yeah that fucking dodge killed me like four times in the first encounter
Ah this makes a lot of sense. Most everything else you detailed on enemy satellite-ing and focus around Kratos I saw up close but this out of sight method, I really like. I’m sure other fighter/brawlers have their own type this just balances nicely to me, in their scheme of combat.
The majority of your post is why I appreciated this game; all the other polish is just nicety, as a western in this genre it felt like the most developed (yet) with thought and strategy comparable to the J level. I could poke holes in and notice the seams but it doesn’t change how it actually had huge craft out the gate, strides further than the average. Which is part of the gong respect it garnered, and why you and crew had to study so much, right?
It’s easily the best western game to look at the post-Souls environment and adapt it; the dragon level was such an obvious reference but it was more than that – it was a lost willingness in AAA-polish land to accept ‘frustrating’ (read: interesting) level mechanics
I don’t think I’d ever have figured out the offscreen enemy relative positioning thing if they hadn’t come out and explained it; it’s one of those design hacks that makes it map to our incorrect intuition
I think part of my problem with even trying to perceive the good parts of this over its deafening sound design is that trying to talk about western games versus Japanese games in 2019 makes my eyes roll out of my skull
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I can imagine why, but why? I’m falling back on that dichotomy because no matter how much times passes or dissolves, their historied contrast is still perceptible*.
*should say particularly in this convo of deep action intricacies
I like the sound design, they somehow made everything louder than the next without drowning in a sludge (evaluating strictly on its ability to enhance COMBAT IMPACT)
look at how they do the hit pause (I’ve, uh, spent a lot of time framestepping through videos recently), there’s like four things going on – they snap the enemy to the first frame of the recoil (with heavy motion blur so it’s less jarring (but just the right amount of jarring)), they exit out of Kratos’ attack animation and begin playing a variant – so if you miss, he gives an easy swing, but if you hit he rips it out, they run an IK (inverse kinematics) solver to pin Kratos’ axe to the location it hit the target, they hit pause for 100ms (3 frames @ 30fps), and the blood, boy they have really good spray, especially the way they aim it at the camera and just gout outward when a guy dies
Reading back on earlier posts
There were some good dunking ons in here
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I think it’s because it always just restates this dichotomy of one being an adaptation of the other in certain respects which is only true at the level of fairly conservative titles but is almost always extrapolated further outward in ways I don’t trust
“oh, they did actual engine work rather than only using what they could get off the shelf so the melee combat feels good like a japanese game!” ok, yes, sure, but this is the same mindset that holds that like, all indie games are puzzle platformers or that all mainstream action games have to have single protagonists leveling up
Could you explain a bit more about what you’re referring to as conservative titles with that type of aim?
It’s true sometimes east and west borrowing discussion feels tired but in this context
God of War 1 had major inspirations from DMC Onimusha and even Ico, anyone banked into the series (actually moreso combo fueling action games in general) especially since then, will likely have this kind of relationship in mind time to time. As said
I’m more praising the first I’ve encountered something distinctly not Japanese in the genre, (now maybe, given the right modifiers - hudless, difficulty, etc) to provide such an exhilarating satisfying rush. Enemy staging, huge set of options acquired for the player, actually being prompted to make use of as many as possible, viscera in sync with your effort. Before this was a VIP only dancehall occupied almost entirely by Capcom, Platinum jams and the like. And this team’s work isn’t just a borrowed tune or cover, feels really well composed, thought out, and impressive unto its own endpoint, or rather direction.
It’s really nothing to do with people lazily batching all indie games into one genre or action always involves leveling up - those trends occurred very visibly but as we know, far from like, a prevailing truth or anything.
I still mean to respond to this last post btw, I just haven’t gathered my thoughts yet
in other news, I’d been absentmindedly playing assassins creed unity with French voice acting now and then because I couldn’t justify the time with it other than on the basis of improving my listening comprehension, but it finally bored me out of it at around the same time this game’s constant shouting got to be too much, so I finally had the revelation I’d been missing and now I’m very much enjoying dieu du guerre
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I still feel like at its best it’s somehow trying too hard, that the encounter design is too tight at a macro level and too loose at a micro level – the ramp up is so intentional and the shield cancelling is so heavy handed compared to devil may cry v (or souls), which felt overly effortless if anything but was easily more fun minute to minute and in its storytelling – but so far at least the obvious Sonyisms that pace out the combat aren’t too heavy handed.
it still feels nothing like a platinum game though and honestly the comparison only holds water for me as far as actually committing to the overall structure of the combat; just like the first God of War felt more like a hyperviolent jak and daxter than a capcom game, the weird lunging action on the R2 swing in this alone puts it closer to something like Witcher 3.
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I don’t think I’m going to end up finishing it and I don’t especially like what it’s doing with its characters and I still can’t get over how bad the first half hour was (they probably should’ve just opened with that bossfight tbh, it’s much better about teaching you blocks vs dodges vs stunlocks than those tedious first few encounters) and I hope it gets a little more creative with its scenery or something but
eh
what kind of a brawler isn’t even overly fond of its own combos
this is the Nixon of brawlers
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and to be perfectly honest I expect more personality out of a bad father
you can be emotionally unavailable and difficult to please but you can’t be this joyless all the time
I might pick this up for a 2nd playthrough but it won’t be anytime soon. Anytime I’ve mentioned Platinum in comparison is not saying the play feels similar, its how the entire scope of battle here proved itself as a separate credible school of design (though with owed influence). Basically one of very few outside of things splintered from Capcom that feels, like you said “not just pulled from the shelf” and in my experience, actually made me work for it (where hack and slash is elevated with complexity to character action, next to style).
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Thinking back on the very beginning of the game, yeah the first couple encounter sections didn’t really do much attractive in regards to movement/evasion and force feedback when striking enemies, it was around and after the first troll boss that things started grooving.
what kind of a brawler isn’t even overly fond of its own combos
I mean, it’s not going the more arcade staged approach. That is a funny one to try and grapple though…there’s all sortsa good blow rhythms
so I definitely can’t clear the encounter with the banshee and the fire guys after the first apple
I think I may be getting too old for this, I’ve lost my enthusiasm
that banshee is so lame, I hate that creature design
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I’m still really not sure how I feel about the timing and the stickiness of the combat
like it’s remarkable that they’ve made it as challenging and complex as they have without it feeling better than this
I could put it down to normal mode but I’m literally only engaged by the difficulty so
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like the axe throw feels like total garbage and you have to rely on it so much
the blocking also feels like shit (it’s really fast compared to all of your other moves except it looks slow and the guard breaking feels too modal) except a lot more moves are undodgeable than they seem
the dodge is constantly disorienting because of the close perspective and the positioning arrows are immensely dissatisfying, spider man actually made this work and here it feels cheap
keeping Atreus locked on to the right enemy to use his bow is a massive nuisance
It’s only going to get more pressing on your being at odds with the feel of combat, the clashing of stone and sinew. IIRC there’s an encounter around or shortly after where you are that first introduced me to purple(?) rank enemies along with more ranged and small mobs. I died there a bunch.
The banshees were a pain after my first handful of deaths encountering them, but depending on your approach (plus-ed by closing distance making them a priority) they can become fodder like anything else that isn’t tanked by hp.
I don’t think anything’s gonna make you like this one 