Played several hours.
So far enjoying it, though it doesn't completely re-ignite my fire for the series. If you enjoy the other Souls games, you'll probably enjoy this and find some of the new shit pretty fresh. If you're burned out on 3d action (like me), it's not going to reinvent the wheel, but in short bursts it's reasonably entertaining.
I'm not going to try and argue with him (and I don't plan on responding or reading further), because I'm not an idiot, but for the poor innocent souls who might be mislead, allow me to post some immediately obvious counter arguments to Obscura's usual insane gremlin logic:
Obscura wrote:It's Ys Flash Guards all over again, except you don't even have Flash Move this time.
There are several differences between this and Ys Seven.
The main one is that
you can't parry everything.
The second miniboss is an ogre who's (clearly marked) grab attacks you are told cannot be parried at all, even with perfect timing. What's more interesting, he has two: one slow long range one, and one extremely difficult to react to close range one. So not only do you have a legit choice reaction mix-up going (instead of a "simple" timing reaction like most parries), but you're actually encouraged to space yourself correctly, unlike Ys Seven where you stand in front of the boss and parry everything optimally.
The other difference is the same as all the Souls games: parrying has always been a thing in them. What sets them apart is that you're still encouraged to circle and outspace enemy attacks in order to find the ideal timing to counter and poke them, as well as to conserve stamina which is important to both your offensive and defensive repertoire.
This remains true. Baiting out strings of attack to exhaust enemy stamina, and then counter poking them is extremely effective to breaking their guard faster. Which leads into the next point:
Obscura wrote:Every enemy has two healthbars, but the "regular" healthbar is so fucking long that you'll never kill anyone by emptying it, so all that matters is the "critical hit" healthbar. There are two reliable ways to damage the "critical hit" healthbar -- stealth attacks and parries.
Incorrect. One of the most reliable ways to perform a critical attack is to break their guard. Enemies can all block your attacks, but doing so depletes their stamina. Delivering a quick flurry of attacks immediately after they wiff seems a fairly reliable way to inflict massive guard damage and open them up for a critical. Most "zako" strawhat soldiers seem to go down from very quick combo chains this way.
Another important thing left out here is that simply parrying non-zako enemies does NOT lead to a critical hit OR into a guaranteed hit: they can still block, but they lose much more stamina this way. Also, as pointed out in the video Necropotonicus linked, the lower enemy hp, the slower they recover stamina. So you're rewarded extensively for being aggressive and finding windows to rush enemies down (instead of just parrying everything, as this post implies)
So far it seems that the optimal battle strategy is to do a little bit of everything: correct spacing to avoid throws and outspace rushes, pokes/punishes to chip off enemy hp and inflict guard damage, and parries on big attacks to inflict further guard damage. Though I can't say if the game will take full advantage of it yet, it seems to be the case for harder fights based on that video Necropotonicus posted, where he does exactly this.
Obscura wrote:
2. The stealth is absolute dogshit. The movement is all based on context-sensitive button presses
So far the only context sensitive stuff I see is...
-grappling
-hugging walls
-grabbing ledges
-stealth kills
Crouching behind cover and grass is very much not context sensitive and seems to be one of your most effective tools in a variety of situations.
I don't have a problem with the wall/ledge stuff because...well...you can't do that shit without a wall/ledge anyway. Stealth kills so far feel fairly fine to me, and behave probably better and more reliably than backstabs in Souls. It probably would have felt better if they just made it behave like a standard plunging attack in previous Souls games, though.
So far I'm enjoying the stealth, grappling, and the more vertical/3d environments. None of it is particularly deep on its own, but combine them all and you have a game that feels a tad more open and flexible than most Souls games, allowing you to approach environments in several different ways.
Obscura wrote:
4. Looting bodies is absolute dogshit. "Hold down X for half an hour to pick up money"... why? EVERY OTHER GAME IN EXISTENCE LETS YOU TAP ONE BUTTON FOR THIS, ASSHOLES.
It seems pretty snappy to me so far, partially because you don't have to be close to them. Just pressing Square for half a second seems to suck up everything in the surrounding area. Not defending it, but it didn't take me out of the experience in the slightest.
*edit*
Confirmed that holding the button sucks up almost everything in an entire arena. I've sucked up gold from enemy corpses at the bottom of cliffs I was standing atop, or stood in the center of massive arena and gotten everything from corpses at the far sides.
Obscura wrote:
5. The pacing and storytelling are absolute dogshit. "OMG, SAD DAD IS SAD BECAUSE HE FAILED IN HIS DUTY! HERE, HAVE A SCRIPTED UNWINNABLE BOSS FIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUTORIAL SO YOU HAVE A RIVAL TO GO AGAINST! HERE, HAVE AN THINLY DISGUISED TUTORIAL NPC IN YOUR SAMURAI WEEB NEXUS!" It's every awful AAA "serious game" trend of the last three or four years, delivered without any soul at all, in a game by a developer that's known for breaking these molds.
Unwinnable boss fights to set up a rival have been a thing since 8-bit jrpg's. Hell it's how fucking Mega Man X opens.
I can understand people maybe raising an eyebrow to the fact that Wolf is protecting a young boy -considering current trend memes- but it didn't feel particularly cloying here. Given the boys uncharacteristically serene nature for someone of his age, it didn't feel like it was trying to evoke the same "OMG poor kid can't fend for himself must protecc" and more that he's simply an otherworldly maguffin.
Not that I'm particularly engaged either, mind you. But it's mostly inoffensive and the cutscenes are short.