Aces Wild: Is this Brawler Hot or Not?

[Mischief Maker]

I'm enjoying it, but this guy is really enjoying it!

With all this brawler talk, I'm curious what your expert thoughts are about this game.

Ger yer demo here.

[DJ Incompetent]

I'm excited for it. I'm patiently waiting for final release without demoing.

[Mischief Maker]

I'm excited for it. I'm patiently waiting for final release without demoing.

It's been out since August 6th.

[Hagane]

I tried the demo for a while. Feels like Muramasa, but good. Definitely not the second coming like the article says, but I'm having fun so far. Damage could be higher though. And I sometimes lose track of my character since the game uses the ninja graphics for enemies too.

[Pretas]

Don't like it. The mechanics boil down entirely to input timing instead of positioning and movement. It also suffers from the same Infinite Lives, Instant Respawns Syndrome that's been infecting every recent Western platformer, and death is often beneficial, since it refills your burst stock.

[Hagane]

Positioning seems to be important as you get more enemies on screen. You can move around the whole screen via jumping and "floating" attacks, and just staying in one place seems like a sure way to die, at least at the highest available difficulty.

[Mischief Maker]

Don't like it. The mechanics boil down entirely to input timing instead of positioning and movement. It also suffers from the same Infinite Lives, Instant Respawns Syndrome that's been infecting every recent Western platformer, and death is often beneficial, since it refills your burst stock.

Um... are you sure we're talking about the same game here? This game is all about position and movement! That's what differentiates the 3 characters. Preppy scumbag's moves are all about launching enemies in a straight line and knocking everyone over like dominoes. Baseball cap douche's moves are all about surfing into the center of a mob and releasing his all-direction combo finisher. And indistinguishable ninja's moves are all about distance and avoidance with his shuriken throw and Vergil dash.

Also dying doesn't refill your wild gauge.

[Mischief Maker]

Damage could be higher though. And I sometimes lose track of my character since the game uses the ninja graphics for enemies too.

I think the rhythm of the game is basic combo to build the wild meter, combo finisher to dizzy the enemies, then charge attack to deal the real damage. 500 points of damage from a half-charged punch is sufficient to annihilate a group. So wasting your wild on panic bombing is not only bad for your score.

[CKR]

I'm considering purchasing this game. Has anyone beaten this game? If so, is it fun to play for score?

[RegalSin]

Well game screen too big

[GaijinPunch]

https://www.google.com/#q=why+should+I+ ... tuation%3F

[Ed Oscuro]

through the punctuation down the well

I remember that when I was a little person and got sick, the room would feel too big. Maybe that's what he's about.

Anyway I'm going to check out the game and see what's what.

[BrianC]

Well game screen too big

What you say?

[BIL]

Well game screen too big

[trap15]

Well game screen too big

[neorocker]

Is it too early for me to make that my sig

[Squire Grooktook]

It also suffers from the same Infinite Lives, Instant Respawns Syndrome that's been infecting every recent Western platformer

Not yet having played this game in particular, I should note that many games like that can still be played classically if you aim for a no death/no game over/no damage clear.

[neorocker]

That's an interesting criticism on a shmups forum as well, considering the amount of home ports that allow for credit feeding / infinite retries from wherever you die. If you can exercise going for no (x) clears in shmups then you can definitely exercise those same constraints on games that do have infinite lives / respawns / etc. Lives, continues, etc, don't make for an immediately more interesting or "hardcore" game and are a bit antiquated as far as I'm concerned. I feel as though the better option is to provide true endings / final stages / bosses for players that manage to conquer the game without the provided infinite retries.

[Squire Grooktook]

I personally feel that some penalty for failure is an absolute necessity to create tension and excitement, but if there is none than I can obviously create my own in attempting to master the game.

[neorocker]

I agree with that, and typically "redo this part" is enough for most people (a lot of people get very frustrated with being pushed back too far). While I do enjoy a harsh punishment out of a game it immediately pulls away from the accessibility of it for most.

[Squire Grooktook]

I agree with that, and typically "redo this part" is enough for most people (a lot of people get very frustrated with being pushed back too far). While I do enjoy a harsh punishment out of a game it immediately pulls away from the accessibility of it for most.

Yes, although as the Souls series has demonstrated, it's definitely possible to gain mass appeal through walking a tight rope between penalty and leniency.

[Kaiser]

Well game screen too big

Regal brain tiny hard speak

[RegalSin]

through the punctuation down the well

I remember that when I was a little person and got sick, the room would feel too big. Maybe that's what he's about.

Anyway I'm going to check out the game and see what's what.

All these HD games makes me feel like I am playing "Mario Bros" or some PC game with the incorrect display like "Cave Story". Cave Story has a Zoom, but the game makes it useless, once you know, you could target enemies, at a greater distance, you just go right for the zoom-out.

Then you have a bunch of noob gamers, saying BS about the games we played. They make it seem that DKC is unbeatable, and the display is missing something. Seriously newer games are alot easier, and moves in an odd fashion, like SWF. While I do not care about such things, so much I am tired of people being like "What is happening" or "where do I go" and this or that. Or where did that come from.

Why can't we go back to the Sega Saturn or PC98 days, where all the games had big beautiful sprites, and reasonable coloring. Or even when the Mega Drive had the big beautiful SEGA logo, on display.

I have nothing against the game at all, and I am going to be playing it, however the big screen is so annoying to me. It is not unfun, it is just that, man I remember back then when we complained about small sprites, and here comes these games, that are creating these problems all over again.
It is like I am looking at tiny dots, for sprites.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

All these HD games makes me feel like I am playing "Mario Bros" or some PC game with the incorrect display like "Cave Story". Cave Story has a Zoom, but the game makes it useless, once you know, you could target enemies, at a greater distance, you just go right for the zoom-out.

Huh? Cave Story doesn't have any zooming in its display. You can play it at fullscreen in 4:3 ratio and it's the exact same view distance in terms of how far you can see other enemies, regardless of what other video options you mess with.

[RegalSin]

I am sorry, I was thinking about Terraria and Starbound.

Cavestory I was not thinking about, it just popped in my head at the time, because I remembered how both games have that look.

[Mischief Maker]

Alright, I'm much more experienced with the game now so here's my full review (originally posted on caltrops.com):

Aces Wild is a fantastic brawler. It plays like the bastard lovechild of God Hand and Zone of the Enders 2 with just a touch of Bangai-O. You've not had crowd control challenges in a brawler like this game dishes them out. Like in God Hand, enemies semi-randomly transform when you KO them, only in this game instead of turning into demons, they become a massive CLOUD of low-HP ninjas. I have zero complaints about this game! Even my usual complaint about having to unlock content has been addressed as you start the game with the full level select, boss rush, and both secret characters already unlocked.

You have 4 basic forms of attack: a rapid combo, a chargeable heavy attack, and counter-based versions of both attacks. You have 2 types of dashes: a long range positional dash and a short ranged dodge dash with invulnerability frames. Every attack can be chained. The game has a rage bar that affects the damage and launching distance of all your attacks. Instead of lives, you can hit the "panic" button to repel all enemies in your vicinity with 1 HP damage and refill your life bar at the cost of burning through your entire rage meter and setting the scoring rank back to one, and the more you use it, the higher the rage threshold required. Difficulty levels increase enemy aggressiveness instead of damage numbers, which is always a plus in my book.

Ace Wilder is the protagonist. He has the fastest attacks, but his attacks are very short ranged so his only crowd-control option is to launch an enemy into a group. Fortunately if you launch an enemy with a charged up heavy attack, every other enemy they hit receives the same damage. He has a 6-hit basic combo that ends with a flurry of auto punches ending with an omnidirectional launcher. His heavy attack is a chargable launcher. His light counter is a long ranged jump kick that can be used offensively or defensively like a positional dash that costs no rage. His heavy counter is a very short ranged launcher that shoots enemies the farthest and leaves them stunned and vulnerable for several seconds.

Gene Drift is the 6th level boss. He's the Mike Haggar of this game, with slow attacks that cover a wide area, making him the best in the game at crowd control. His rapid combo is 6-moves long and ends with a giant circular launcher attack that hits enemies in all directions. His heavy attack is either a standard launcher, or with vertical inputs turns into a crowd-obliterating sword swipe. His light counter attack is a single-enemy attack in which he throws up the devil horns while surfing his sword into their face, and his heavy counter is a screen-spanning horizontal slash that can wipe out the entire room if your position and rage meter are just right.

Eagle Morris is one of the cannon fodder ninja enemies who decided to switch sides and take advantage of The Inverse Ninja Law to win the tournament prize for himself. He is the most technical character, but potentially the most powerful. His rapid combo is a 5-piece moderate range attack that ends with a crowd-control DMC3 Vergil slash. His heavy attack is a standard launcher. His light counter attack is an analog-aimable Revenge of Shinobi shuriken volley that does horrific damage if all of them connect. His heavy counter attack is a short ranged but omnidirectional explosive smokebomb. Needless to say, you'll want to choose one of his palette swaps to be able to tell him apart from all of the other ninjas.

I gained an increased appreciation for this game when I realized positional dashing eats just as much rage bar as tapping heavy (launcher) attack, (and tapping launcher attack only eats as much rage bar as dashing), so the wall jump mechanics weren't just for show. A great thing about this is that you have a gameplay incentive to crank up your rank (arcade speak for "adaptive difficulty"), because rank controls how quickly your rage bar refills. Higher rank means the enemies do more damage, but it also means you hit harder, can dash into optimum position for a launching more often, break through mid-boss shield bars immediately, and can tear through the levels faster (on top of scoring more points).

You do have unlimited lives, but you start the current room over again with zero rage and zero rank (plus a permanent and cumulative scoring penalty) so it takes a long time to regain your momentum.

It's fast, it's chaotic, it never takes itself seriously, it's a fantastic game. While DMC4 has prettier graphics, I also have several issues with that game. Punch ninjas! Punch robots! Punch dudes who wear baseball caps with trenchcoats! Aces Wild is pure goodness and highly recommended!

[CKR]

Thanks, Mischief Maker.