

[gunswordfist]

DMC1 is pretty much the only game developers used as a good influence. Besides that, we got bad GoW ripoffs and no game to my knowledge has been influenced by NG (unfortunately).

Well, yeah, DMC is an obvious one since it pretty much got the 3D hack n' slash game its big start, and God of War and NG took obvious influence from it (Itagaki claimed that he didn't take influence from DMC, but I know that statement is full of shit since there are some obvious design choices that came straight from DMC1 that he used in NG). But then for some reason every other talentless half-assed developer seemed to think it was a good idea to rip-off God of War from that point. I could understand being influenced by its large scale and big bosses and stuff, but really I would think that more games would want to try and rip-off either DMC or NG when it came to their combat systems, as its common knowledge that they are superior to God of War in that regard (in fact if I'm not mistaken, the creator of God of War even admitted that DMC at least had superior combat to any GoW game).

I like DMC1 the most due to how much fun the enemies and bosses are. The sequels have muchless exciting enemies imo. DMC3 improved the controls, camera and added some good new moves. That's about it. It still had the same overuse of backtracking and inferior enemies/bosses.

I agree that the enemy designs and level design were superior in DMC1, and that the developers got lazy with a lot of stuff in DMC3 and 4, but for me the reason I prefer 3 over 1 is mainly because if the improved combat, which I honestly find to be more fun than in the 1st game.

DMC3 does have improved combat but I don't think that is it for it to surprass how fun it is to fight just about anything in DMC1.

I like DMC 4's enemies and bosses more than DMC 3's. Not as good as DMC1's though. And like I've said before, I prefer Nero's moves to any version of Dante's. This game probably has the worst backtracking in the series though.

My problem with Nero is the fact that I think the Devil Bringer is way too overpowered. Using it to bring enemies closer to you to continue chaining combos is cool, but the fact that its so easy to spam it on enemies to take them out faster and easier really hurts Nero's combat, IMO. They should have at least made it harder to do that by punishing you for spamming the Devil Bringer as an attack, or only allow it to be used to deal any sort of damage while in Devil Trigger mode. I try to avoid using it too much, myself, but then there's the other problem that I have with Nero, which is basically that he's restricted to just one weapon set throughout the entire game. I would honestly much prefer it if Capcom had at least given him another couple of Weapons in the game like they did for Dante, so that I could experiment with more combo possibilities rather than relying on his one sword and magnum.

Yeah, Nero's Devil Bringer and his limited weaponry are his downfalls. I still prefer his sword moves to any of Dante's weapon's moves. Those air combos won me over.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Alright, so as far as my comparison of NG2 and DMC4 goes, I'll give my brief thoughts on them.

In some ways both games show that they have moved a little bit forward with the gameplay, but for everything they do right on the whole, I feel that they are both still a step back from their predecessors on the consoles of last generation.

I'm currently on mission 6 of DMD mode on DMC4, and I'm guessing that the game's focus is more about performing highly stylish combos and getting high rankings rather than actually beating the game since the difficulty level mostly feels pretty tame compared to NG2's higher difficulties (I suppose Hell or Hell would be really challenging, but not necessarily due to tough design, since its more about just not getting hit, period). One thing that I like better about NG2 is that its enemies are actually designed to be very offensive, which forces the player to switch between being highly offensive and carefully defensive at the right times. DMC4 On the other hand is almost 100% offensive, since only Dante can block in one of his styles and other than that all you can really do most of the time is dodge enemy attacks either with a roll or with the i-frames that you get from a regular jump. NG2 Has a lot of that as well, but it also forces you to utilize blocks more often than that.

As for the combat systems, I think that its all based on preference. With DMC's general combat system, its based more on stringing together various different combos and juggling your enemies to build up your stylish ranking, which is why it gives you the ability to switch between weapons and styles on the fly with Dante, and its also pretty much why Nero's Devil Bringer arm is even there to begin with, since its mostly a useful tool for grabbing enemies from a distance toward you so that you can continue chaining combos without being interrupted. That said, I prefer NG2's combat which instead gives you 8 individual melee weapons which you can't switch between, but which each have a huge variety of moves and combos and each have their own advantageous uses against certain enemies, while being weak choices against others. So in that regard, NG's weapons are used more strategically rather than for chaining combos, though there are still plenty of combos to chain with each weapon alone. Also the combat just generally feels more fast-paced in NG, with the controls being extremely responsive in that game (though, I haven't played the PS3 version of DMC4, so for all I know it could have more responsive controls than the XBOX360 version, being that it was designed with a PS3 controller in mind, anyways). Aside from that, I also just prefer not having to individually target any enemies for melee combat in NG2, whereas with DMC4 you're pretty much forced to do that to pull off most of the moves in the game.

One thing I'll give DMC4 credit for, though, is having an all around more polished design. As we all know, NG2 ended up being rushed out into release and wasn't really a finished game, hence why it had a few cheap shots mostly due to a jittery camera which wasn't as fine-tuned as it needed to be. I hear people complain about DMC4's camera, but aside form the horrendous platforming segments, its not really that bad. As for NG, while I found it completely ridiculous that any critics complained about that game's camera as much as they did (and I blame them for Team Ninja deciding to change it in the first place, since it was fine the way it is and they just couldn't admit to sucking at the game when they were no good at doing something), I have to say that I myself have quite a few issues with NG2's camera. Now to be clear, its still not nearly as bad as some gamers make it out to be, as the fact that you have almost complete control over it and can change it to your preferences quickly makes it more convenient than a fixed camera angle in some situations, and also helps make it more tolerable than it initially seems, in general. However, after having replayed some of the game, recently, its issue is that they gave too many enemies ranged attacks and allowed them to attack from off-screen, and while it wasn't a problem if an enemy with a melee attack could attack you from off-screen (since you would most likely catch them on-screen anyways before their attack landed on you), getting constantly stunned by off-screen projectiles was really a nuisance in some areas. That said, it was mainly only an issue on the harder difficulties, and could still be dealt with if you strategically positioned yourself where the environment played to your advantage. Also, I wasn't a fan of how glitchy and buggy the game could be at times, aside from its camera issues.

Now, to be fair, I can equally rail on something that annoys me about DMC4's design, and in this case its not due to a rushed product but from something much worse: developers who were obviously being VERY lazy and tried to get away with half-assing the level design. It seems like they were trying to give off the illusion of a semi-metroid-esque level design in which you went back to certain areas and unlocked alternate paths to get to a place that you previous couldn't have gotten to before, but really its just a linear game that cuts down the amount of levels the developers had to design by about half by having Dante literally just back-track through all of Nero's levels (and in that regard, Nero even had to backtrack his own levels from time to time, making matters worse). At least NG had a completely unique level for each chapter that was different from the last, and there was only ever one instance in which you had to backtrack through a certain area in the game and in that case it was actually welcome because it was only for a small part of the level and was meant as a bit of nostalgia for fans since it was a very popular area from the first game, so it actually meant something to be going back through it. So, overall, while I find that NGB has superior level design to NG2 (and in that regard DMC1 has superior level design to any of its sequels), NG2 still had a good level design that suited it and the environments all felt unique, and at least the game didn't try to hide the fact that it was linear, whereas DMC4 tried to do so and failed miserably at it,  as it was both obvious backtracking and it was boring to have to revisit the same exact environments without any hint of variety to them.

I'll give DMC4 a bit more credit, though, in one other regard: Its boss fights are at least competent and somewhat enjoyable except for when you have to fight them a third time through in the story mode....

As for NG2, though, aside from Genshin, Rasetsu, and maybe a few other exceptions, most of its boss fights were just a mess, but at least they went by really quickly which helped to make them more tolerable than they would have been had they lasted a bit longer like DMC's boss fights (though to be fair, the more skilled you are as a player the faster those fights can go by, especially if you abuse the hell out of devil trigger attacks).

At any rate, on the whole I still prefer NG2 for its faster-pacing in its action, its level design, and its combat, and also for its more aggressive enemies which just feel more satisfying to kill. DMC4 boasts a more polished design on the whole, but it also comes off as very lazy and it suffers from having its action interrupted by horrible platforming segments and puzzle solving (NG2 has some of this, as well, but it happens much more infrequently in that game so it doesn't really hold it down that much, IMO). Admittedy my opinion is biased as I have grown to prefer NG in general since I've played that game far more, but it also just fits my general preferences better, rather than it being responsible for setting my preferences in the first place.

Oh yeah, and if you're wondering why I didn't bother comparing their stories, its because their both shit, IMO (though, DMC at least has some kind of funny cut-scenes for Dante, even if his cheesy dialogue isn't necessarily intentionally funny in a ridiculously over-the-top sort of way).

[Rynnec]

Bump because I need someplace to post the new combat trailer for the Ninja Theory "DmC" game.

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/dmc-devil-may-cry-gameplay?size=large


It looks...okay I guess. I'll post my full thoughts after I get a good sleep.

[gunswordfist]

Bump because I need someplace to post the new combat trailer for the Ninja Theory "DmC" game.

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/dmc-devil-may-cry-gameplay?size=large


It looks...okay I guess. I'll post my full thoughts after I get a good sleep.

That was actually pretty good.

[Eddy]

I've never played a DMC game but I have played Bayonetta. I like it a lot but, boy, I sure do suck at it.

[gunswordfist]

I've never played a DMC game but I have played Bayonetta. I like it a lot but, boy, I sure do suck at it.

I can't get past the first level of Bayonetta's Hard mode.

[Rynnec]

http://www.siliconera.com/2011/08/16/dmc-devil-may-cry-dante-is-half-devil-and-half-angel/

[gunswordfist]

Just when I was getting ready to tolerate the game.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The sad thing is that even though I still very unimpressed with what I've seen of the gameplay, it still looks better than what I've seen of NG3. Seriously, the direction that game is headed in is REALLY disappointing me, thanks to the new leader being completely incompetent in designing a proper hack n' slash game. At least the new DmC doesn't seem to have any QTE's....yet, at least. And on top of that at least you can still chain combos in the gameplay without being interrupted by randomized slow-down in which your blade gets needlessly stuck into an enemy.

Sorry, I'm kind of in my "NG3 is going to suck" bitching phase, now that I have had long enough to realize just what this game is already doing wrong right now.

[Spark Of Spirit]

This is going to kill the Devil May Cry series.