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Keeshhound
Jan 14, 2010

Mad Duck Swagger

Stopwatch Crash posted:

As someone who really liked this game, I wasn't sold on your approach at first. After watching the whole video, however, I really can't think of a better playthrough to start with than that one.


As far as I could tell, 2 was close in a lot of ways but ruined by silly grindy reputation missions, and 3 was mostly about using your sword to fight off intensely lethal radishes people throw at you. I never played 4 at all and I can't imagine exactly how that would end up, given said evolution.

The big shift for me is that 1 is like playing a Kurosawa movie, and 2 is more (for most of the storylines) like playing a Yakuza movie. 3 dips into Sengoku, and 4 is... a little like Samurai Champloo, actually.

They also experimented with the combat system in each game, but I prefer 1's; it does a better job of selling the setting while also being pretty tight for it's time.

Lord Gorchnik posted:

Personally I like 4 the best and then 3 slightly after. 4 is so off the wall though that you really have to go into it with an attitude of, "I'm just going to play this and have some fun."

Pretty much. There's actually an interesting story there, but it's buried under a mountain of :what:

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Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
Yeah, playing this game, I couldn't help but constantly be reminded of Yojimbo. Which was cool for me, because Yojimbo is awesome, Akira Kurosawa rules, and Toshiro Mufune has nuts the size of basketballs and you're basically playing as him.

Gnomebitten
Mar 31, 2011

Shave Early. Shave Yourself.

Geop posted:



Clearly the work of Onis! :bahgawd:

there are going to be a lot of good gif moments in this lp, most of them involving Tesshin Kurou, so keep vigilant

Demonbait
Apr 14, 2014
I feel like the best way to surmise the gap between 1 and 4 would to just show a picture of the most hilariously customized character you can find in 4.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Demonbait posted:

I feel like the best way to surmise the gap between 1 and 4 would to just show a picture of the most hilariously customized character you can find in 4.

I don't know about 4, but in 3 I could be a cyborg, Angel Wing, Cat Pawed, Samurai in Aviators with the Thunder Drums, a ninja star on my back, and an Afro AND Pompadour at the same time.

Neruz
Jul 23, 2012

A paragon of manliness

Onmi posted:

I don't know about 4, but in 3 I could be a cyborg, Angel Wing, Cat Pawed, Samurai in Aviators with the Thunder Drums, a ninja star on my back, and an Afro AND Pompadour at the same time.

Oh my god, Kaz please tell me you are playing the entire series I need to see this.

IronCastKnight
Jul 27, 2013
Squire, equip me my popcorn, because this is gonna be goooood.

Demonbait
Apr 14, 2014
In 4 you could place accessories wherever you wanted and change their size. You could also have them change when you entered a combat stance.

My character was a walking basket, but when I drew my sword the basket shrunk to just cover my head revealing my delightful pink hat, ponytail coming out the back, 3 pipes, and the fact that I was just wearing boxers.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Demonbait posted:

In 4 you could place accessories wherever you wanted and change their size. You could also have them change when you entered a combat stance.

My character was a walking basket, but when I drew my sword the basket shrunk to just cover my head revealing my delightful pink hat, ponytail coming out the back, 3 pipes, and the fact that I was just wearing boxers.

You could do the same, except for the combat stance change in 3.

Demonbait
Apr 14, 2014
The only experience I have with 3 is stories from my friend. The only two I've played in the series are 1 and 4. That said 4 isn't all sunshine and rainbows in comparison to the first, and the let's play will probably address that once we're past the first update.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.
Also if you guys are wondering if the latter WotS games introduce you any easier to the game? No. No they do not. In fact in Way of the Samurai 3 you have the option to interrupt cutscenes by drawing your sword or bowing out of them. So when I saw the icon flash for the first time I wondered "what does that do" and suddenly I've scared off the peasents who will take you to town and heal you up. so I have 300 HP in the middle of nowhere and NO IDEA WHAT TO DO. What followed was essentially what Kaz just showed off, except I didn't leave I just got stabbed.

Also, to show the level of freedom you have with loving with the game. You are informed that you can kill everyone (not a kid) including the people who serve as save points. If you do however you're not going to be able to save. Also there's an ending based on murdering every fixed NPC. You know, if you wanna.

Schubalts
Nov 26, 2007

People say bigger is better.

But for the first time in my life, I think I've gone too far.

Demonbait posted:

In 4 you could place accessories wherever you wanted and change their size. You could also have them change when you entered a combat stance.

My character was a walking basket, but when I drew my sword the basket shrunk to just cover my head revealing my delightful pink hat, ponytail coming out the back, 3 pipes, and the fact that I was just wearing boxers.

I remember there being someone who made their character explode into umbrellas or something upon entering combat. :allears:

Shima Honnou
Dec 1, 2010

The Once And Future King Of Dicetroit

College Slice

Onmi posted:

Also if you guys are wondering if the latter WotS games introduce you any easier to the game? No. No they do not.

I enjoy how it's fully possible to not only die in cutscene in the first 5 minutes of WotS4, but to taunt someone in dialogue and get killed that way.

Basically, WotS is the best series.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Shima Honnou posted:

I enjoy how it's fully possible to not only die in cutscene in the first 5 minutes of WotS4, but to taunt someone in dialogue and get killed that way.

Basically, WotS is the best series.

I can safely say that this series has never been newbie friendly, it full endorses that the best method to teach a man to swim is to throw him in the ocean. and by man I mean Time-Looping Immortal Samurai and by Swim I mean EVERYTHING.

Keeshhound
Jan 14, 2010

Mad Duck Swagger
I love the fact that you can skip the entire opening fracas altogether, and the game still manages to keep trucking. Wish other games would figure out how to pull that off.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Keeshhound posted:

I love the fact that you can skip the entire opening fracas altogether, and the game still manages to keep trucking. Wish other games would figure out how to pull that off.

It would require a game accepting "Okay, they player may in fact, not see anything that I've made" and not just being okay with that, but reveling in it. It's not The Elder Scrolls "Here's this open world to do stuff in" it's the Elder Scrolls telling you "Hey there's the border to Morrowind/Skyrim/wherever you can leave and end the game whenever you want." Way of the Samurai does not let you have Every ending, but it certainly gives you a lot of ways to end the game, even variations.

for example. Killing Shuzen, the defacto final boss of WotS 3 has 3 separate ending categories (outside of other endings where you fight him) depending on when in the game you kill him. And, if you use reverse blades to kill him, Shuzen will kill himself. In fact to get the last of the endings killing him, I had to ally with him right up until the end of the game. And the final boss fight if you do so is against Itsuse, who I liked and didn't wanna kill, so I reverse-bladed her. Then Shuzen murdered her because I didn't.

In the two endings you ally with Princess Araragi, depending on if you Kill Shuzen or reverse-blade him, changes the ending, in the latter, Araragi will stab you rear end well as Shuzen, for while she finds you very interesting, you're not a useful pawn like that.

In short. Not only are there endings, the endings can typically vary a lot.

I still like how Ending 2 has you going off with Osei, the girl you met at the start of the game, with the ending text crawl telling you that Shuzen ruled with fear for a bit until Nobunaga showed up and just stomped him into the ground. Because that's Nobunaga's existence in the game, the big boogeyman who shows up to ruin everyones day if they're trying to rule the province.

Keeshhound
Jan 14, 2010

Mad Duck Swagger

Onmi posted:

It would require a game accepting "Okay, they player may in fact, not see anything that I've made" and not just being okay with that, but reveling in it. It's not The Elder Scrolls "Here's this open world to do stuff in" it's the Elder Scrolls telling you "Hey there's the border to Morrowind/Skyrim/wherever you can leave and end the game whenever you want." Way of the Samurai does not let you have Every ending, but it certainly gives you a lot of ways to end the game, even variations.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that every game needs to do that, but I do wish that more games would have that confidence in themselves. It's the thing about this series that made me come back no matter how many changes to the combat or tone it underwent; in each iteration, it's always been willing to let you actually guide the story to a degree that no other game (that comes to mind) does.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Keeshhound posted:

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that every game needs to do that, but I do wish that more games would have that confidence in themselves. It's the thing about this series that made me come back no matter how many changes to the combat or tone it underwent; in each iteration, it's always been willing to let you actually guide the story to a degree that no other game (that comes to mind) does.

And I agree with you, certainly if every game was Way of the Samurai I would start to feel sick of feeling lost for at least the first run through. Or accidentally stumbling onto the umpteenth ending where I got murdered.

Reagle
Feb 16, 2011

Otter you waiting for?

Demonbait posted:

In 4 you could place accessories wherever you wanted and change their size. You could also have them change when you entered a combat stance.

My character was a walking basket, but when I drew my sword the basket shrunk to just cover my head revealing my delightful pink hat, ponytail coming out the back, 3 pipes, and the fact that I was just wearing boxers.

In 3 one of the accessories was a shoulder bird. I made my character model invisible, put the bird dead in the center, used some angel wings (because of course the game has angel wings) to make it look like the bird way flying, and used the big tuna fish sword. Needless to say it was the most badass thing possible.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Reagle posted:

In 3 one of the accessories was a shoulder bird. I made my character model invisible, put the bird dead in the center, used some angel wings (because of course the game has angel wings) to make it look like the bird way flying, and used the big tuna fish sword. Needless to say it was the most badass thing possible.

I did not have the big tuna fish sword.

Radio
Jul 25, 2003

Oh no, trash bear!
The Meiji era was noted for pioneering fishnet as a heterosexual male fashion choice.

Gensuki
Sep 2, 2011

Radio posted:

The Meiji era was noted for pioneering fishnet as a heterosexual male fashion choice.

And here I thought that started in 80's music videos... The more you know.

Akujiki
Nov 25, 2013


Keeping a close eye on this. I actually discovered Way of the Samurai in a Blockbuster an eternity ago and fell in love. Loved 2 even with the horrendous voice-acting, loved 3, and hated 4 because of the energy system.

I actually picked up Yakuza Ishin hoping it would be more Way of the Samurai than it was. Game's all right but it doesn't satisfy the craving so I still occasionally put 3 in again.

Gensuki posted:

You never showed it off, but it was hinted at. Does stealing someone's sword actually give you their moves? Did you willingly choose not to break-dance-fight?

I didn't see anybody answer this so here goes, although it has been a long time since I played the first game so I might be misremembering.

Every sword in the game has its own moveset and experience value, and moves are learned in various circumstances. Techniques are learned from hitting enemies in the air, from hitting enemies while you're under 100 HP, from hitting people while they're downed, from interrupting enemies with attacks, and from avoiding (avoiding is basically Just Defending in WotS, blocking at the exact correct moment). For all that taunting your enemies in combat might seem like pointless fun, it does tend to make them use their rarer, more powerful moves, that you can usually gain techs from via Avoid.

Generally when you get a new sword your moveset is reeeally tiny, so get Dona Dona's sword doesn't give immediate access to his funky moves, you have to earn them.

Dareon
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin

Coolguye posted:

Yeah, playing this game, I couldn't help but constantly be reminded of Yojimbo. Which was cool for me, because Yojimbo is awesome, Akira Kurosawa rules, and Toshiro Mufune has nuts the size of basketballs and you're basically playing as him.

Mifune is the default name for the protagonist in 2, so yeah, you're basically right on the money.

I know I didn't get tied to the train tracks on my first playthrough, but I did in my second at the earliest.

I forget precisely how I got introduced to the series, but I know I picked up 1 on impulse (Possibly informed by thinking it looked similar to the Tenchu series), snagged 2 when a friend mentioned it to me, and actually kept an eye on when 3 would come out and got that at or around release. I haven't gotten 4, and in fact only learned of its existence when the dating minigame was brought up in a PYF thread.

Lemonpieman
Jan 18, 2010
Going on a blood fueled murder frenzy always seems like a good way to start these kinds of things out. This game looks really neat! I'm really looking forward to the next video.

manyleeks
Apr 22, 2010

Just another day at the office
This game is the only game I know of that manages to combine "sociopath simulator" with "detailed social interaction layered with multiple rules simulator" in a single engine.

I spent a lot of time playing WotS 3 back in the day, and really enjoyed it, although it was a little easy to cheese most of the fights if you used the instant kill counter move. I'd had no experience with the series before that, so it took me about two hours of basically doing what Kaz did in that first video to figure out what the hell was going on. And as mentioned, the series is hugely unforgiving on event flags - 3 in particular is quite easy to run into the wrong person at the wrong time and condemn them or yourself to an early grave just through not knowing what's going on.

I picked up 4 when it came out, but it's a little bit too batshit crazy for me. That and the load times are atrocious for a late-era PS3 game that installs to the HDD...

Shima Honnou
Dec 1, 2010

The Once And Future King Of Dicetroit

College Slice

Akujiki posted:

Keeping a close eye on this. I actually discovered Way of the Samurai in a Blockbuster an eternity ago and fell in love.

Glad I'm not alone. I actually got a PS2 because of WotS1. Saw it in Blockbuster, thought "This looks pretty cool, better get one of them PS2s as soon as I can so I can actually try it" and the rest is pretty much history.

Agean90
Jun 28, 2008


I forgot how chill the song that plays in the afternoons is.

HenryEx
Mar 25, 2009

...your cybernetic implants, the only beauty in that meat you call "a body"...
Grimey Drawer
I spent like 100 hours on the first one. It's a bit clunky, but i prefer it to WotS 2 despite all the quality of life improvements like skipping dialogue.

Dunno, 1 seems like a more tightly crafted cohesive narrative and everything (and everyone) is distinct.


Also, Mikiri 4 lyfe
Or was it called Iwase in the English version... Anyway.
Gotta catch them all!


I never caught them all

Tallgeese
May 11, 2008

MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR


Am I the only one who hated WotS2 because of its lower framerate? It just felt so slow.

Sindai
Jan 24, 2007
i want to achieve immortality through not dying
I never played 2, but 3 and 4 had almost PS2-quality graphics and chugged like crazy with more than a couple of characters on screen, which was pretty annoying.

Shima Honnou
Dec 1, 2010

The Once And Future King Of Dicetroit

College Slice
"Slow" is one of the most apt words WotS3, which ran on Gamebryo (Made infamous by Oblivion, but it was the engine for a number of other games over the years) and loving chugged down into single digits during big battles - and there's at least one big battle in the game where dudes constantly respawn. Plus, there was the whole DLC debacle for the 360 version.

Rocketlex
Oct 21, 2008

The Manliest Knight
in Caketown
I was way too amused by "So if I stay detected, I'll fight them! Yes! Fighting! :black101:"

This LP is going to be great.

Dareon
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin

Shima Honnou posted:

"Slow" is one of the most apt words WotS3, which ran on Gamebryo (Made infamous by Oblivion, but it was the engine for a number of other games over the years) and loving chugged down into single digits during big battles - and there's at least one big battle in the game where dudes constantly respawn. Plus, there was the whole DLC debacle for the 360 version.

I must have missed that entire thing, I never noticed any slowdown on the 360 version (Although I have high tolerances for slowdown, I classed Surgeon Simulator as playable on my PC until I watched a video that revealed I was literally playing it at half speed or less) and heard nothing of any sort of problems with the DLC.

U.T. Raptor
May 11, 2010

Are you a pack of imbeciles!?

I was hoping someone would eventually LP this series :allears:

Reagle posted:

In 3 one of the accessories was a shoulder bird. I made my character model invisible, put the bird dead in the center, used some angel wings (because of course the game has angel wings) to make it look like the bird way flying, and used the big tuna fish sword. Needless to say it was the most badass thing possible.
Way of Literally A Bird.

bman in 2288
Apr 21, 2010
Yeah, this game. Over a decade ago, my best friend introduced me to this game, and he was completely taken by it. I myself noticed that the combat was fun, but not what I was used to (I was having way too much fun with MGS2 at the time). He then tried to compare the two games, which really confused me. And then I learned of one storyline you could do, and then that's the only storyline I ever did. Because I'm like that.

Good times, this game. Looking forward to you showing the rest of it off, Kaz.

Captain Oblivious
Oct 12, 2007

I'm not like other posters
The original Way of the Samurai devoured my time in middle school. I bought it on a lark and was absolutely enthralled. It was so different from anything I'd ever really played before.

Sadly I just can't get into the newer ones. I don't know what it is. The tone is just...different somehow. The original will always be a special game for me though :allears:

Shima Honnou
Dec 1, 2010

The Once And Future King Of Dicetroit

College Slice

Dareon posted:

I must have missed that entire thing, I never noticed any slowdown on the 360 version (Although I have high tolerances for slowdown, I classed Surgeon Simulator as playable on my PC until I watched a video that revealed I was literally playing it at half speed or less) and heard nothing of any sort of problems with the DLC.

The DLC issue was the company that ported it to 360 literally lost the unlock activation codes. I got in touch with one of the reps for the company and that's what I was told. So not only was the DLC for 360 set to cost money whereas the PS3 DLC was free, they actually couldn't release most of it because they straight up fumbled the trigger keys down a drain or something. I don't know if that was ever even resolved or not.

Flesnolk
Apr 11, 2012

Onmi posted:

Killing Shuzen, the defacto final boss of WotS 3 has 3 separate ending categories (outside of other endings where you fight him) depending on when in the game you kill him.

He also has Mojo Jojo's voice (Roger Jackson's the VA and doesn't even bother hiding it), so that's a decent - if immersion breaking - reason to check out WotS 3 right there. How is the "flip out and kill everyone" ending? Usually endings along those lines are glorified Game Overs.

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Keeshhound
Jan 14, 2010

Mad Duck Swagger

Flesnolk posted:

He also has Mojo Jojo's voice (Roger Jackson's the VA and doesn't even bother hiding it), so that's a decent - if immersion breaking - reason to check out WotS 3 right there. How is the "flip out and kill everyone" ending? Usually endings along those lines are glorified Game Overs.

A pain in the rear end to get (you have to kill EVERY npc, and some only show up at certain times), but actually a little on the creepy side.

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