It took a little bit, but I finally bought End of Eternity (NA version -> Resonance of Fate), Bayonetta for the X360 and the Devil May Cry HD collection for the PS3. The only one left is Vanquish, but I have no idea how hard it is to find it. It wasn't hard tracking down a copy online, but I kinda want to support the local game shop that's a walk away. Plus, the store owner kinda knows what I like to play, so that's always good.
Having bothered booting up EoE or Bayo yet, so I ended up spending time with the DMC collection. More specifically, the original DMC. Because it's still my favourite out of all of them despite all the advancements to the systems throughout the years. Made it to Mission 3 before deciding to stop for some studying. I thought I was going to be able to complete Mission 1 without taking damage, but that was thrown out the window as soon as I started getting swarmed by Marionettes. Luckily, they didn't kill me. Unfortunately, I don't remember them doing that much damage on Normal! It was a pretty good wake-up call, since a lot of the games I've been playing were a little bit on the easy side, until I decide to ramp up the difficulty (that's not to say I don't enjoy easy games, just want a bit of a challenge).
Still love the castle, cheesy voice acting and whatnot, even 11 years after I've started playing it. Got up to Mission 3 then stopped. I don't know if I'm quite ready to take on Phantom, even though I remember the strategies behind it. I'll take a stab at it at some point. Not right now though.
And since I'm still looking for Vanquish, I decided to play the demo for the time being. Showed me just how badly I suck at those kinds of games. Still doesn't stop me from playing them though! Died 5 times during it, suffered a 5000pt. deduction for it. I think I might be able to get through the mission without taking too many deaths if I try again. At least I know how to pace the battle now to keep the turrets around long enough to force the boss to show its cores. It's just really fun sliding around, engaging in bullet time, shooting up your enemies, etc. It's got a really fast pace, which is something I like. It might be a little too fast at the moment, but I'll get used to it eventually.
I'll get a Borderlands post up at some point. Still playing around with Mordecai and haven't exactly planned out his skill set. I think I'll go for being a sneaky little bastard. Although using Bloodwing is starting to look more attractive because of improving drops...
25 Dec 2012
4 Dec 2012
Because this deserves its own post
I was already biased against this for various reasons (mostly art direction and whatnot), but this demo really did the trick. I had watched a few demo vids beforehand too, which looked OK. Almost fun. Until I got a good look at the controls. Thankfully, you can remap the controls. Nothing special, but at least you're not locked. What really annoyed me was the inclusion of 2 dodge options, but there's no lock-on. WHERE THE HELL IS THE LOCK-ON. I mean, I couldn't figure out how to use his Stinger until I read how to do it. It was forward-forward-attack (Y/Triangle). What the hell, Ninja Theory. Million(sorry) Trillion Stab is activated through Stinger, which IIRC, the same as the previous DMC games, but it lacks impact. It's also harder to connect to it from other moves. ETA: OK, DMC1's multi-stab move is actually activated through a combo. You can't really combo from the Stinger. For DMC3, it should be from using a Crazy Combo, or something like that (button mash like crazy). As for DMC2... Eh...
The only good thing, so far, was bringing back Brea. She suddenly reappeared on my YT feed with a combo vid. It was definitely faster than most of the other vids I had seen, but the JC'ing was pretty messed up. Because of how slow the animations were, everything was getting canceled too early. Was amusing to watch though, since it resulted in Dante spazzing like a freak. Not stylish at all. Start up animations are really long, which is a bit of an issue when cancelling because you count on the move hitting the enemy to cancel recovery. Definitely not twitch-based since you don't have that many frames to work with.
The Style System was kinda broken before, but now it's completely broken. There's no reason for it to be built around scoring as much damage as possible in a single strike. This meant that the Arbiter, the axe, was the single most useful weapon during the demo because of its extremely high attack power. Coupled with easily telegraphed attacks, you can just dodge+hit without much issue. And this is coming from someone that hasn't played in about 3 years. I'm really out of practise. You should not be able to score an SSS ranking within 30 seconds with piss-poor timing (the Demon Dodge has a massive window to work with, much larger than Bayo's Witch Time). I can understand if it were a Distorted multi-hit attack that wipes out at least 1/2 a health bar. Actually, don't think that's possible either without initiating counters. Not even spamming Lucifer (which is kinda easy to do) can get up to SS comfortably. Anyways, I saved a bunch of links that echoed my concerns for the game. I'll probably pick it up along the way on sale on Steam. I'm not about to drop money on this for a console, especially knowing that it performs worse on the PS3 (can definitely blame UE3 for that, not that it's a bad engine). A DMC not hitting 60fps is unacceptable. Neither is the difficulty. It shouldn't be original DMC3-level hard, but still enough to actually be threatening. I mean, not having any practice for 3 years then running in on Nephilim without dying? Sure, I screwed up the boss fight a few times, but even that was too easy (used the Vital Star, even if it turned out that I didn't need it).
Default controls (PS3, because I didn't download it on my X360):
Jump - X
Shoot - S
Basic - T
Special - O
Angel - L2
Demon - R2
Evade 1/2 - L1/R1
Devil Trigger - L3+R3
Gun Special - X+T
Cycle Gun - U
Cycle Angel Weapon - L
Cycle Demon Weapon - R
Center Camera - R3
Cycle Ranged Target - L3
Devil Stars are now Devil Trigger Stars (what). Health Crosses instead of Blue Orbs. Devil Trigger Crosses instead of Purple Orbs. They're really gunning for that cross theme. Gold Orbs are still there. It's just a demo, but you can apparently carry up to 10 for each of the S/L Vital and Devil Stars. Definitely less than the 30 from DMC4, but I somehow doubt you'll need that many. It's certainly not as restrictive as the original DMC, seeing as you couldn't even carry more than 1 on the higher difficulties. Then again, that game was a offshoot from Bio4, so I guess it ended up retaining some of the survival-horror elements.
Idle animations: looking around. And... not much else. I might have seen something else, but I didn't want my controller to idle for too long (it goes auto-off after 10 minutes).
Seemingly random capitalization here and there. Even missing ones. It's really nitpicking at this point, but it does speak ill of their presentation. The font, while it's not ugly or as bad as the rather wide one Capcom used for their Sengoku Basara localization, looks pretty bad when blown up to the full screen. I'll have to check how it looks when forced to 1080p. I have the PS3 to output its native resolution (1280*720, supposedly at 60Hz). I find the colours to be over-saturated, but that just might be the screen settings. It's also probably what they were going for since the normal world's colours are rather drab.
The Achievement/Trophy list is also out. Not sure how accurate or official it is, but in a way it's a nice nod to the original series. Most of them of are lines from the previous games. Let's see if I remember them all...
Looks like most of those are quotes. Not too surprising, although some of them are quite similar to other quotes from within the series. Did end up looking them up (scripts!) to clean it up and add which missions they were from (not all though). Turns out that I didn't miss that many of them~
I might have more thoughts later if I go back to it. Got Project X Zone from a StreetPass friend, so who knows. There's still SoS mode to conquer.
The only good thing, so far, was bringing back Brea. She suddenly reappeared on my YT feed with a combo vid. It was definitely faster than most of the other vids I had seen, but the JC'ing was pretty messed up. Because of how slow the animations were, everything was getting canceled too early. Was amusing to watch though, since it resulted in Dante spazzing like a freak. Not stylish at all. Start up animations are really long, which is a bit of an issue when cancelling because you count on the move hitting the enemy to cancel recovery. Definitely not twitch-based since you don't have that many frames to work with.
The Style System was kinda broken before, but now it's completely broken. There's no reason for it to be built around scoring as much damage as possible in a single strike. This meant that the Arbiter, the axe, was the single most useful weapon during the demo because of its extremely high attack power. Coupled with easily telegraphed attacks, you can just dodge+hit without much issue. And this is coming from someone that hasn't played in about 3 years. I'm really out of practise. You should not be able to score an SSS ranking within 30 seconds with piss-poor timing (the Demon Dodge has a massive window to work with, much larger than Bayo's Witch Time). I can understand if it were a Distorted multi-hit attack that wipes out at least 1/2 a health bar. Actually, don't think that's possible either without initiating counters. Not even spamming Lucifer (which is kinda easy to do) can get up to SS comfortably. Anyways, I saved a bunch of links that echoed my concerns for the game. I'll probably pick it up along the way on sale on Steam. I'm not about to drop money on this for a console, especially knowing that it performs worse on the PS3 (can definitely blame UE3 for that, not that it's a bad engine). A DMC not hitting 60fps is unacceptable. Neither is the difficulty. It shouldn't be original DMC3-level hard, but still enough to actually be threatening. I mean, not having any practice for 3 years then running in on Nephilim without dying? Sure, I screwed up the boss fight a few times, but even that was too easy (used the Vital Star, even if it turned out that I didn't need it).
Default controls (PS3, because I didn't download it on my X360):
Jump - X
Shoot - S
Basic - T
Special - O
Angel - L2
Demon - R2
Evade 1/2 - L1/R1
Devil Trigger - L3+R3
Gun Special - X+T
Cycle Gun - U
Cycle Angel Weapon - L
Cycle Demon Weapon - R
Center Camera - R3
Cycle Ranged Target - L3
Devil Stars are now Devil Trigger Stars (what). Health Crosses instead of Blue Orbs. Devil Trigger Crosses instead of Purple Orbs. They're really gunning for that cross theme. Gold Orbs are still there. It's just a demo, but you can apparently carry up to 10 for each of the S/L Vital and Devil Stars. Definitely less than the 30 from DMC4, but I somehow doubt you'll need that many. It's certainly not as restrictive as the original DMC, seeing as you couldn't even carry more than 1 on the higher difficulties. Then again, that game was a offshoot from Bio4, so I guess it ended up retaining some of the survival-horror elements.
Idle animations: looking around. And... not much else. I might have seen something else, but I didn't want my controller to idle for too long (it goes auto-off after 10 minutes).
Seemingly random capitalization here and there. Even missing ones. It's really nitpicking at this point, but it does speak ill of their presentation. The font, while it's not ugly or as bad as the rather wide one Capcom used for their Sengoku Basara localization, looks pretty bad when blown up to the full screen. I'll have to check how it looks when forced to 1080p. I have the PS3 to output its native resolution (1280*720, supposedly at 60Hz). I find the colours to be over-saturated, but that just might be the screen settings. It's also probably what they were going for since the normal world's colours are rather drab.
The Achievement/Trophy list is also out. Not sure how accurate or official it is, but in a way it's a nice nod to the original series. Most of them of are lines from the previous games. Let's see if I remember them all...
| Achievement | Origin |
|---|---|
| Time to go to work guys! | DMC1 - Dante firing E&I on motorcycle |
| Come on Puppy. Let's go! | DMC3 - Cerberus battle |
| Thing drives me crazy | DMC4 - Nero, referring to his arm after fighting Berial (M02) |
| Only kind of gift worth giving | DMC4 - Dante giving Nero Yamato (M20) |
| Flock off, feather-face! | DMC1 - Dante vs. Griffon 1 |
| It's got to stay in the family | DMC4 - Dante to Nero, talking about Yamato (M10) |
| This baby sure can pack a punch | DMC4 - Nero, about the Devil Bringer (M02) |
| He's a demon too | DMC3 - Lady, referring to Dante after she shoots him (M07) |
| You are not a Human, are you? | DMC3 - Dante, after defeating Cerberus (M03) |
| More than just a few sparks | DMC4 - Dante, after defeating Berial (M16) |
| No talking! | DMC3 - Agni&Rudra acquisition (M05) |
| Whatever, Lady | DMC3 - Dante dismissing Lady (M09) |
| You're not going to shoot me | DMC3 - Jester, to Dante (M12) |
| It's time to finish this! | DMC4 - Dante telling Nero to hurry up (M20) |
| Cleaning up his Dad's mess | DMC3 - pretty much the whole plot (spoken by Dante while talking to Beowulf, M11) |
| The end? Don't bet on it | DMC3 - M01 |
| Looks like it's your lucky day | DMC2 - Dante "accepting" his job from Matier |
| Every hero has a weakness | DMC2 - Dante to Lucia (D-M14) |
| It's only the rain | DMC3 - ending |
| A man with guts and honor | DMC1 - vs. Nelo Angelo 3 |
| Now my coat's all charred | DMC4 - Dante vs. Berial |
| Where does the time go? | DMC3 - Dante "accepting" Vergil's invitation (M02) |
| For Tony Redgrave | DMC - Dante's alias, engraved on his guns |
| In the name of my father | DMC1 - Dante declaring that he'll kill Mundus (M16) |
| You'll never have her fire | DMC1 - Dante, to Trish after Nightmare 2 |
| Impressive | DMC3 - Rudra, after Dante's showy display (M05) |
| Bring it on! | DMC3 - Dante |
| Looks like we have a winner | DMC1 - Trish, vs. Mundus 3 |
| Sensational! | DmC Devil May Cry - SSS style ranking |
| It's showtime. Come on! | DMC3 - Dante vs. Cerberus (M03) |
| This is my kind of rain | DMC3 - Catching Lady after she falls (M07) |
| Absolutely crazy about it | DMC3 - Dante, ending |
| Let's rock, baby! | DMC1 - Dante, breaking the warning screen |
| You can't handle it | DMC3 - Vergil telling Arkham he can't handle Sparda's power (M19) |
| Power... Give me more power! | DMC4 - Nero's awakening |
| Dude, the show's over! | DMC3 - M13 |
| Let's welcome chaos! | DMC3 - Arkham breaking the seal (M13) |
| And you are set free | DMC4 - Lucifer acquisition |
| Fill your dark soul with light | DMC1 - narmtastic scene of Trish's "death" |
| Keeps getting better and better | DMC3 - Dante getting ditched by Lady (M03) |
| Stylish! | DMC - general. Appeared as S style rank in 1 |
| Too easy! | DMC3 - Dante after acquiring Cerberus (M03) |
| Devils never cry | DMC1 - Dante consoling Trish DMC3 - ending |
| This is what I live for! | DMC3 - ending |
| And welcome to Hell! | DMC3 - Jester, M05 |
| Jackpot! | DMC - general finisher |
| This party's just getting crazy! | DMC3 - start |
| One hell of a party! | DMC3 - start |
I might have more thoughts later if I go back to it. Got Project X Zone from a StreetPass friend, so who knows. There's still SoS mode to conquer.
1 Dec 2012
Playing demos
Finally got the PS3 online... by moving upstairs temporarily. It was weird... Early in the day it was hovering around 30~35%, then I left for a little grocery shopping. When I came back, the download at the time, Biohazard 6, had advanced from 6% to a measly 35%. In the span of 3 hours. I was, however, able to get onto the PSN for a short amount of time. With that, I managed to nab the E.X. Troopers and DmC Devil May Cry demos (why does DmC have to be that long?). They, uh, didn't really progress for quite a while. In fact, they barely downloaded 3MB before "stopping", which was around 3PM when I last checked. I put the system to shut down once all downloads were finished, which it did when I checked again at around 6PM. No idea when the connection decided to cooperate because all downloads were finished and installed, even the demos that I didn't bother installing at least 5 months ago (whee~ Dragon's Dogma). Not going to complain, since the connection eventually ended up hovering around the 57% range and stayed that way through the night + Sunday morning when I decided to play the demos.
Speaking of which, I played 4 of them. I felt "this is fun~" for 2 of them, "..." for one, and "what the hell is this" for the last. Those who know me well enough can probably guess which ones got which reactions. But I'll spell it out anyways, mostly because of reactions to them.
This is fun~:
E.X.Troopers for both the 3DS and PS3 were great. Love the arcade feel to the missions, so I really don't know which version I want to get. It's not like I'm going to be playing co-op online for the PS3 version, and locally for the 3DS. I mean, really. Who's crazy enough to import a Lost Planet spin-off at this point in time? No one knows if it's going to be localized either, although I wouldn't count on it simply because of its visual style. Just look at it! Brightly coloured, manga-styled visuals/panels, 少年-like feel, etc. Still, it's great fun for short bursts. I'll think some more on the version. Really leaning towards the PS3 because I like the controls more, although I like the portability of the 3DS.
Dragon's Dogma would fit here, and it did. It was basically like a more action-oriented, faster paced Demon's Souls (don't ask about Dark Souls, I'm waiting for a better sale on Steam for that). Playing on a certain TV with glare made getting through one of the areas more of a pain than necessary, but it was still fun seeing the pawns doing most of the work while I was running around being an idiot. The fight against the griffon(?) was pretty bad. I didn't know/pay attention to what attacks I had, so the game actually progressed so far in the day that it was dark. Couldn't see a damn thing, ended up dying. At least the archer was someone fun to play as. Couldn't aim to save my life though. Then again, it's not like you had much of a chance to learn how to aim in the first place. Might look into it at some point.
"...":
Biohazard 6 fell here. Mostly because I decided to try Jake and Chris's campaigns first. Big mistake there, as those 2 throw you straight into the fray as soon as the session starts. Leon's starts with some exploration, so that helped with getting used to the controls. Too bad that was while I was eating dinner with a nice little bit of glare from a lamp. Didn't get to any combat, so no further comment. I did get a nice little death scene by running under the Ogroman's legs. He stomped on Piers. Someone should remind me to not do that during the main game... Also did something completely unnecessary, but oh so fun. I sniped a J'avo at short range with the anti-materiel rifle. That was a OHKO~ I'll try playing the demo again soon. Need to focus on other things.
"What the hell is this:"
And the last one. DmC Devil May Cry. This deserves its own post, so I'm giving it one.
Speaking of which, I played 4 of them. I felt "this is fun~" for 2 of them, "..." for one, and "what the hell is this" for the last. Those who know me well enough can probably guess which ones got which reactions. But I'll spell it out anyways, mostly because of reactions to them.
This is fun~:
E.X.Troopers for both the 3DS and PS3 were great. Love the arcade feel to the missions, so I really don't know which version I want to get. It's not like I'm going to be playing co-op online for the PS3 version, and locally for the 3DS. I mean, really. Who's crazy enough to import a Lost Planet spin-off at this point in time? No one knows if it's going to be localized either, although I wouldn't count on it simply because of its visual style. Just look at it! Brightly coloured, manga-styled visuals/panels, 少年-like feel, etc. Still, it's great fun for short bursts. I'll think some more on the version. Really leaning towards the PS3 because I like the controls more, although I like the portability of the 3DS.
Dragon's Dogma would fit here, and it did. It was basically like a more action-oriented, faster paced Demon's Souls (don't ask about Dark Souls, I'm waiting for a better sale on Steam for that). Playing on a certain TV with glare made getting through one of the areas more of a pain than necessary, but it was still fun seeing the pawns doing most of the work while I was running around being an idiot. The fight against the griffon(?) was pretty bad. I didn't know/pay attention to what attacks I had, so the game actually progressed so far in the day that it was dark. Couldn't see a damn thing, ended up dying. At least the archer was someone fun to play as. Couldn't aim to save my life though. Then again, it's not like you had much of a chance to learn how to aim in the first place. Might look into it at some point.
"...":
Biohazard 6 fell here. Mostly because I decided to try Jake and Chris's campaigns first. Big mistake there, as those 2 throw you straight into the fray as soon as the session starts. Leon's starts with some exploration, so that helped with getting used to the controls. Too bad that was while I was eating dinner with a nice little bit of glare from a lamp. Didn't get to any combat, so no further comment. I did get a nice little death scene by running under the Ogroman's legs. He stomped on Piers. Someone should remind me to not do that during the main game... Also did something completely unnecessary, but oh so fun. I sniped a J'avo at short range with the anti-materiel rifle. That was a OHKO~ I'll try playing the demo again soon. Need to focus on other things.
"What the hell is this:"
And the last one. DmC Devil May Cry. This deserves its own post, so I'm giving it one.
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