Squire Grooktook wrote:I don't recall Vanquish having a stage where you slowly trek up a mountain in the snow hunting for key cards and then slide all the way back down whenever you use one of your fun mobility moves. So yeah, I'm giving the superior level design award to Vanquish.
Both games have fun core mechanics but I don't think there's any argument which one you actively have to fight against the surrounding game more to enjoy those mechanics, or which one explicitly awards and encourages the ideal style play, or which one also manages to be fun and functional even when you're not using that ideal
play style.
There are two or three autoscrolling sequences in Vanquish along with a few pointless "stay behind this turret sections" that are much longer than the part you are describing in RE6 which is over in a few seconds. And again, you're completely in control in any situation of RE6 and not to the mercy of bad RNG like the aforementioned military allies' granades in Vanquish. I didn't fall in my last attempt at climbing that mountain, I made smart use of my sniper rifle by shooting the enemy that comes rushing at you with a snow bike and borrowing his vehicle for the rest of the hunt. It was over quite quickly.
That's one of my favorite things about RE6, it's a 3D brawler with excellent shooting mechanics. I play that way anyway, the key to enjoy the game to its fullest is to spent less time aiming and more on the move. I won't list all of the ways the game allows you to play offensively while staying on the move since I'm confident you know about them. They are all super useful and can be used consistently too.
Vanquish is THE third-person shooter IMO, while, like I said before, I think of RE6 more like a 3D beat'em up and a very innovative one. Sure, it's derivative of RE4, but so is God Hand. The thing I like the least of RE6 is the fact that it is a Resident Evil game. I bet people would be a lot more forgiving of its issues if it was an original property, because it's just as much as a departure of RE4 as that game was to the original Biohazard series. Capcom shuld have done what they did back with the first RE4 prototype and give us a new franchise. Devil May Cry deserved to be its own thing and I think RE6 did too.
Then again, RE6 is one of the best selling games in the franchise so the series name gave it a boost God Hand never benefited from. Hardly matters though, I doubt Capcom has the courage to revisit this title's gameplay. They developed one of the best combat systems out there with God Hand and then did nothing with it. My love for RE6 comes from the fact that ever since its release there's nothing that plays quite like it and the genre is complacent with just delivering DMC clones and sequels. Practically alll of the best games in the genre are still deeply rooted in DMC principles, Ninja Gaiden, Bayonetta, The Wonderful 101, Assault Spy you name it.
I'm not even sure I would like another RE6 with better level design, I'm playing the game fairly often already and I'd rather have Capcom take another risk and give us something completely new. I can live with one single God Hand and one single RE6, Capcom's indifference has make me settle for that. Let them be the cool antiheroes that dared to be different in an industry that sacrifices creativity and innovation in the name of profit. Games aim for the respectabilty of the film industry, right? Then let the industry sell its soul as well, just like Hollywood.
In fact let's just change the name of the genre, we never liked that silly Character Action (wtf), Stylish Action (lol) nonsense. Let's rename it "Devilmaycrylikes" or "DMCvanias", less confusing and much more fitting. Most games in the genre are not stylish and lack character anyway. It's a bit tragic to hear from people like Mikami and Itsuno that their best time's as game developers where not when they were working in RE or DMC but when they created their personal dream games, God Hand and Dragon's Dogma respectively. And those dreams only materialized, because they managed to make lots of money for Capcom. Mikami knew God Hand would hardly make a profit and still went through developement, what a boss.
I love most aspects of RE6 and I even like the director's previous game, Zack & Wiki. I remember, back when Platinum was formed, me and a online pal, Aragami777 (I'll never forget you bro), where lamenting Capcom's decison to close Clover and loose Mikami and Kamiya in the process and just maybe their abilty to create an awesome, innovative game too. I suggested to him to try Z&W, he bought the game and we both agreed the team responsible for that title was a light of hope for gamers looking for cool, original content within Capcom's more conservative output. Little did I know back then that the director of that title would go on to make my favorite Resident Evil game. Well, let's just call it one of my favorte action games, I don't even like RE much, just 6. I prefer Fatal Frame and Dead Rising for survival horror stuff.
I'm not particularly adressing you with this, Squire, you might agree with some of this and at least you recognize that the mechanics are good, I'm just taking the opportunithy to share my love for this game and there's so much I love about it. Aside from the combat I love the fact that each campaign is short and gives you the ability to choose from two very different characters with unique weapons and melee abilities; I love that since the game is objective based you are not allowed to skip over most figths; I love that the beginning of Leon's campaign seems like a self-conscious throwback to classic slow as snail RE suvival horror gameplay with how most of your moveset is restricted at that point, but then soon after the breaks come off and RE4 Leon is back performing wrestling moves on zombies; I love Chris and Piers' bromance; I love Sherry and Jake's romcom movie scenarios; I love all of the shameless Sherry fanservice (hi, Bobby Jones 12:51); I love Leon's dual wielding pistols (this game is a John Woo simulator too, did you know?); I love that one of Jake's weapons is his bare hands and this give you the most unique moveset of the game which even allows you to dodge bullets, etc.
I'm a big fan of RE6, I may go down in this board's history as that ONE RE6 nut and that would be an honor. I'll continue to speak favorably of this game just as I will of the similarly flawed, but totally original and timeless video games that Sega and ex-Sega veterans developed in what's more or less another wothless genre, the 3D platformer. I'm talking about Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, Nights into Dreams, Jet Set Radio, Super Monkey Ball, 2002's Shinobi, Nightshade/Kunoichi and Rodea the Sky Soldier. I'll defend these games as well as treasures among the sea of awful collectathons, so keep that in mind when discussing these games on this board
Balan Wonderworld does look horrid, though, lol, not even Billy Hatcher tier.
My Resident Evil 6 love letter is done, I swear.
Squire Grooktook wrote:Ark/Oath/Origin basically use the leveling system to encourage you not to skip any fights but kill everything on the way from point A to point B, and if you do that you'll generally be fine (I recently completed a nightmare mode run in Felghana, with a house rule of "no grinding, kill everything from point a to point b and then never again" and the balance was perfect, bosses never felt damage spongy). If they locked you in a room with every encounter devil may cry style it'd hurt the exploration and pace, but if they did away with leveling entirely you'd have no reason to actually fight most enemies beyond self-imposed challenge. It's a janky compromise but it works.
Origin has the issue a bit harder than Felghana though because many bosses sport annoying healing gimmicks which overextend the fights if you're not playing either uber-aggressively or a little higher leveled than you would be. A shame, if it wasn't for that one misstep on those fights it'd probably be a better game than Felghana in nearly every way. Even in boss rush mode they're really frustrating to deal with and encourage an annoying playstyle (Felghana's boss rush helped me appreciate the game much more, Origin's boss rush lowered my opinion of it as a whole, though I still love both as two of my favorite games ever).
I'll have to take your word and Licorice's for this. I barely played these games, I got tired of talking to souless avatars in Felghana, unlike the weirdos of EarthBound for instance, and both it and Origin bored me with the exploration aspects that are never fun once you have explored them already along with the awful enemies, now these guys right here are not worth anyone's time. I'm generally allergic to RPG tropes outside of roguelikes so I should have known better. That said, I was thinking that if I would ever go back to one of these games I would pick Origin since at least I wouldn't have to deal with the happy little village visit trope, but then you say Felghana is better balanced, damn. I just want the boss rush right from the start, Mr. Game Developer. Back to Vanquish, you know what the coolest thing in that game is? The highest difficulty is unlockable with a cheat on the title screen. God bless Mikami!
Thanks for your time, guys, very informative stuff.
kitten wrote:and i ran through all of banjo kazooie, getting all the stuff that would matter when showing your save file. unsurprisingly hated it. you know, i've been a serious critic of mario 64 since day one, but that game genuinely seems like a work of art compared to this. fuck-ugly euro cartooning that can only express itself through cretinous "satire," can only engage with its audience through irony and ugliness. flush yourself down a living, burping toilet and walk through shit to collect a bauble. collect facts about how a fat retard enjoys the taste of sweat and smell of diapers so that you can pass a quiz show later on. win a girl walking by with big hooters in the ending as the bird in your backpack talks shit about everyone you know. so many people describe this as "all good fun" and i seriously wonder about what is going in their lives. this is ten times sadder than saying you "like movies" and then just listing pixar shit.
the game is so small-minded, filled with contempt, and almost aggressive to the idea a game could express something beyond adding extra facets to the meaninglessness of wasting your time with the lower-than-animal impulse to Collect Things like jingies and jimbos. banjo kazooie as a thing that exists is a darker statement on what the lowest mind enjoys when playing video games than i could possibly make through criticism of it. secrets upon secrets, all of them in service of stupid noises and dumb cartoons saying nothing about anything. boring levels, horrible enemy designs (something like 50% of the game's enemies are "thing that comes out of a wall and you step back and then hit it once" and the other half are common objects or insects with eyeballs that hop around), and a complete lack of imagination.
here's rusty fish in a gross tank of water. that's a level. here's a swamp. here's a second swamp (or was this just the world map, my memory is already coalescing). here's a boat in a semi-realistic boatyard. who are these characters, what world do they occupy, why are they doing anything, why should you care? the game is hostile to all of these questions. playing a video game is fun. collecting is fun. shut the fuck up and eat out of the toilet, you slobbering idiot. christ, at least give me a long jump to make traversal less tedious. please.
jesus christ. god. fuck. the movement options suck and you do nothing for seriously like 10 or 15 hours. this came out in 1998. we were already doomed in 1998. god.
This is why I called the genre generally worthless. I don't know how you feel about the Sega games that I listed, but at least their focus is on speed and mastering your avatar's movement mechanics along with some questionable camera decisions, but oh, well. I must say though, Mario 3D World looks fun enough, haven't played it, but I have no love for anything 3D Mario, I hate Nintendo level design in general and find it funny that my favorite big N sidescroller is Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat made by the same guy who made Mario's dull space adventure. Must be because DK's game plays a bit more like arcadey Sega.
Sorry for so many edits guys,