I found that God of War bit real interesting, because they’re using it to serve both their game tutorial and as a high-threat, bombastic intro and it’s the best, first example of how they have learned a whole bag of subtle magician’s tricks to apply to the Souls combat model.
A Souls game traditionally opens with a hard boss that’s supposed to kill you, and just like it, this is the exact opposite – something that the player can’t possibly lose but which their new inspiration has given them a new sense of rules and predictability to follow. And it’s the best example of what they get out of the ‘no camera cuts’ rule – they’re forced to integrate their cinematic interludes much more tightly into the combat model.
oh i remember being real bowled over by that god of war sequence, i was like wow did they actually go so hard on a big useless fluff graphics showcase game that it wrapped around to bring Actually Good??
and then i mean no, that sequence is comfortably the peak of the game lol. but it’s nice!
edit ok though i think so much as adding the phrase “let’s finish this” to a straight-faced draft should be a fireable offense
Ah, I was grudgingly forced to accept that they built a real, legitimate combat engine and a few very good levels after running through it twice for work. It is, I’m sad to report, Actually Good
The thing that told me that God of War understood action games better than other AAA action games was that it did the fun thing and did not stop enemies from falling out of bounds. That seems like the kind of thing that would get fixed as a bug some time during development, and instead it is hilarious every time it happens and also became an integral part of my strategy while playing on a higher difficulty (where the game showcases it can do the un-fun things too, like making enemies a few levels above you more difficult just by giving them no hitstun).
oh yeah, the elevator level halfway through where you had to actually knock enemies off in order to manage crowd control like an old beat 'em up was actually where it solidified in my mind as a pretty good game
I recommend it, especially for how often it goes for $20, but with the caveats that the english VA is too hokey (pick another) and that hard difficulty is broken before you reach the open world but medium is otherwise boring, so you actually have to switch it yourself. those are big dumb caveats!
The original PS2 release for some reason made Hard the Normal difficulty in the US, which made the game obviously that much more difficult. They fixed this in the special editions, which is why I asked.
As someone who beat that original release, it was rough.
The 20th anniversary was yesterday so I’m back in Vana’diel. I really love this game as a sort of persistent world that you chip away bit by bit. Did some Mog Garden stuff, got a couple merit points, got a sofa, I’m good for now.
I definitely remember feeling like DMC3 had a harder time selling its level design than the first one until about a third to halfway through, in a way that I never particularly understood, but it comes together completely after that
3 is deservedly the best overall but most of the time I don’t feel like it’s much less uneven than 1 or 5 which are also very very good
P.N. 03 is also fits into this category. I believe it was the first capcom game to use tank controls but ditch the fixed camera angles. Basically the prototype for RE4 camera/controls.
I also like the comparison with From Software. Capcom was my favorite developer during this period but that switched to From during the PS3 era.
Okay I sat down with V I T A L I T Y (Super Metroid Hack). It made a real positive impression when I played it on the Anbernic. Mostly because it succesfully used sand traps, my most hated part of SM.
I played about 90 minutes tonight and died twice. The MiSTeR not having save states on SNES really hurt my experience. The save points are pretty far apart (bad for me with my limited game time.) and the world design is very twisty turny so getting back to a save point is not easy. I also didn’t find an energy tank so there were enemies that would eat me alive. At the end of tonight I fell down into a place I shouldn’t have and died and sighed.
Then it started giving me the bad thoughts with Super Metroid. I have to play ultra complusively to find missiles. Each missile upgrade only gives you 2 and you start with zero so I really wanted them.
yeah one of my favorite little details in 3 is spotting the level number in the opening cutscene to each level. it’s just a silly thing, but it turns into a fun game.
I appreciate how Capcom kept refining 3 to its current state. The original GH Special Edition fixing the difficulty to what it originally was and adding Vergil and then the later update to allow on the fly style switching were both great changes.
Aesthetically speaking, Virtual Boy Wario Land is extremely my cuppa tea, monochromatic sprites in a chthonic void, luxurious widescreen! Experiencing this in anaglyph 3D mode rather than stereoscopic headache-inducing red is a real treat! The intro cutscene exemplifies the dioramic delights, inviting you to peer through the layered sheets of forest to spy those little baddies marching past in the extreme distance.
The gameplay isn’t doing anything terribly new compared to the first game. You can combine powerups now which is cool. Hopping between foreground and background is a cute gimmick (the first boss does this and it’s genuinely exciting anticipating their attacks and watching them hop-splash across the lake that stands between the two of you before landing on your plane of interaction for a thumping). EDIT: I was mistaken about treasure rooms I think, you don’t need a key to open them (in the previous game, carrying the key to a treasure room door meant you couldn’t use your special abilities so had to suss out the route with a nerfed moveset) the challenge is simply finding them now (though you do need to find a key to exit the level). There do appear to be less stages and no overworld map which was a neat aspect of the first game (it does seem like the levels remain connected though and you can backtrack all the way to the beginning but I haven’t tested that yet (only about a quarter of the way through)).
The spritework. Lovely little touches abound in a playground of peripheral starkness (the lil bats at the bonus screen (two individual expressions of joy when each is selected), the beaver chilling and watching TV…in the water stage there are these fish enemies that swim in and out of z-space and these simply drawn schools of non-enemy fish just chilling with warping shafts of light filtering in from above…dreamy stuff. I’m slightly obsessed with the boxes in the treasure rooms…
Now this is not what it’s looked like for me via emulation (though I still dig the red on black)
But check these out if you've got a pair of 3D glasses (red/cyan probably work best)
And the music is so crunchy
and reverby
Such voluptuous voidness. Many more Warios to go but I could see this becoming a personal fav based on the look and sound alone.
