mohab

Nah, I can’t sell anyone on The Wonderful 101 😂 It’s an insane game for mentally unwell people…

I guess if you like Saturday-morning cartoons and goofy action games with considerable combat depth, and are comfortable with motion inputs a LA fighting games, pick it up on sale?

My blurb on the back of the cover would be: “You can air juggle alien kaiju in this one…”

If you were ever at any point into Super Sentai/Power Rangers, it should be a no-brainer to at least give it a shot; however, keep in mind this is THE Kamiya game… so if Devil May Cry 1 or Bayonetta annoyed you in any way, you’ll probably find the same 10x in The Wonderful 101.

It’s also the most video game-y video game that has ever been video gamed. Wall-to-wall insanity, no chill.

Yeah, I think what helped me get into it is I didn’t really care for anything other than combat, so I skipped most of the cut scenes except anything I felt important.

I also never bothered doing well in the mini-games. They were just not that interesting and poorly put together overall.

These long stretches without checkpoints felt fucking impossible at a couple of points throughout the game. I had to take a couple of long breaks to make it through on my first playthrough.

Unlocking shit definitely makes the game way easier. Some parts don’t feel doable without grenades, for example.

I did end up having a lot of fun in the last stages and on a subsequent playthrough though. Unlocking everything + figuring out guard cancels to increase mobility + tactically using grenades/weapon pickups made it all click in my head.

Guard canceling into gun at close range in particular made minibosses a lot easier, especially when combined with grenades.

It’s definitely one of these games that get better after the first playthrough. Issue is the first playthrough can be so rough it kills any desire to revisit the game for most people.

It’s a very bizarre game in every way.

Absolutely, haha. Requires a lot of suspension of belief and it’s a steep learning curve to get into it.

Which stage are you at?

I have read it has the best combat in the Yakuza games/spinoffs, but I haven’t played any, so I wouldn’t be able to confirm that myself.

I can confirm the combat is super fun though: way too many mechanics for an action RPG… like, you can tell it’s the same studio behind Virtua Fighter without looking at the credits.

That said, it’s still an action RPG and I don’t regret waiting to get it on sale.

This week I’m having a lot of fun unlocking skills in Lost Judgement. Apart from the RPG elements, which I do not mind so far even though I typically do, my only criticism is combat is not challenging enough even though I’m playing on Hard, and I refuse to unlock any damage boosts because I wanna take my time styling on enemies.

Too had the highest difficulty isn’t available on first playthrough.

I think I’m almost halfway through Control because the new one looks like an action game and I got tired of people asking me to play it… and I’m bitter.

Context: The three games I beat before picking up Control are Evil West, El Shaddai, and Homura Hime.

WTF is that gameplay density? Most of what I’m doing is going from point A to point B looking for stuff. The way the game dolls out powers sucks so bad… I feel as if I’m slaving away just to pay the toll to start having fun… I have about 8 hours in the game, I unlocked only 3 powers?

The upgrade system sucks too… it’s so boring to collect resources for % increase in damage, health… etc. And weapon/personal mods feel tacked on, and don’t offer anything exciting past more % boost.

And oh, God, the puzzles… I feel like at least 1 of the 8 hours are my spending time overthinking puzzles that turned out to be way dumber than I thought and less interesting that I wanted them to be. Everything is basically match A shape to shape B.

The enemies so far have been painfully generic. Not only in look, but in behavior as well. None so far made me think or strategize to get through them past the basic: take cover and target the higher priority enemy first.

That sequel better drop the metroidvania BS and give us a proper action game with much higher gameplay density because this is boring AF. It better be a more heightened experience overall.

Also, Dylan better be more interesting to play than this “Temu Scarlet Witch with a gun”

I was gonna move on to Lost Judgment after this, but I think I’m gonna need a proper action game or a shmup to cleanse my palate first.

I had to make a conscious choice to stop playing Nuclear Throne years ago. You can never be done with this game, haha.

I beat Evil West and Heartless & Dreadful this week. Fun games I will revisit for sure, especially Evil West. What a blast. Most fun I’ve ever had bashing through hordes of vampires/monsters.

That said, both had moments I’d take out if I could. Evil West had these mundane puzzle segments that just filled time in between enemy encounters, and, similarly, Heartless & Dreadful had tedious platforming segments I didn’t enjoy.

Combat is king though, and combat was good in Heartless & Dreadful and awesome in Evil West.

I hope we get Evil West 2 at some point.

Currently playing through El Shaddai and it’s pretty fun. I love the no HUD commitment. Your health bar is basically your armor: the more you get hit, the more pieces you lose. Same as your enemies.

You also could knock enemies down and steal their weapons, which weakens them greatly and forces you to cycle through weapons during combat encounters, which I like a lot.

I’m hoping to finish it on the weekend and start Lost Judgment afterwards, which I’m worried I may not fully enjoy.

I bought it because of the combat footage and praise for the combat system I’ve been seeing everywhere, but I have no interest in stealth missions, open world quests, dialogue trees or anything RPG, so IDK if combat will be enough for me to beat it and I may refund if I feel I know for sure I won’t like it within the refund window.

TBH, even though I’ve never paid more than $20 for a game, I’d probably be willing to do so if it’s a physical release considering I’ll be displaying it somewhere, which’s added value that digital games lack.

No more than $20 for digital though. I don’t care what the game is or how much money I have, I’m happy to replay my favorite games and wait.

If you’re selling for more than $20, you’re probably a relatively big publisher anyway, and I don’t feel obligated to pay what you’re asking, or, in many cases, fund your mismanagement/feed your greed.

Resting my eyes this week, so no gaming. I plan to pick up Kingdom Hearts 3 early next week though… I have no interest in the story, but if the combat is anywhere as good as 2, I know I’ll have fun.

Not looking forward to the download size though… 75GB is just silly… I’ll have to uninstall at least a couple of games to fit in.

I was playing through the Metal Gear Rising DLCs at the end of last week, so I’ll probably beat it and uninstall it. Other game will most likely be NEO: The World Ends With You, which I haven’t beaten yet, but I’m OK coming back to beat it later.

Heartless & Dreadful : Return by 72 Hours

First off, I hate that goddamn title: why the fuck is there a space before the colon… it upsets me every time I look at it 😂 The game has an unserious tone, but still WTF.

It’s a fun indie action game. In a nutshell, it’s a shameless Devil May Cry clone, which’s cool because we don’t get enough of those any longer. By that I mean: style meter, style button, d-pad to change styles, change weapons on the fly, unlocking new moves with in-game currency, and it’s even mission based.

Even the moves are identical to Dante’s and Vergil’s classic movesets.

There’s mild exploration for more items and whatnot, which I don’t mind, but the game is fairly linear. It’s about as linear as Devil May Cry 5.

I’m having enough fun with it to go on and beat it eventually, but IDK if I’ll be revisiting it for playthroughs on higher difficulties. I was always more of a Clover, Platinum, and Team Ninja fan than a Capcom/Devil May Cry fan anyway.

Blades of Time. So many mechanics for a short action game. I thought I was in for another mid budget OG God of War clone a la Marlow Briggs, but so far it’s a lot more fun and exciting to play.

Man, I wish this was a proper action game with combos, juggling and stuff and it didn’t play more or less like a martial arts soulslike.

It’s kinda like Vanquish in that: it has covers, and you can play it like a cover shooter, but it’s more fun as an action game.

Even bullets do more damage point blank.

In terms of movement, it’s odd out of the box, but once you start incorporating guard canceling (and you can guard cancel about any free movement in this game—slashing, shooting, dashing… etc.) the system really opens up.

Yet another GOTY I have no interest in because it doesn’t overlap with my favorite games in any way.

Signalis.

I love lists, so this is an easy one for me:

1. Bayonetta: unfathomably high skill ceiling. I could spend forever getting better at this game and consistently having fun.
2. The Wonderful 101: same as Bayonetta.
3. God Hand: not many games provide the exhilaration of a perfect God Hand run. I would have the best time spending the rest of my life perfecting my God Hand gameplay.
4. Ninja Gaiden 2: peak action groove. Playable crack cocaine. Would never get tired of it.
5. Gunvein: no shmup encourages you to concquer and obliterate the screen like Gunvein, even though it’s tough as nails. It’ll take me forever to no death the highest difficulty, and I’ll savour every moment.
6. Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R: I would like to be Shadow Gallery-looping people into eternity with Zato/Eddie.
7. Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes: immensely deep systems with one of my favorite fighting game characters of all-time: Chaos. Infinite potential to get better at both the game and playing Chaos.
8. Persona 4 Arena Ultimax: Ken Amada is the most lighthearted fun I’ve had in a fighting game. I will need him to always be available.
9. Hellsinker: easily most mechanically dense shmup of all-time. Easily at least hundreds of hours to digest and internalize everything.
10. Gravity Rush: best traversal in gaming. I’m content to just boot it up and float for hours.

I picked up Ikaruga. I can feel the input delay, but it’s still fun.

Half way through my second Hi-Fi Rush playthrough. Game is fantastic.

Depends on what you’re looking for. I’d confidently recommend against buying it if you’re looking for an action game. There’s at least 10 better, cheaper candidates on Steam.

So in attempt to expand my taste and library, and against my better judgment, I picked up 4 games over the past 2 months I wouldn’t typically pick up: Death Stranding, The Surge, Scarlet Nexus, and NieR:Automata.

I regret doing that.

I hate RPGs so much. They are so boring. My personal idea of gaming hell is fetch quests, escort missions, item farming, skill trees, and grinding XP.

Death Stranding: I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that bad, and I actually had some fun collecting resources to build bridges and whatnot. Also, it’s nice to boot up the game and realize someone else finished that bridge you’ve been trying to build. Driving can be fun too.

Game definitely overstays its welcome though… and I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the story. There’s no scenario where I can see myself revisiting it.

The Surge: God, I should put all the clips I have of all the buggy and awkward combat BS I ran into in this game. It’s just sad.

I hate souls-like combat. It’s so slow, all the skill goes into character builds, and this game’s take on it doesn’t exactly shake it up. I felt as if I was using 5% of my brain in every combat situation. A lot of wait-and-bait over and over again, and I just can’t see myself ever enjoying this. Never revisiting.

Scarlet Nexus: This one actually tries harder to bring action mechanics and ideas to an otherwise RPG experience, but goddammit the RPG bogs it down so hard. And that last stretch of gameplay was insufferable, by-the-numbers RPG BS. Spongy, high-leveled enemies for days, which aren’t even that difficult to beat… just chunky health bars, which seems to be action RPGs only idea of challenging combat: chunky health bars with big, often quick, attacks that can 2-shot you—once you figure out how to deal with the attacks, it becomes nothing but a battle of endurance. Just mundane, repetitive shit.

I may revisit to play the second campaign and 100%, but most likely will not.

NieR:Automata: OK, so this one has OK an combat system with combos, animation canceling, launchers, parries, counters…etc. but all of it locked behind a lot of RPG, and none of it matters if you don’t level up and dish out higher DPS anyway; otherwise, it’s yet again another battle of endurance. Fun locked up behind misery.

It’s also a nearly infinitely replayable RPG, which I find nightmare-inducing.

For the first time ever I have a “Regret” section in my library… goddammit. I will, however, still give Nioh a shot at some point. This will be the last step I take outside of my comfort zone for a long while. Back to action games, fighting games, and shmups—games I actually have tons of fun playing and can infinitely enjoy.

Windblown from Motion Twin (Dead Cells devs)

No couch co-op though, in case this is what you're looking for.