What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Obiwanshinobi]

Bluntly speaking, you only grind in Onimusha (1, 2, 3) when you suck at the combat. You only can't hit enemies who can hit you when you fail to perform deflect critical. That RE4 doesn't have anything like it to learn about is not a virtue in my book.

[EmperorIng]

Since my birthday is coming up, I recently ordered for myself these presents:
Wolf Fang SS
Deep Fear SS
Silhouette Mirage PS

Haven't played any of them, but I think I'll be in for a good time! I was able to pick up Wolf Fang for $50, so hopefully that's a decent price. And Deep Fear, well, I've loved the voice-acting on that game for some time now, so I can't wait to pop it in myself.

I'm playing Dark Savior for the Saturn. I don't really like the isometric platforming, but I like everything else - no random encounters, one-on-one fights, atmosphere. The Saturn seems to struggle whenever there are more than 7 polygons on-screen, though.

[Ed Oscuro]

Let me put it another way, then: Onimusha 1 and 2 appear to be the kind of games that are completely tone-deaf about grinding - and you do get a substantial boost from grinding in the early games, and there is nothing to dissuade you from grinding. It is going to be a more cost-effective use of the average player's time than trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with Issen (remembering that a game design should not be reliant on going to GameFAQs, and even the people on GameFAQs don't seem to know what the fuck is going on, or at the very least how to write about it). Even a competent player can receive a benefit from grinding - and not just grinding for upgrades, but grinding for health to save healing items. All of these games' presentation focuses on the grinding, and as I've indicated a substantial portion of Onimusha 1's gameplay actually counts as grinding. Same encounters whenever you revisit a room, little variety across areas, and a lot of backtracking. That something like Issen is even possible only becomes obvious to the player if you get lucky with seeing one by accident, and then have luck with the much harder task of figuring out what happened. It's not clear from the start what's causing it (since Issen kills often appear when you're surrounded by enemies and happen to press the button when one enemy attacks you).

I don't know why you keep blathering on about RE4 like this. RE4 has plenty of opportunities to reverse attacks - you are apparently biased against it because those windows of opportunity tend to be wider than a couple frames. Again, I laugh at your attempts to flatten gameplay into pressing a button at a specific time, and calling that "technical," as if it represents some meaningful interactive choice on the part of the player. In RE4, the game actually takes players on a journey through varied terrains with constantly updated goals, and it constantly throws new situations and collections of enemies at you. Despite your protests, Onimusha 1 and 2 are really very heavy on memorizing content and getting comfortable with it, and there is typically little that goes outside this mold. On top of that, the awful timing of cutscenes serves as a punishment to players for having the audacity to make mistakes (I'd say especially in part 1, given they can't be skipped there, but it's not a very difficult game to begin with except maybe the final boss if you didn't get the special sword, and I don't care about playing it that way). There is a difference between rewarding good play - I don't know what the fuck you want out of RE4 in that it is pretty much doing everything in that 3D space you can ask of it, other than just overwhelm you with enemies (not really possible given the date of release) or make mistakes prohibitive, and these wouldn't be great design choices. Here, once again, RE4 is a good few steps ahead of Onimusha 1 and 2 - there is an option to restart from the last checkpoint if you really want to try adventurous playing and your attempts don't pan out. I suppose you could say that this serves as a crutch, but it is solely up to the player whether to punish themselves for doing poorly by taking the damage and continuing on, or wasting some time and starting over. Of course there is nothing here that says you cannot simply plow through the game.

You can criticize the gameplay difficulty all you want - there are points where I get frustrated with RE4's difficult or easy sections, but it is masterful in making combat transparent so that everybody can take a part in it, a point you seem determined to keep ignoring.

Having obvious game design is a good thing because it lets more players in on the gameplay. This is why I mentioned Vagrant Story - despite having less involved combat, it still feels more robust because it's very open about what it expects from players and what they can do. This "go online and search for some techniques" model in Onimusha is shit.

It boggles the mind that Capcom waited to the third installment to try and even reveal the technical gameplay. From the standpoint of the average gamer, this was too late, and too little also - having a special "training" mode is a clumsy bodge when that should be integrated seamlessly into the core game. RE4 makes moves to train the player and integrate these things into the core game more than it actually needs to.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Coming straight from Onimusha 2 manual:



Clumsy translation perhaps (you're supposed to press the block button just before getting hit, then immediately counter-attack), but it says all there is to know about criticals. Knowing about is not enough to perform it consistently. It takes practice and that's why enemies respawn on and on (the better you play, the more you loot). Grinding is just playing badly instead of getting better at the game. Easy to crawl through does not equal easy to play well.

Again, I laugh at your attempts to flatten gameplay into pressing a button at a specific time, and calling that "technical," as if it represents some meaningful interactive choice on the part of the player.

At the end of the day I have to use SOME words.

[Ed Oscuro]

You'll note that I talk about integrating gameplay elements, which preemptively destroys that argument before you thought of it. Shoving a note off into the manual doesn't count for integrating the information; my note that there is, despite the manual, a lot of misinformation about these games out there is a good indication that they're clumsily designed and not at all user-friendly to figure out. I wouldn't have a problem with it if there was some reason for the games to be obscure about stuff, but there isn't, and so I'm not going to champion it.

Let's not pretend that the presence of Issen at all validates lazy enemy respawning designs. There is no gameplay reason, besides the cost of producing camera stills, why you should have to repeatedly enter areas (something that RE4 does perfectly well, with backtracking feeling more like a triumphant return than spinning in confused knots). I also personally think it's somewhat offensive nonsense that you need to take a bunch of body blows while figuring out counterattack timing for each enemy and each unique attack; that goes beyond reasonable risk and reward balancing into pure grinding territory once again, thanks to all the other offensive design decisions in these games. Rather than letting the player find cool things for themselves and start using them, the game tries to lead you by the nose - but only in the manuals! - that's just awful, awful design.

I have to wonder what you expected Resident Evil 4 to do with the Issen concept when arguably the QTE is a logical evolution of the idea - and the 3D freedom immediately suggests (and RE4 presents) more involved and natural gameplay mechanics than playing "guess how to time your button presses, or die." I honestly was shocked that this exceptionally, exceptionally narrow "gameplay" mechanic speaks more to you than all the choices in RE4, and it's telling about your mindset that you call using the Start button to cancel a reload a "technique" as if anybody plays these games to spend their time in the menu rather than timing reloads and evading like a pro, which I'm sure you had no trouble doing. But I also think it's telling that you say that Onimusha 1 and 2 have better produced cutscenes than RE4 - specifically the cutscenes! At least you could have talked about the nice water or something - which you'd see to be ridiculously false and not even close to a reasonable representation of the truth if you weren't playing with blinders on.

It's no skin off my back if you want games to offer these "high level techniques" or ignore what doesn't suit your notion of these games - but these things don't impress me at all, so I'll have to live with my unshakeable feeling that Onimusha 1 and 2 are bad games.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Sweet Fanny Adams, deflect critical works the same for every enemy, character and weapon*) in the game. There's no need to memorise all timings, animations and such (which would be the case with normal critical).
Viewtiful Joe is a Capcom game where QTEs are RE4-like (just as easy execution, except the game is way less forgiving). Onimusha is a very different beast. I don't speak the word "reflexes" lightly. You can ALWAYS see you're about to get hit in Onimusha (provided the camera shows the opponent). That's when reflexes come in handy.

*) Truth be told, I'm not sure if it can be rightfully said about bow (the only criticals I performed with it were accidental), but it's a rather academic question.

[shmuppyLove]

Silhouette Mirage PS

For some reason I always get Silhouette Mirage confused with Mischief Makers, which then makes me think of this video:

http://youtu.be/JVUIemTdEAY

[AweOfShe]

Chapter 26 of Project X Zone. I am loving this game WAY more than I expected to.
Bought it for the Sakura Taisen characters, but I'm finding all the other cameos enjoyable, even from the games I don't care for.

[Ed Oscuro]

You can ALWAYS see you're about to get hit in Onimusha (provided the camera shows the opponent).

It's rather sweet how you think that if I suddenly start executing Issen regularly that my opinion of these games will increase.

[CMoon]

Chapter 26 of Project X Zone. I am loving this game WAY more than I expected to.
Bought it for the Sakura Taisen characters, but I'm finding all the other cameos enjoyable, even from the games I don't care for.

I have been waiting for someone to say something good about this game. All I hear is that taken without the fan service, it is a mediocre-at-best SRPG, on the other hand, an SRPG with Capcom characters might be pretty memorable for me. Still, there are dozens of SRPGs better than this, right? Please convince me this game is worth checking out.

[AweOfShe]

I have been waiting for someone to say something good about this game. All I hear is that taken without the fan service, it is a mediocre-at-best SRPG, on the other hand, an SRPG with Capcom characters might be pretty memorable for me. Still, there are dozens of SRPGs better than this, right? Please convince me this game is worth checking out.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a buzz-kill after praising it, but there is still one problem that you may or may not find with it (depending on hour you feel with the repetition/combat), and that it could kind of feel like it's overstaying its welcome, once you hit the halfway mark. While I am on chapter 26, my timer is close to hitting 40 hours, and I'm supposedly a little over half the game still.

I think most of my enjoyment stems from the fact that:
- I enjoyed SRW OG Endless Frontier. The combat of PXZ is pretty much like this, but not a turn-based traditional RPG.
- I also enjoyed Namco X Capcom, and throwing SEGA (along with some other Capcom/Namco characters that I like more) into the mix, is making me enjoy PXZ more than NXC.
- My expectations were pretty low. I wasn't really expecting anything extraordinarily different.
- The remixes of the music are fantastic! The original themes that are in it are not bad either.
- I am completely fine with mediocre, as long as it's playable, and not awkward.

I know you asked me to convince you that it's worth getting, but as much as I enjoy it, I still have to throw out the stuff to be cautious for, otherwise I'd feel incredibly guilty if you bought it, and didn't like it. >_> There are two demos up on the eShop though, that may help sway your decision. I WANT to say just try those, and imagine yourself playing it for ~60-80 hours, but I haven't actually tried either demo, so I couldn't say (since I don't know what mechanics are there or omitted).

EDIT - Actually, this post pretty much sums up my thoughts on the game

[CMoon]

Thanks for the response. Yeah, I'll probably dodge this. I have a huge back catalog of games and SMT4 comes out in a week. Can't see myself intentionally getting into a LONG, SLOW game with so many other good titles around.

Speaking of long and slow (stop your snickering!), I've found it really hard to get back into Etrian Odyssey 4 after Soul Hackers. Admittedly, the games are pretty different, with soul hackers being the shorter game...but game play is also a LOT faster. Really wish the EO series could let you run like in Soul Hackers...instead it is trudge, trudge, trudge.

Edit: I'm sure this was known to everyone but me, but I didn't realize the guy who did the OST to Radiant Silvergun (Hitoshi Sakimoto) was the same guy who did the soundtrack to FFTactics and Vagrant Story. Could be one reason I'm getting such a rush of nostalgia from Vagrant Story.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I remembered of Odin Sphere and FFXII, but now I see Magical Chase (!), Kingdom Grand Prix (!!) and BoFV: Dragon Quarter (!!!) on the list. Can't say I remember particular tunes, though, except for this.

[EmperorIng]

H. Sakimoto also did the balls-to-the-wall soundtrack of Gauntlet IV for the Genesis. Really great stuff. He's one of my favorite composers, though I really only know him from shmup soundtracks! He did do a few tracks for Kingdom Grandprix, though the whole ost was split up between two or three guys if I recall. I just sold my Saturn port, so I don't know if he was the one who did the single-best-track in Kingdom Grandprix. It doesn't sound like his style though.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

H. Sakimoto also did the balls-to-the-wall soundtrack of Gauntlet IV for the Genesis.

Omygosh, someone else who loves Gauntlet IV's soundtrack? Seriously, I played the shit outta that with friends, it was one of the best examples of the sort of pure magic the Genesis could do with its sound chip. It's a shame most other Genesis games failed to reach that level of sound quality.

[null1024]

I don't think I've heard sound like that out of the Genesis's little YM chip before.
Super-impressive patch design.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I don't think I've heard sound like that out of the Genesis's little YM chip before.
Super-impressive patch design.

Yeah, it's surprising how unique of a sound Gauntlet IV had.
How exactly did they get that kind of sound quality out of the chip, anyways? Was it really just clever programming/software? Did they have some kind of special hardware in the cartridge?

Also, I think the guy who uploaded those Gauntlet IV tracks to youtube reduced the sound quality a bit, sounds much crisper on original hardware or in an emulator. Or in this guy's upload.

I'm used to Genesis games sounding much more Midi-ish.

I was never really fond of most Genesis game music because I didn't like the sound chip (or rather what most games did with it). Very few games managed to have great instrumentation in their music.

[BIL]

You guys should also try out Sakimoto's Midnight Resistance and Bad Omen soundtracks, too - easily of the same standard as he and Masaharu Iwata's Gauntlet IV work. Tecno Soft tended to have a lot of "WTF" -good MD soundtracks too, like Devil Crash MD and Elemental Master. There aren't many lossless hardware gamerips in my VGM folder but the prior three and Gauntlet IV all make the cut (not EM, that one has a proper album release).

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Why have I not played/heard of any of those games before? Clearly I've been missing out on a lot of good Genesis titles.

[null1024]

Well, some of it is the sound driver. A driver that lets you change FM parameters mid-note vastly expands the range of sounds you can produce [I'm almost certain Gauntlet 4 and Streets of Rage use this kind of driver, I can't even think of static parameters for some of the instruments], compared to one that just plugs in a static set of parameters into the chip registers each note [extremely common, saves space, less complex, less CPU time needed].
Some of it is patch design, knowing how each FM parameter affects the sound is super-important. I'm not a YM2612 expert at all though [my FM chip of choice right now is the OPL2 ]. Most Genesis composers had no clue about FM patch design, which is a shame.

I don't think any Genesis game had custom audio chips. I'm not even sure if the system supports it [it might, the 32X might use a cartridge audio line for its PWM channels].

[BIL]

Most Genesis composers had no clue about FM patch design, which is a shame.

Seems that way. Even middling Gen/MD music can be soul-destroying, let alone the really bad stuff but the good stuff really kicks and the best stuff like Gauntlet is mind-blowing. Tends to have the usual suspects involved, too (Sakimoto, Iwata, Iwadare, Koshiro)...

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Seems that way. Even middling Gen/MD music can be soul-destroying, let alone the really bad stuff

what the fuck is this shit, my ears want to punch whoever composed that

[BIL]

Haha, pretty sure that's the worst MD track, but I could always be wrong... *shudder*

Almost makes me laugh, since the bell sound reminds me of Akira Yamaoka's more industrial Silent Hill music, only instead of evoking horror it flat-out is horror.

The MD could even legitimately do that type of desolate, sonorous metal sound, in the right hands (listen to the beginning of this Koshiro track from Slap Fight MD).

[null1024]

Haven't started playing it, but about to: Persona 3 Portable [PSP]. [EDIT] I started playing it. Fucking ages before the first fight, jeeeeeeeeeeeez. Seems interesting though.

first time I entered the Tartarus: knock everything down with Agi and the beat them up, only reason I even figured that it was super-effective was because it was the cheapest spell I had

That's going to confuse me to no end, I keep thinking of the ship from Tales of the Abyss, heh. Man, I should probably finish that game one of these days...

Oh, and a spot of Ridge Racer 2 [PSP] here and there... but I'm not improving my times, I keep making stupid mistakes. Siiiiigh.

Haha, pretty sure that's the worst MD track, but I could always be wrong... *shudder*

You might be.
You know, if they just lowered the modulator volumes a bit, it wouldn't sound so bad. That's the number one FM sin, over-modulation. A lot of patches sound like they popped in the same volume on the modulator as well as the carrier [usually bad, because then it's super-twangy since they're near max].

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

GTA IV and Soul Hackers.

[stryc9]

Man, anyone take a look at the comments in the Marble Madness youtube Null linked to?

'Arcade perfect'

and

'The Genesis shits all over the arcade version'

What the hell? it's like these guys are not even remotely aware of the JP Tengen version with it's incredible, booming bass that actually is, for all intents and purposes, 'arcade perfect'.

[trap15]

Most Genesis composers had no clue about FM patch design, which is a shame.

Interestingly, you could probably say this about Yuge... a lot of his patches are kind of terrible. Uemura improved his over time, but the patches Yuge came up with were usually pretty... off sounding.

[7711]

No more Heroes on the Wii (also purchased the sequel). Also playing Metroid Prime from the Wii Trilogy boxset. Got this one for 25€ second hand, but perfect condition, really happy I managed to find it this cheap.

[BulletMagnet]

Time to invite a bit of hate: I've had Viewtiful Joe 1 and 2 for the GC sitting around awhile, since I (drumroll) wasn't particularly taken with them back when I first tried them. Tossed the first one in again yesterday, and while I honestly do like a lot of things about it, a handful of infuriating issues (most notably the camera, which makes some boss battles a much bigger pain than they need to be) are still making it something of a "gotta force myself to keep going" affair. As of now I'm still hoping to see the end, but time will tell if I make it...

[CMoon]

I also didn't care much for the VJ games. Never found any love for them though I liked some of the ideas.