Devil May Cry [PS2] + R2VKMF: Polygonal Action Daishingeki

[Volteccer_Jack]

NG3: Razor's Edge is a tale for another day.

huehuehue, someday I'll have to make a big old post about how Razor's Edge is the ultimate in 3D Ninja Gaiden. Suffice to say that I recommend the collection solely on the basis that it's the best way to play Razor's Edge, you can treat the two Sigma games as bonus features.

Apparently they remastered El Shaddai last year, definitely worth getting high as shit and running through that one if you haven't yet. It's not a deep game, but fuck is it pretty.

I'll always rep my boy El Shaddai. It's not complex or particularly deep but it's got what it needs to be fun. I had a great time G-ranking it.

Now if only it hadn't been made during the era of "make the player walk down an empty hallway while dumping exposition on them" game design.

I know somebody in the Unpopular Opinions thread said DMC3 is shit and oldheads have nostalgia goggles on for it

Hi! I didn't say it was shit, just inconsistent and a mess. DMC3 is the work of a very skilled devteam that has no clue how to make a 3D action game . It belongs alongside other flawed gems, not up in the big leagues with games like Bayonetta. And if you haven't completed DMC1 New Game DMD, then I'm more of an oldhead than you.

Fixating on DMC3 is like watching the Hoth scenes at the beginning of Empire Strikes Back, walking out of the theatre before anything else happens, then being like "Wow what a great movie, the Empire really struck back." It's something special, the journey from DMC3, to DMC4, to Dragon's Dogma, to the big expansions of DDDA and DMC4SE, to the monumental heights of DMC5. That level of consistent honing and improvement endears Itsuno and his team to me in a way unlike any other game or devteam.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is gonna be sick as hell, is my point here.

[Air Master Burst]

Hi! I didn't say it was shit, just inconsistent and a mess. DMC3 is the work of a very skilled devteam that has no clue how to make a 3D action game

They really polished that great combat engine for 3, but the enemies and level design are both a pretty big step back from DMC1. Dante handles great, and you can pull off some pretty crazy combos, but aesthetically that game is a gray and brown mess of boring corridors, empty streets, and lazy enemies. I love it to pieces!

I will say DMC3 seems to be where they learned that most of the best bosses are similar to the player in size and ability. Hitting weak points on giant monsters is cool and all, but rarely as intense as the Vergil or Lady fights, or stuff like the Maria fight in Bloodborne.

I actually liked DmC, though, so I might not be a great judge of this series.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is gonna be sick as hell, is my point here.

INJECT IT INTO MY VEINS!

[qmish]

Different strokes for different folks.

For me DMC3 is "best" or "pinnacle" of the series because of how all ingredients are great (imho, of course), so there is harmony in it.
While e.g. DMC5 was "gorgeous gameplay, but everything else meh" etc. etc.

edit:
I need to give some kudos to DmC as it had enjoyable air combat. DMC didn't fully did it until DMC5. I mean, in DMC4 with Nero you could EITHER pull enemy to you OR pull yourself to enemy, while in DmC you just had option to do both.

edit2:

but aesthetically

That surely would be very subjective and differ from player to player. Some prefer "almost Resident Evil" vibes of DMC1, some enjoy "colourful neon acid trip" of DmC, some love "unexpected variety" in DMC4, some really savor the muted grisaille of baroque in DMC3, and some are fans of neo-gloomy DMC5. Hell, I've even met guys who were passionate about "absolute atmosphere of DMC2's cityscape", ha!

[Mortificator]

I'm currently playing Sigma 1 as part of the Master Collection. My plan is to play all of the games, since I only have some experience with vanilla NG2. I have more experience with Black. I'm on Chapter 8 of Sigma now and it's been fairly faithful to Black. It doesn't look as nice as Black, due to the over-reliance on bloom lighting and some general Switch low resolution. But it plays fine and seems the least tainted of the three games. My understanding of Sigma 1 is it's not substantially different from Black. It has some added Rachel chapters which are... Okay. Rachel is quite slow compared to Ryu and you don't have any weapon options either. She lacks Ryu's wall run and has trouble keeping up with Fiends. But she can kill enemies in a couple hits. The levels are fine, but my first thought after getting back to Ryu's levels was "thank fucking god, finally I can pull out my upgraded, fun weapons and go to town again!"

Were there a way to just remove the Rachel sections from Sigma, like lancing a boil, it'd be a fine alternative to Black. There are some things I like better about Ryu's campaign in one and some I like better in the other. But Rachel is SUCH a drag:
* Only one main weapon
* It's a weapon Ryu gets anyway
* Crappy sub-weapon and magic
* No new areas
* No new enemies
* One new boss (who sucks)

Adding nothing but messing with the pacing. It's a cool moment when Ryu returns to his village near the end of the game and sees it quiet, rainy, desolate... except now Rachel, who has no connection to it, went though the same map first.

For the other 3D games, there are a couple gaps in my knowledge. I still haven't played the 360 NG II, and I haven't and don't intend to play the regular NG3. Sigma 2, rather than deliberate sabotage, seems to be Hayashi & co ineptly grasping at mechanics they'd more fully realize in Razor's Edge. Steel-on-bone is a great idea, the missing piece to the delimbing / obliteration technique paradigm. Not that I'd deny there's pettiness in excluding the Xbox versions from the collection.

[Lethe]

Re: DMC3 vs. DMC4 again, DMC3 straddles the line between a game where it's just fun to hit buttons and a potentially very execution-heavy one. It's kind of like God Hand in that respect. DMC4 is practically a different subgenre; less visceral, niche and technical, nerdy. I think the differences in weapon design exemplify this. DMC3's have a lot of functional overlap, and while you can argue that's a concession to the limitations of 1 style + 2 weapons or due to lack of creativity or whatever, the result is it's always intuitive to play in a familiar way and work in the specifics as you get more comfortable. DMC4's arsenal is the total opposite: there's pretty much no redundancy at all. Getting the execution down for a nice combo is one thing, working out how to actually implement all of the highly context-specific shit in a natural, dynamic way is quite another. (Which ties in with Ilpalazzo's complaint about enemies turning into juggling sacks)

Of course none of this addresses DMC3's (serious) faults. Whenever I go back to it, I never bother with a full playthrough and just skip all the annoying crap. I've tried NG DMD a couple of times and it's always felt like a torture device.

[Sima Tuna]

I know somebody in the Unpopular Opinions thread said DMC3 is shit and oldheads have nostalgia goggles on for it

Hi! I didn't say it was shit, just inconsistent and a mess. DMC3 is the work of a very skilled devteam that has no clue how to make a 3D action game . It belongs alongside other flawed gems, not up in the big leagues with games like Bayonetta. And if you haven't completed DMC1 New Game DMD, then I'm more of an oldhead than you.

Fixating on DMC3 is like watching the Hoth scenes at the beginning of Empire Strikes Back, walking out of the theatre before anything else happens, then being like "Wow what a great movie, the Empire really struck back." It's something special, the journey from DMC3, to DMC4, to Dragon's Dogma, to the big expansions of DDDA and DMC4SE, to the monumental heights of DMC5. That level of consistent honing and improvement endears Itsuno and his team to me in a way unlike any other game or devteam.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is gonna be sick as hell, is my point here.

I'm always open to hearing about razor's edge, for what it's worth. It's on my "to play" list, but what little I did play left a very negative first impression. And vanilla NG3, well... "Call of Duty" is certainly a direction for Ninja Gaiden to go in...

For me, what makes 3d action games, "character action" or whatever, work, are the boss fights. DMC3 has the best boss fights, so it's the best one for me. That's pretty much what it all boils down to (that and weapon selection). This is also why I love God Hand so much. I like being put in an arena with an enemy who mostly has all the same tools as your character (Devil Hand, Vergil, etc) and being told to have at it. The best fights in Ninja Gaiden are against other humanoid enemies, particularly packs of asshole ninjas.

I love Dragon's Dogma too. I think it's a really excellent, unique game. One of the only "rpgs with a good combat system" that delivers on both fronts (Kingdoms of Amalur sucked dongs). But I like DMC 3 more. And don't you think DMC4 was kind of flawed in how it recycled content? I didn't particularly care for a lot of bosses in DMC4, and then you fight and refight them so often, to boot. I'll admit most of my time spent in DMC4 was in Vanilla, so maybe the special edition fixed that issue. I'll have to play it more. But I didn't enjoy Nero's gameplay style.

Another reason I like DMC3 so much is the story. A lot of action games are full of overwrought anime bullshit. DMC3 has a little of that, but it's largely undercut by Dante being such a hilarious, irreverent wanker. When the game does play its story straight, it still manages to stick the landing (like the battles between Vergil and Dante in 3.) DMC4's story, by contrast, is a big mess. Nero is dumb, Kirie is dumb, Credo is a massive idiot, and the Not-Pope is impossible to take seriously. The best cutscene in DMC4 is the stage play parody (featuring Dante) and it feels ripped directly from DMC3.

I won't argue DMD in DMC3 is a pain in the ass though. Enemies have way too much health. I remember ragequitting Heaven or Hell mode not because it was too hard, but because it was a boring mode. Everything dies instantly except shit that's randomly invincible. Yawn. The chessboard is also a mega low point of DMC3 and should have been cut. But the highs are just so high. Those Vergil Fights. Beowulf. Cerberus. The succubus chick. And then going through again as Vergil and getting Beowulf with him, alternating Beowulf AND Yamato? Dude. Some of THE best and most satisfying weapons in any action game.

DMC5 I can't comment on because I haven't played it yet. I was underwhelmed by DMC4 vanilla, then Bayo came along. I spent a lot of hours on Bayo and a casual run through Revengeance, then took a few years off from 3d hard action.

[Sima Tuna]

Double post for unrelated/too much sperge.

I'm currently playing Sigma 1 as part of the Master Collection. My plan is to play all of the games, since I only have some experience with vanilla NG2. I have more experience with Black. I'm on Chapter 8 of Sigma now and it's been fairly faithful to Black. It doesn't look as nice as Black, due to the over-reliance on bloom lighting and some general Switch low resolution. But it plays fine and seems the least tainted of the three games. My understanding of Sigma 1 is it's not substantially different from Black. It has some added Rachel chapters which are... Okay. Rachel is quite slow compared to Ryu and you don't have any weapon options either. She lacks Ryu's wall run and has trouble keeping up with Fiends. But she can kill enemies in a couple hits. The levels are fine, but my first thought after getting back to Ryu's levels was "thank fucking god, finally I can pull out my upgraded, fun weapons and go to town again!"

Were there a way to just remove the Rachel sections from Sigma, like lancing a boil, it'd be a fine alternative to Black. There are some things I like better about Ryu's campaign in one and some I like better in the other. But Rachel is SUCH a drag:
* Only one main weapon
* It's a weapon Ryu gets anyway
* Crappy sub-weapon and magic
* No new areas
* No new enemies
* One new boss (who sucks)

Adding nothing but messing with the pacing. It's a cool moment when Ryu returns to his village near the end of the game and sees it quiet, rainy, desolate... except now Rachel, who has no connection to it, went though the same map first.

For the other 3D games, there are a couple gaps in my knowledge. I still haven't played the 360 NG II, and I haven't and don't intend to play the regular NG3. Sigma 2, rather than deliberate sabotage, seems to be Hayashi & co ineptly grasping at mechanics they'd more fully realize in Razor's Edge. Steel-on-bone is a great idea, the missing piece to the delimbing / obliteration technique paradigm. Not that I'd deny there's pettiness in excluding the Xbox versions from the collection.

Having had a chance to play a little more of Rachel's story, I do agree with the assessment that her sections are awful. Her sub-weapon is a jank, garbage version of the wheel shuriken. The Hammer is a slow-as-fuck weapon that makes punishing enemies a huge pain. And probably the worst boss in NG Sigma (so far) has come from her chapters. Meaning Gamov. Does endless strings and spams bullets which Rachel's phat ass can't dodge because She2Slow. Going in the air doesn't work because his attacks have bullshit vertical hitboxes. I looked it up and apparently the only safe way to get damage on Gamov is by doing counters over and over. Everything else he can punish or dodge. I noticed he'd randomly become invincible even after he did strings and should have been in recovery frames. Who even knows. I ended up spamming and using items (the equivalent of NG credit feeding) because I didn't care enough to learn his meme-ass fight. I don't enjoy Rachel's play style either.

Gamov's presence also fucks up the difficulty curve for various reasons. The fight with Alma is supposed to be this dramatic climax to an extended section of puzzle/platforming/miniboss/enemy gauntlet trials. From about Chapter 4 onwards, each boss is pretty easy and the focus shifts more to exploration, combat and puzzling. The Bone Dragon is a visually impressive spectacle, but quite simple. When you finally crawl out of the catacombs, you're faced with THE WALL. Alma. The first ROUGH BOSS challenge since Chapter 3's Electrified Baron Harkonnen. Alma is much harder than Harkonnen, too. The bosses in Vigoor were large, nearly-immobile creatures with obvious Glowing Weak Points. Now you've got this Demon Bat Succubus zipping around the arena, throwing pillars and chain-firing hadoukens while setting up grab counters.

... Except Sigma changes the flow. When you get to Alma, she's the second act following Gamov. Because Rachel's new chapter occurs smack-dab in the middle of Indiana Ryu and the Vigoorian Buttplug. Ryu has just destroyed the Bone Dragon. Its corpse falls, opening the path further into Vigoor's dusty anus. Just as you're thinking to yourself, "damn, I'd like to plumb the depths of those caverns for treasures!" The game star wars wipes away to Rachel doing ??? in a reused section of the City Streets you've already played. Womp womp. You better eat your Gamov peas if you want some Alma for dessert!

[qmish]

Interesting reflections about Razor's Edge:

The combat is similarly changed, but familiar. While the basics of light, heavy and ranged attacks are still present, heavy attacks can now be held down and when these attacks connect with a delimbed foe they automatically cancel into an obliteration technique, significantly speeding up the flow of combat allowing for a more freestyle way of play.

Condensing the information above there’s one thing that stands out though, and that’s the disparity of Razor’s Edge’s playstyle. You’ll have seen mention of many styles; freestyle, offensive, defensive, strategy et cetera. Some mechanics, like Steel on Bone, emphasise a defensive style, while the newly improved Falcon’s Talons aim more towards the showman.

This isn’t something new to the series, Ninja Gaiden Black was a game built around efficiency and defence but did have weapons like the Vigoorian Flails that were a tad more freestyle, while Ninja Gaiden II was a game about offensive capabilities, yet featured a strong counter-system and its obliteration techniques also rewarded efficient players. The key difference here being that those two games had a clear core playstyle. Razor’s Edge on the other hand doesn’t aim to fulfill one style, instead promoting them all.

Razor’s Edge shines best when it adds fully fleshed out new elements that do work with what is established. For example, the unlockable Cicada Surge. At any time during gameplay, be it in the middle of an attack animation or not, Ryu can use this move to teleport out of harm’s way at the cost of some Ninpo meter.
This allows players to do the one thing they could not in Ninja Gaiden II; stay on the offensive while attacking. Despite sporting the same enemies, fights that were once about waiting for the perfect opening can now suddenly be approached in the most aggressive manner possible while also offering a fantastic get-out-of-jail option to defensive players.

Source

[Volteccer_Jack]

For me, what makes 3d action games, "character action" or whatever, work, are the boss fights. DMC3 has the best boss fights, so it's the best one for me.

DMC3 bosses are kinda ass though? Like half of them are crap like Doppelganger, Arkham, or Gigapede; you could delete Doppelganger and Gigapede from the game, replace them with nothing, and it would be an improvement. So I'll gleefully choose a repeat of a good boss over having to fight Doppelganger. People rave about Vergil like he's god's gift to bossfights, but he's just a less interesting version of a DMC1 boss (goes to show how good DMC1 is ). And funnily enough the one DMC3 boss that I think is really, really well-designed is the one that I never see DMC3 fans bring up as a good boss (Cerberus), they only ever talk about the weapon he drops, which is weird cuz the weapon is pretty weak and sucky.

DMC4 has 5, maybe 6 boss fights that I would rate as high quality. DMC3 has...5, maybe 6. If I'm being very generous and count all 3 Vergil fights as unique bosses (lol) then I can say 8 bosses for the sake of argument. While DMC4 has twice as many playable characters, with larger movesets, more varied and prettier environments, and much better non-boss enemies.

Nero is certainly a point of contention, and his DMC4 incarnation has some major problems. FWIW, DMC5 improved on Nero and his playstyle to an incredible degree, so much so that I would not object to DMC5 Nero getting a solo game.

I'm always open to hearing about razor's edge, for what it's worth. It's on my "to play" list, but what little I did play left a very negative first impression.

I'll have to shake my NG rust off before going into big detail, but the short of it is that Razor's Edge makes a whole bunch of balance improvements and enemy tweaks from NG1/2, making the combat more fun. It's overall faster-paced, the most abusive/repetitive tactics from NG1/2 have been nerfed or removed, and it generally encourages more stylishness and variety. It also improved the scoring system. Score runs in NGB are torturous and awful and I wouldn't wish them on anyone. Score runs in Razor's Edge aren't perfect but they are at least enjoyable.

[Mortificator]

Black, aside from the jack-of-all-trades katana, was geared toward using the right weapon for the right enemy. Flail for the small & agile, lunar for those soldiers, dabilahro for the heavies. RE's are a little less distinct while also being more versatile, so it'd be fine for the player to pick a favorite and stick with it the entire game.

On the downside, Razor's Edge has too many moves for its own good. This is the complete list of attacks for one (1) weapon:

Spoiler

[bottino]

Does Ys The Oath in Felghana and Ys Origins qualify? Me and some other good folks have singed many praises to these two games in the FALCOM thread and I think that, if applicable, they definitely deserve to share the spotlight with the other heavyweights titles mentioned here.

[Sima Tuna]

I think so. I don't know if the other games in the series would fit, given the primitive bump combat of the early titles and the level reliance of later games. But the Oath era Ys games are probably close enough. I'm not sure how much grinding benefits in those titles. I guess if all of the challenge or difficulty of the title could be subverted by leveling, then I wouldn't count it. But if overleveling isn't possible/feasable, or there are other systems in place to keep the combat difficult, then that's fair game IMO.

The important factor when considering a game with leveling is how much of a role the leveling plays in the game balance. A lot of character action games have leveling, but the leveling is usually not related to stats. Leveling in character action typically gates movesets, weapon or style options. In the case where it makes your character strong (like with health bar extensions,) there needs to be some upper limit on how strong you can get, so that no amount of grinding will substitute for Gitting Gud.

This is, incidentally, why I think a lot of Souls games do not qualify. You can absolutely grind to level 200, play like absolute shit and still win. You can beat Nioh only using Mid stance for the entire game and just spamming heavy strikes with the spear (DSP did it.) Unless the game has a counter to grinding, level systems often undercut skill.

[Air Master Burst]

Oath is an edge case; it has some absolutely baller boss fights (pretty much any of the human-sized enemies are a ton of fun), but no combo system to speak of. I don't remember if power leveling was actually feasible or not, that would probably be the deciding factor.

This is, incidentally, why I think a lot of Souls games do not qualify. You can absolutely grind to level 200, play like absolute shit and still win.

Bloodborne has a couple fights that will still make you work for it, but in general, this is true. They're also slow as molasses and have no combo systems either. Great games, but nothing I'd ever consider hardcore action.

[Squire Grooktook]

My personal ranking of "character action" bidyeo gaems

SSS

Ninja Gaiden 2
Devil May Cry 3 & 5
Zone of The Enders

S

Ninja Gaiden Black
Shinobi
Zone of The Enders 2

A

Assault Spy
Croilexeur
Devil May Cry 4
Kingdom Hearts 2

B

Bayonetta
Nightshade
Metal Gear Rising (would be S or SSS if we're taking the story into account, but for pure gameplay it's B)
Godhand (I need to revisit this, think it's a bit over-rated but I might've been playing it wrong)

C

(pretty much everything else Platinum has ever made except for Vanquish and Anarchy Reigns)
God of War

D

Kamui Mitsurugi Hikae
Kingdom Hearts 3

Ninja Gaiden 2 is probably overall the best for combining fightin-game fundamentals (wow nice job holding down the block button fella would be a shame if someone ran up and grappled you) with utterly insane tightness and difficulty, but Devil May Cry 3's combination of pace and compulsive creativity driven scoring always gets me too. I think I rank DMC3 slightly higher than 5 just because 3 appeals to me in a "less is more" kind of way (filling up the style gauge is more satisfying when you have less moves to work with) but 5 is perfect as a more freestyle toybox.

ZOE I like because it's fun and fast and flashy and it's also got block - throw - attack trinity but also you dash around eachother and clash swords and it's cool ok. First game is better IMO because the AI is more challenging, enemies in Zoe2 don't really know how to deal with your mobility for the most part. Clashes also feel mashier and bosses are much more scripted (Neith is just a simple but fairly competent AI). However both games are good and I feel one should never play one without also playing the other, treating it as two episodes in the same OVA.

I have a love/hate relationship with Platinum Games. On one hand, Bayonetta is a fun ride due to its pacing and variety and I have a hard time disliking it even if I dislike much of its actual combat design. MGR likewise due to its unironically fantastic story. However I feel their gameplay is mostly shallow and its depth is concentrated entirely in things I'm uninterested in. Defense is a rhythm game and 90% of your movesets being locked behind enormous dial-a-combo routes is just a total joy killer for me.

[Sima Tuna]

Oath is an edge case; it has some absolutely baller boss fights (pretty much any of the human-sized enemies are a ton of fun), but no combo system to speak of. I don't remember if power leveling was actually feasible or not, that would probably be the deciding factor.

This is, incidentally, why I think a lot of Souls games do not qualify. You can absolutely grind to level 200, play like absolute shit and still win.

Bloodborne has a couple fights that will still make you work for it, but in general, this is true. They're also slow as molasses and have no combo systems either. Great games, but nothing I'd ever consider hardcore action.

Bloodborne and Sekiro are the two possible exceptions, in my mind. Bloodborne because of the speed of the games, and Sekiro for largely removing leveling.

Spoiler for souls offtopic:

Spoiler

That said, Bloodborne is surprisingly easy once you acclimatize to the higher speed of the combat and get over the execution barrier. Father Gasco is the "wall" boss, and if you can clear him then you can clear 80% or more of the game, just using the lessons his fight teaches. I know some people feel like Bloodstarved or Amelia is some super hard skill check, but I didn't find that the case at all. If you have a saw spear or saw blade then you can stomp the majority of boss encounter beasts with only basic play. If you throw some fire on top of that then you don't have to try.

wow nice job holding down the block button fella would be a shame if someone ran up and grappled you

Maybe I'm revealing my age, but that was exactly my experience when playing NG Black as a teen, on the OG Xbawks. Back when all the tvs were CRTs and Ninja Gaiden Black had the best graphics to grace my innocent eyes.

"Oh wow, my block can protect me from so many different attacks! Let me just..."

security guard appears
teleports behind me
"nothin' personnel, kid"

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ninja ... 0815110240

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPUM-ytiTZY

^This motherfucker right here taught me so much about movement in 3d action games. You keep blocking? He keeps grabbing.

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance has a "solid" combat engine. My main problem with it is the system supports mashing 100%. If you just mash forward while attacking, I believe the game will autoparry for you when an attack is coming. I don't remember exactly how the timing works, but it allows you to trivialize a lot of boss fights. You attack them as you wish and then Raiden will go into parry stance whenever they start an attack. This can obviously still fuck up, because a delayed attack will catch parry spam, but it's still too strong. Works on a majority of boss encounters and all enemies that I can recall.

MGR does have the best Metal Gear story since 3, and a soundtrack made for hipsters to "ironically" enjoy. Myself, I think the whole game is awesome. It tries to be cool and it succeeds. It does everything well. MGR and Bayonetta are Platinum's two big hits with me. The other games they've made, I can take or leave. I'm not including whatever games they made while they were Clover Studios. God Hand and Viewtiful Joe were fantastic, but those were made so long ago.

Anarchy Reigns would have been a good game if it hadn't been built around multiplayer and dead-on-arrival in the USA as soon as it launched. Whatever Platinum were hoping for AR to become, that was never going to happen in the West. Fans of hardcore action and beat em ups aren't necessarily fans of multiplayer. The multiplayer addicts in the West have their own genres they prefer, which AR didn't cater to. I'm not saying Platinum should have pandered more, but the size of your player base really does matter for a multiplayer-focused experience. They would have been better served to focus on the single player. Or maybe I'm wrong and the game was a huge hit in Japan.

[Licorice]

My personal ranking of "character action" bidyeo gaems

Why Shinobi above Nightshade?

[Squire Grooktook]

My personal ranking of "character action" bidyeo gaems

Why Shinobi above Nightshade?

Main reason? I fucking hate that the homing dive kick also functions as a guard break.

One thing I really liked in Shinobi is that you had to observe whether enemies were attacking or guarding, and if the latter you had to either use your slow guard break move on them OR dash behind them for a backstab. I really liked that Shinobi has more thoughtful offense like that, even if it's not the most complex shit in the world. It's surprisingly how rarely these kind of games actually make you think about whether your enemies are on defense and how to break said defense.

But with Nightshade your best attack does everything. It moves you forward, it has the best range, it has the best speed, it homes in, it guard breaks, it quick combos. It's an omni-god-tool martial art that makes regular enemies much less interesting to fight until you start to hit the end-game and it starts throwing gimmicky armored enemies at you and shit.

It's fun and I def enjoy it but I just don't like it as much as Shinobi. Especially with losing that cool aesthetic and tragic noir mood of the original (granted I'd be down for sexy cyberpunk ninja girl action but not much is done with the theme in Nightshade).

[Volteccer_Jack]

PS2 Shinobi focuses on grounded dueling. Very frequently, you will run into a group of 3 or 4 enemy ninjas and have to fight it out with them on the ground. They block and dodge, and actively try to outmaneuver and counter. These duels are fast, encourage usage of your whole grounded moveset, even niche stuff like the spin and charge attacks, and on higher difficulties each individual ninja has enough health to make scoring a Tate quite tense. Almost every stage has its own slightly different variation of these grounded ninja enemies. Air combat is very simplistic by comparison and is largely an afterthought, the flying ninjas in stage 5/8 are the only airborne enemies who pose any noticeable threat.

Nightshade is the reverse. Grounded ninja enemies have very limited movesets in Nightshade, don't really dodge, block predictably and have no defense against divekicks. There are occasional instances where grounded dueling combat is a focus in Nightshade (the magnificent final boss for one) but they are rare. Aerial enemies meanwhile come in more varieties, have more attacks, they move about more and can also block. Level design and aerial movement are both significantly more involved this time around; in a way you can look at Nightshade as a platformer, with enemies serving as hostile platforms. Rather than draining the player's life, Nightshade draws tension from the fact that a single mistake in aerial combat is very likely to cost you your Tate and in later stages your life. Nightshade lacks Super mode and so is not quite as hard, but it makes up for it with more robust scoring.

Which of these styles one prefers is gonna be the main factor in which game you like more. Shinobi's back and forth grounded combat with timer-enforced pacing, or Nightshade's more controlled but equally intense aerial score attack.

Defense is a rhythm game and 90% of your movesets being locked behind enormous dial-a-combo routes is just a total joy killer for me.

Offensively, Bayonetta is mostly about the fact that dodge offset breaks up the dial-a-combo system by allowing you to replace any attack in the sequence with a kara-cancel-dodge. The string "P>P>K>K>delP" can alternately be performed as "P>dodge>dodge>K>delP" or as "dodge>P>dodge>K>delP" or as "P>P>dodge>dodge>delP" or even as "dodge x4>delP". It's an extremely flexible combo system that gives you full control of your attacks. Defensively, dodge is pretty OP on normal settings but then pretty weak on Infinite Climax, where the parry becomes the primary defensive option, with dodges being mainly a tool for their offsetting value.

Also I find it funny that NG tops your list given that it is the poster-boy for locking 90% of your moves behind enormous dial-a-combo routes.

[Squire Grooktook]

Yee I can respect Nightshade's greater platforming emphasis. The highway stage where you're jumping from armored transport to transport is absolutely a highlight. Still Shinobi's time-attack against enemies who actually defend themselves is such a unique experience that it's hard to rate much above it.

Offensively, Bayonetta is mostly about the fact that dodge offset breaks up the dial-a-combo system by allowing you to replace any attack in the sequence with a kara-cancel-dodge.

I'm aware of the dodge offset system. To me it's still a "band-aid" on the whole dial-a-combo system. I know this is partially a personal thing, but my favorite thing in these types of games is the "neutral game". If you give me a big moveset full of cool flashy animations, I want to be able to use them whenever I want, I want to be able to figure out how to string them together or when to use them optimally or creatively. Saying "sorry you can't do that sword swing until you hit x,x,y first!" is just a buzzkill. What if I want to just walk up to a dude and do that sword swing?

Again, personal preference. It's why I said that Platinum tends to focus its depth in areas that don't interest me.

Also I find it funny that NG tops your list given that it is the poster-boy for locking 90% of your moves behind enormous dial-a-combo routes.

NG makes up for it for me because it's more about the fighting game style offense/defense/mobility balancing. That and the dial a strings are more about damage vs safety vs crowd control options while hit-confirming stuff, most of the moves that are actually utility heavy are free to use at any time.

Maybe I'm revealing my age, but that was exactly my experience when playing NG Black as a teen, on the OG Xbawks. Back when all the tvs were CRTs and Ninja Gaiden Black had the best graphics to grace my innocent eyes.

"Oh wow, my block can protect me from so many different attacks! Let me just..."

security guard appears
teleports behind me
"nothin' personnel, kid"

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ninja ... 0815110240

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPUM-ytiTZY

^This motherfucker right here taught me so much about movement in 3d action games. You keep blocking? He keeps grabbing.

Absolutely fuckin' love it. This is why I almost instantly love any game with a block/throw/attack trinity or any kind of high vs low blocking. One button defense options are always going to be simpler than doing complex maneuvering and spacing, but the moment you throw in a "choice reaction" where you have to deal with some sort of 50/50 mixup, suddenly it becomes so much more important to stay on the move, stay out of range, and play the mobility/dodging/footsies game.

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance has a "solid" combat engine. My main problem with it is the system supports mashing 100%. If you just mash forward while attacking, I believe the game will autoparry for you when an attack is coming. I don't remember exactly how the timing works, but it allows you to trivialize a lot of boss fights. You attack them as you wish and then Raiden will go into parry stance whenever they start an attack. This can obviously still fuck up, because a delayed attack will catch parry spam, but it's still too strong. Works on a majority of boss encounters and all enemies that I can recall.

Oh yes, Rising's parry system is flawed. One thing I do appreciate is how inputting a parry after the enemy attack telegraph flash will always result in a successful parry. I'm not really a fan of how many 3d action games like to "trick you" with longer than expected attack wind-ups that are designed to make you reflexively dodge early until you memorize the animations. It makes it easier to play MGR as the dumb braindead fun slasher it's trying to be.

[HELLEPHANT]

Spoiler

That said, Bloodborne is surprisingly easy once you acclimatize to the higher speed of the combat and get over the execution barrier. Father Gasco is the "wall" boss, and if you can clear him then you can clear 80% or more of the game, just using the lessons his fight teaches. I know some people feel like Bloodstarved or Amelia is some super hard skill check, but I didn't find that the case at all. If you have a saw spear or saw blade then you can stomp the majority of boss encounter beasts with only basic play. If you throw some fire on top of that then you don't have to try.

I'd put that down the almost nonexistent difficulty progression that Souls games have. Barring the occasional difficulty spike such as Ornstein from Dark Souls, the level design and enemy attacks don't get much more complicated to deal with after the first couple of hours or so. Many players say that the games usually peter out towards the end and I put the blame for that primarily on the games not increasing in difficulty to meet their rising skill (or at least character ) level.

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance has a "solid" combat engine. My main problem with it is the system supports mashing 100%. If you just mash forward while attacking, I believe the game will autoparry for you when an attack is coming. I don't remember exactly how the timing works, but it allows you to trivialize a lot of boss fights. You attack them as you wish and then Raiden will go into parry stance whenever they start an attack. This can obviously still fuck up, because a delayed attack will catch parry spam, but it's still too strong. Works on a majority of boss encounters and all enemies that I can recall.

I often think that the parry system would be more satisfying if it weren't so easy to mash out blocks, but I get why it's like that. The higher difficulties and VR missions are so spammy, with enemies frequently using chargeingattacks from offscreen, it would probably feel quite unfair if you couldn't just throw a parry in their general direction to avoid getting murked by some cheap bastard jumping on your face when you can't even see him

Still, I believe they actually took the ease of parrying into account when designing enemies - bosses that rarely use unparryable attacks (Monsoon, Sam etc.) are highly mobile and reposition a lot, which forces you to change the direction you parry from as the camera can't keep up with them running in circles, while the ones that are constantly using unblockables (like Armstrong) don't move about so much. It's not perfect but it could have ended up a lot worse than it did.

[Air Master Burst]

I'd put that down the almost nonexistent difficulty progression that Souls games have. Barring the occasional difficulty spike such as Ornstein from Dark Souls, the level design and enemy attacks don't get much more complicated to deal with after the first couple of hours or so. Many players say that the games usually peter out towards the end and I put the blame for that primarily on the games not increasing in difficulty to meet their rising skill (or at least character ) level.

I would say that's only partly true. Neither Demon's Souls or Dark Souls 1 have any sort of satisfying endgame, but that's mostly because both of them ran out of time and/or money about 3/4 of the way through. Dark Souls 2 limits leveling a bit (at least makes you farm rare items to respawn mobs to keep earning souls) and has some fights down the stretch that will actually put you to the test, although some of them are optional; if the level design wasn't fucking garbage DS2 would be my favorite Souls game. Bloodborne has some legit fights and leveling only gets you so far without reflexes. Dark Souls 3 was basically just going through the motions, I have no love for anything about that game. Haven't tried Elden Ring or Sekiro yet.

Overall though, combat isn't really the main draw of any Souls game for me, which is probably why I consider King's Field 4 the best Souls game of all (or maybe Hollow Knight, if that counts).

[bottino]

I think so. I don't know if the other games in the series would fit, given the primitive bump combat of the early titles and the level reliance of later games. But the Oath era Ys games are probably close enough. I'm not sure how much grinding benefits in those titles. I guess if all of the challenge or difficulty of the title could be subverted by leveling, then I wouldn't count it. But if overleveling isn't possible/feasable, or there are other systems in place to keep the combat difficult, then that's fair game IMO.

Oath is an edge case; it has some absolutely baller boss fights (pretty much any of the human-sized enemies are a ton of fun), but no combo system to speak of. I don't remember if power leveling was actually feasible or not, that would probably be the deciding factor.

Power leveling isn't really a thing on those games, especially on higher difficulties given the reduced exp and money gained from enemies and bosses; also, the game's areas are balanced in a way for you to be at a certain level when facing bosses (see Time Attack mode). Whatever gains the player earns by grinding an hour or so for an extra level are only consequential if they actually know how to engage the enemies/boss and how to use their current set of skills to the fullest in the first place.

The transition from Napishtim to Oath was really a thing of beauty: they improved the simple and elegant combat system and greatly sped up the game by removing every superfluous RPG elements that breaks the action's flow, with Origins slightly refining that system later on.

[Sima Tuna]

I'd put that down the almost nonexistent difficulty progression that Souls games have. Barring the occasional difficulty spike such as Ornstein from Dark Souls, the level design and enemy attacks don't get much more complicated to deal with after the first couple of hours or so. Many players say that the games usually peter out towards the end and I put the blame for that primarily on the games not increasing in difficulty to meet their rising skill (or at least character ) level.

I would say that's only partly true. Neither Demon's Souls or Dark Souls 1 have any sort of satisfying endgame, but that's mostly because both of them ran out of time and/or money about 3/4 of the way through. Dark Souls 2 limits leveling a bit (at least makes you farm rare items to respawn mobs to keep earning souls) and has some fights down the stretch that will actually put you to the test, although some of them are optional; if the level design wasn't fucking garbage DS2 would be my favorite Souls game. Bloodborne has some legit fights and leveling only gets you so far without reflexes. Dark Souls 3 was basically just going through the motions, I have no love for anything about that game. Haven't tried Elden Ring or Sekiro yet.

Overall though, combat isn't really the main draw of any Souls game for me, which is probably why I consider King's Field 4 the best Souls game of all (or maybe Hollow Knight, if that counts).

Your opinions mirror my own regarding dark souls 2. DS2 made a lot of balance changes that I appreciate, but some of the bosses and levels are so fucking lazy that it's impossible even for me (someone who enjoys DS2) to defend them.

As for Ys, I have Origin but haven't played it enough yet to form an opinion. But if it does properly gate/limit leveling to intended levels for challenge, that seems like a fitting way to balance the whole numbers game.

Incidentally, for those curious, both Onimusha and Devil May Cry (series) are currently on sale on the Eshop. They go on sale every month or so. No worries if you miss a sale or don't feel like buying one. Just thought I'd throw it out there. The Switch currently has no physical version of Devil May Cry 3 SE, so digital is all you get. I'll probably be picking up DMC3SE on my switch, so I can play it on the toilet. Who knows. I'm still slowly working through Ninja Gaiden Sigmas 1 and 2. Alma gave me the business on my last gaming session. It's been a few years since I fought her.

Onimusha Switch is $8, so if you're looking for an entry point into the series and you have that system, it's the same price as an ACA game right now. Shame that all the other games are locked to Ps2. Onimusha 2 will always be the "masterpiece" of the franchise to me. It strikes a perfect balance between the old RE-style survival horror and new-school hardcore action. Mainly by limiting your resources, forcing you to Git Gud and punishing you for failure (iirc it uses a savepoint system similar to the save rooms in RE.) Onimusha 3's story was really dumb and Onimusha 4 attempted to bring the series into RE4, behind-the-shoulder action, but fell a little flat for me. The lack of an Onimusha 5 is a big shame.

[Squire Grooktook]

Souls and Ys fundamentally use the same balancing trick when it comes to level grinding.

It's the simple philosophy of

>leveling up gives you very very small incremental bonuses
>finding power ups (which comes from actual WORLD progression) gives massive, massive bonuses.

That being said the bonuses are much bigger in Ys. Pretty much every Souls game is balanced around a level 1 clear being not only doable, but perfectly paced (IE no "chip away at the boss hp pool for 6 hours" because 90% of your damage comes from upgrades you find by progressing the world). I feel like you could spend literally an entire week grinding in a Souls game and you'd only be able to take one extra hit and do .05% extra damage from it. Grinding is really kinda irrelevant for the most part IMO (Elden Ring is a bit of a different beast about this though)

I'd say Ys Oath and Origin are both balanced (on every difficulty) around "kill everything from point a to point b, once". My little self imposed challenge whenever I play on Nightmare is to do just that, and having gotten the hang of the games it feels just right. The level ups are designed to be a crutch for those with geriatric reflexes so spending some time grinding for a level or two will make a boss significantly easier, but I think the exp is balanced around diminishing returns so I think it takes a long, looooooooong time to level up beyond that while staying in the same area.

Dark Souls 3 was basically just going through the motions, I have no love for anything about that game.

This 100%. I was absolutely fuckin' flabbergasted when some folks in the shmups discord were like "noooo what are you talkin' about squire souls 3 is super inspired!"

My homies joke that the games entire storyline is a metaphor for how the dev team didn't want to be working on Dark Souls anymore.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Sekiro is an action game through and through. The only stat increases are life ups earned by collecting items, and attack ups gained by killing bosses, both of which cannot be farmed or grinded. You "level up" but the only function of this is to unlock new skills. You can't brute force anything, you can't pump Vitality to give yourself a ton of HP. There are cheese strats but they are just that, strats, and usually require consumable items; you are not getting past any significant fight in Sekiro without displaying an appropriate level of skill.

You do need to have a completed savefile to play on the properly nasty hard mode, however.

[Air Master Burst]

Onimusha 2 will always be the "masterpiece" of the franchise to me. It strikes a perfect balance between the old RE-style survival horror and new-school hardcore action.

Onimusha 2 was fucking fabulous, but I loved the whole trilogy dearly, even the goofy time travel shit in 3. Nothing after 3 really grabbed me, though.

Hopefully if they ever do another one it skews more survival horror than Nioh.

[copy-paster]

I'm about at chapter 10-ish of onimusha dawn of dreams played it in last few years, and I can tell you that game is grindiest ARPG I've ever played so far. It's hilarious that each weapons, special moves, powers, and characters have their own level up makes for boring shit (imagine you just max your current sword of choice, only to found better ones but still need to level up ). Bosses have trillions of HP no matter how max your stats is they'll die in 20 minutes all with most boring attacks possible.

Dark realm of course being the best source of grinding stats, and the section has whooping 100 levels and you lost all the progress if you died, even at level 99 and have to start over to level 1.

[BIL]

I'm glad to see that NG1 security bro repped here, had exactly the same introduction to him BITD. Strike/Grapple mixups are truly what is best in hard action life.

Bloodborne has a couple fights that will still make you work for it, but in general, this is true. They're also slow as molasses and have no combo systems either. Great games, but nothing I'd ever consider hardcore action.

Bloodborne and Sekiro are the two possible exceptions, in my mind. Bloodborne because of the speed of the games, and Sekiro for largely removing leveling.

The near-nonexistent shields and brutal counter damage are Bloodborne's biggest distinctions versus Dark Souls 1 & 2, imo (cleared out all three over the last year, gonna sort out a PS5 for DS3/Sekiro/ER). Even after some fifteen loops (enemies quit scaling after 7), at literal max level, with x3 HP maxup runes and endgame gear, you can die with stunning abruptness for a sloppy quickstep. Also no more EZ backstabs. You wanna clap dem cheekz you better work son!

Big Spoiler, Big Butt

Spoiler

I couldn't believe the luxury of DS1's shields, and even if DS2 is much more assholic about crowding during stages and bosses alike, it too is way, way kinder about letting you wait for openings behind block. As Squire says, all of them are stern challenges at SL1 - iconoclast's DSII run sounds like an utter nightmare - but in my preferred total filthy casual vacationeer mode, BB's speed and NO REFUGE put it nearest unfettered dash/gash/smash like Shinobi and ZOE.

This kinda crowd shoulda been mandatory, occasionally - but ala SOTN, I don't mind making my own problems in a quality ARPG. Particularly with that ruggedised compact stage design making "1CCs" of even long-familiar areas startlingly compulsive. How long can you withstand

Sekiro sounds amazing. My dream BB2 (called something else) would shitcan levelling altogether, as well... I want a sliding scale of BEAST/HUNTER/KIN, with some balls-out bodyhorror/psionics options down the paths, driven entirely by EAT OR BE ATE prestige kills, valiantly questing into Places What Should Not Be! There's a scintilla of this in BB already, if you go for a pure BEASTCLAW or Parasite run. WTB eating mahfuckas' faces off, making heads asplode, dealing w/drawbacks thereof. Theme of game should be POWER OF SEDUCTIVE vs GHASTLY TRANSFIGURATION, naw mean.

Crowy is the game's single best duel imo, always pulse-pounding taking that bastard down at risk of limping back to grandma all sheepish (feels like shit!). When I see scrubs talk about cheese-sniping him from the cathedral door, instead of facing down his fearsome headshot counter and GAZILLION-FOLDED NIPPON STEEL, I remember most gamers ain't shit!

Special mention to Abby too, for my money the best pugilist across all three of these games. Another non-boss perpetually cheesed by noobs. "Throw poison knives at him from the door?" You fucking what

Jam that steaming hot tray of mac n' cheese UP YOUR ASS sweet cheeks! (■｀w´■)

Spoiler

[Air Master Burst]

I couldn't believe the luxury of DS1's shields, and even if DS2 is much more assholic about crowding during stages and bosses alike, it too is way, way kinder about letting you wait for openings behind block.

People actually use the stupid shields and heavy armor? That must take forever! I just like running around in fancy clothing smashing things with giant weapons. Souls games are mostly about making your own challenge since they tend to intentionally include easily abuseable systems for cheesing almost everything.

Most of the truly hated fights (Capra Demon, Bed of Chaos, etc.) are only really difficult because of control/camera jank. Bloodborne is the only one with consistently engaging bosses, although DS2 and the DS1 dlc have some bangers too.

[BIL]

Nah, you can wield heavy weapons and a greatshield at zero cost to speed in DS1, provided you go all-in on the build, eg fuck INT/FTH/ATT. A thousand hours, a couple characters, and twenty-odd loops into DS1, I'd used about two spells - just not what I'm here for (though I do like the rainy-day option of trying out a wizard build at some point). Character 1 / Captain Homo (secret ID of Dr. Biruford, survivor of countless suicide missions in a foreign dimension)'s endgame armor (Black Iron Tarkus) drops @ Anor Londo, Character 2 / Mike Smith (a tragic tuberculosis samurai 3;) gets his AZN SET as early as you reach Darkroot Garden, never needed anything beyond those.

Shields... I can't recall Homo's first, but Eagle (@ BlightTown, literally ten minutes in with the Master Key gift) is more than enough. Likewise for Mike, though I switched to the Plank (maaad aesthetic ) and then Shiva's Iron Round Shield, the latter of which has SHAWEET Greatshield heavy deflect (*KTANNGG*) and parrying. Mike likes 2 stab.

Apparently tank builds are a thing in DS1 and DS2, but I like to go for that knightly/LE SAMOURAI approach of XTREEM DEX+END, high STR and moderate HP, with the aforementioned fuck-all magic, and no fat-rolling. Though I do make exceptions under heavy fire! (from my first run... as far as I'm concerned, first time with an ARPG = fight dirty. )

DS2 much the same. Drangleic Shield and moderate armour is all you need. I never switched from Vengarl's, partially because it's good def/weight, mostly because he's voiced by the same actor as MAH BOI Valtyr, the Beast-Eating maniac constable of legend.

I gotta say, one thing I liked, coming in from BB: few to no ridiculously massive bosses. They're one of that game's few weak points, imo... with the total inability to control camera zoom, too many fights become screenfulls of furry taint, over-reliant on audio cues - and I would say body cues, but it's a bit much when you've got a facefull of taint.

Like I can whack PARLY-CHAN in my sleep, but it's very much a rehearsed thing, ie I know what he's doing, a blind player would be SOL. (allow camera pullback and it's all good)