Hi, I promise I’ll write more later but I just wanted to start a topic on this crazy free to play game, by Suda51 and with music by Akira Yamaoka (the studios behind it are Grasshopper Manufacture and GungHo Online Entertainment). It’s a roguelike (but seriously, it has a lot more elements of a roguelike than I’ve seen in a console game before) dungeon crawler with asynchronous multiplayer and is hugely influenced by the Souls and SMT games.
In lieu of more words (I’m tired) for now, here’s some screenshots and some irc logs of me talking about it.
02:45 <@lenox> well here’s all da shots http://imgur.com/a/KXOIm
02:57 < Dracko> let it pie
02:57 < Dracko> so
02:57 < Dracko> this game is good?
02:57 < Dracko> and single-player?!
02:57 < Dracko> good thing i’m already d/ling it, i guess
02:57 <@lenox> it’s sp/mp
02:57 <@lenox> kinda
02:57 <@lenox> its asynchronous
02:58 < Dracko> so like dksouls
02:58 < Dracko> ???
02:58 <@lenox> when you die, that person becomes a ‘hater’ which is a player ghost
02:58 <@lenox> anybody can run into that person
02:58 <@lenox> for instance i found adi’s ghost pretty fast
02:58 <@lenox> you can reclaim your own ghosts and they’ll be playable again
02:58 <@lenox> you have to defeat 'em
02:58 <@lenox> and there’s base raids like mgs5
02:58 < Dracko> haha
02:58 <@lenox> there’s not really full dark souls style mp
02:58 <@lenox> as far as i can tell
02:59 <@lenox> it plays like a ps2 third person combat platformer which isn’t a bad thing
02:59 <@lenox> it’s got a LOT of roguelike elements, ones that i’ve never seen in a game like this before, definitely not a console game
03:00 <@lenox> i recommend it though
03:00 < Dracko> lenox you should make an sb thread
The F2P elements are mainly buying passes that help you enjoy the game more (there’s a sort of premium monthly pass that accelerates dungeon exploration with quality of life enhancements; you can also pay to increase storage space and revive yourself in-place if you die) but none of them really feel like ‘Pay 2 Win’ so far. You also get a bunch of freebies (like a one-day ‘sample’ of that monthly pass, and a small amount of the premium currency) just for logging in each day.
I got to an unexpected miniboss last night, and was not equipped to deal with him at all. I died, and the insurance lady asked if I wanted to spend one of my freebie initial premium coins to revive. I eventually decided against it, and spent about 25% of my ‘normal’ currency to reclaim that player instead. Honestly, the penalty is not high for not wanting to pay for stuff, to the point where I’m kinda scared for this game’s profitability.
I’m sure, later on, there’ll be more reasons to want to pay. I have a feeling the premium elevator will be enough to get people to buy monthly passes.
My biggest concern was that there might be lack of content/lasting appeal, but then I beat the first miniboss and was able to set my waiting room’s music to j-alt-rock and it also unlocked waiting room raids, so yeah, I am very happy with this game. I’ll try to do another screenshot dump in a bit - now I’ve gotta fortify my base I guess.
it also makes me feel bad for the same reason that Tokyo jungle and dead rising did: The combat is such a PS2-esque jankfest that it’s really hard for me to love
