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Yodzilla
Apr 29, 2005

Now who looks even dumber?

Beef Witch
I just loving love monsters out of Japanese folklore and I finally have another game with some weird thing going "yyyyoooooooo" and "aaaawwll aaaaawwll" in the background.

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HMS Boromir
Jul 16, 2011

by Lowtax

Shima Honnou posted:

Man I hope so because it looks awesome as hell and Koei is on a bit of a "Bring everything to PC" kick these past couple years.

Since this and Atelier are the only Koei-Tecmo published games I actually want to try, they're guaranteed to never come to PC.

Yodzilla
Apr 29, 2005

Now who looks even dumber?

Beef Witch
Nue can suck my balls.

8-Bit Scholar
Jan 23, 2016

by FactsAreUseless
I do think, if Team Ninja is scanning threads like these for feedback, that they NEED to fix the damage values in this game.

To be blunt, every single enemy being capable of one or two-shotting me, even in full armor, is a pain in the rear end. I can get the appeal of having so little margin for error, but at this point it just doesn't feel balanced at all. Levels become grueling campaigns until you just level up enough to overpower enemies around you. The combat engine is great and nuanced and it's totally possible to clear a stage of enemies while sustaining minimal damage, but the sheer threat enemies present makes fights more stressful than fun.

The crawling enemies are the loving worst, their grab attack feels very off, like it has a really really good hit box and they can launch into it with very little in the way of tells.

I'm not sure how I feel overall about the lock-on system, but i sort of dig that it no longer automatically faces and locks my character on towards the enemy like it does in Dark Souls. This allows for great mobility, but it can gently caress you over at times too and you may get locked into comboing uselessly in the opposite direction of your enemy. The additional mobility, however, also makes it so much easier for you to expose your weak point, the back, to your enemy. If the lock on worked like Dark Souls, you'd have a bigger defensive advantage in battle because your back would always be facing away from your foe.

Yodzilla
Apr 29, 2005

Now who looks even dumber?

Beef Witch

8-Bit Scholar posted:

The crawling enemies are the loving worst, their grab attack feels very off, like it has a really really good hit box and they can launch into it with very little in the way of tells.

You can be grabbed while in midair doing jumping/spinning heavy attacks. It's kinda complete bullshit.

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Yodzilla posted:

You can be grabbed while in midair doing jumping/spinning heavy attacks. It's kinda complete bullshit.

Yeah, for a giant boss or something that'd make sense, but for those little zombie dudes its bullshit. They need to get toned down a little. Definitely feels like their grab attack is magnetic.

Sylphosaurus
Sep 6, 2007
Holy poo poo, I thought that people were exaggerating but the main character is pretty much Geralt of Rivia.

lets hang out
Jan 10, 2015

If you only move the stick a little while locked on you stay facing your target. Obv no help against big groups but hey

If regular enemies are hitting you for huge amounts of hp check your armor, it really does make a difference. Like not even the big cyclopses can kill me in 2 hits (it's 3).

lets hang out fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Apr 29, 2016

Uncle Wemus
Mar 4, 2004

Sylphosaurus posted:

Holy poo poo, I thought that people were exaggerating but the main character is pretty much Geralt of Rivia.

Do they explain why a westerner named william is in old japan?

Real hurthling!
Sep 11, 2001




Uncle Wemus posted:

Do they explain why a westerner named william is in old japan?

Google william adams japan

8-Bit Scholar
Jan 23, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

Uncle Wemus posted:

Do they explain why a westerner named william is in old japan?

He's based off a real life guy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams_(sailor)

Shumagorath
Jun 6, 2001
I would pick this up but Team Ninja seems to favour whatever console I don't own (Ninja Gaiden's Sigma versions were cool on PS3 but lacked all the fun blood and dismemberment in NG2).

Shima Honnou
Dec 1, 2010

The Once And Future King Of Dicetroit

College Slice

Uncle Wemus posted:

Do they explain why a westerner named william is in old japan?

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip

Snak
Oct 10, 2005

I myself will carry you to the Gates of Valhalla...
You will ride eternal,
shiny and chrome.
Grimey Drawer
I don't have any problems with the damage values what so ever.

The grab attack is really obnoxious and I hate it, but the solution to the crawling guys is really simple: use the high guard. Now your fast attack is a vertical slash that easily connects with them on the ground.

In fact, in the second area I realized that I had been an idiot for picking one stance and sticking with it. The game is designed for you to fluidly chance stances as the situation requires. There's a skill that gives you extra Ki regeneration when you Ki Pulse into a new stance. So the idea is you are rewarded for doing a combo in one stance, Ki pulsing into another stance and doing a combo there. Since you can set up different combo finishers in different stances, you end up with a lot of options.

This game better loving come out this year.

Hakkesshu
Nov 4, 2009


I beat the demo, it's so loving hard, I died more in these two areas than I did in the entirety of Dark Souls 3.

I was really unsure about this game at first, but it totally won me over by the end. The combat is incredibly meaty and every single enemy being on your level (or better, as it turns out) is such a different dynamic than I'm used to from these games. Once I figured out the timing on the stamina regain, the combat really opened up. Attempting to stagger the second boss with a heavy stance hammer while haphazardly trying to avoid being one-shotted by lightning was so loving harrowing, it ended up being a really heart-pounding back and forth and defeating him gave me an adrenaline rush I haven't felt in a long-rear end time.

I really like it. The learning curve is immense, but once I figured out how the loot worked it really clicked, and the mechanic of fighting people's bloodstains to get their poo poo is pretty ingenious. I threw myself at the first few enemies over and over again for hours, slowly building up, getting better drops, learning the intricacies of the combat. It requires a fuckton of patience, but there's a lot of depth here, and IMO it's a nice half-step between Souls and something like Ninja Gaiden. It's definitely not as well-made as Souls, and the balance is completely hosed, but hey it is an alpha and if they can iron out the kinks before release I think it has the potential to be outstanding.

It definitely needs to be much easier, or at least not throw you against a brick wall from the first loving enemy you encounter, otherwise no one will loving buy this game, but I have to admit beating it felt like a hell of an accomplishment.

Snak
Oct 10, 2005

I myself will carry you to the Gates of Valhalla...
You will ride eternal,
shiny and chrome.
Grimey Drawer
I died a lot, but to the first enemy? Maybe twice while I was learning the controls. The game is pretty hard in general, but I feel like people trying to play it like Dark Souls, rather than learning Nioh's mechanics, is a much bigger wall.

Unlike Dark Souls, you should be checking your gear at least every time you are at the shrine. There are constant upgrades. I don't remember the last time I check and didn't find that I had picked up a major improvement. While skill is really important, Nioh has a much more stat and gear driven balance than Souls. no is ever beating this poo poo at level 1 with no weapons, it's not set up that way.

Also, holy poo poo, use your living weapon. I still don't know what exactly charges the gauge, but it does SO MUCH DAMAGE and makes you loving INVINCIBLE. (Taking damage depletes it, I have completely wasted it by eating a big attack right after activating it.)

I'm trying to make a video overview of the demo to post soon. I'll try and get it done tomorrow.

I'm just now getting into the groove where I can fight guys all Ninja Gaiden style instead of like a scared dark souls player.

Yodzilla
Apr 29, 2005

Now who looks even dumber?

Beef Witch
EAT poo poo NUE.


Summoned a swordbro in and he helped me take him down but even with another person + me stunlocking him with Fish Power for a decent chunk it still wasn't an easy fight.

This game has a lot of potential but isn't perfect and I gotta say my least favorite part about it is how loot level locked it is. I went back and played the first stage (and it seems like only the little green spirits get saved) and I was pretty much invincible.

lets hang out
Jan 10, 2015

Try as I might I just can't keep any hosts alive through stage 1 :negative:

8-Bit Scholar
Jan 23, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

lets hang out posted:

Try as I might I just can't keep any hosts alive through stage 1 :negative:

Just make your priority be helping them find shortcuts, it's the most useful thing you can do.

Brumaldo
Jun 29, 2013

The trick to dealing with the grabby ghoulies is to lure them in an open area and employ the Ancient Samurai Technique of running in circles like a scared little girl.
They telegraph their grab. As soon as they hit the ground hit them once with a high stance hit, and run the hell away. If they decide to stand up for whatever reason they're really easy.

LawfulWaffle
Mar 11, 2014

Well, that aligns with the vibes I was getting. Which was, like, "normal" kinda vibes.
I beat the first boss and fell asleep while working through the second area. It's still brutal but I still respect it for it's unforgiving nature. The game thrives on your patience, which is deceptive because it allows you bursts of speed on the level of Ryu Hayabusa before penalizing you for not having more control over your actions. Every move, both from the enemy and from William, has an opening to exploit. To this end, I think the one-on-one fights with enemies or summoned samurai feels like a modern Bushido Blade. One hit might not kill you or critically wound an arm, but it becomes a brief dance where it's 100% possible to decimate the enemy without taking any damage, but one slip up can put you on the brink of death. Things become more difficult if you pull multiple enemies, but you learn to pull people one at a time, or start popping heads from a distance with the bow, so you can keep the advantage. And when you do aggro two or more people at the same time the game becomes incredibly hectic. Enemies know to surround you and attack your weak points, but quickly changing stances (low so you can strike multiple times and pulse-dash out of danger, mid for enemies side-by-side, high for recovering or exposed targets) and maybe a poison bomb or fire shuriken can still keep you on top.

Sometimes I know my number's up, and I've bit off more than I can chew, and when I do I start to run closer to the shrine so I can safely retrieve my spirit. There's something particularly Kurosawa about running through a ruined town attracting more and more enemies before turning around to finally make your fatal stand against a dozen angry samurai.

Shōulgun keeps making me happy and I'm excited for it's supposed 2016 release.

Yodzilla
Apr 29, 2005

Now who looks even dumber?

Beef Witch
Something I noticed that's kinda odd/bad is that in a given level if you attack an enemy and, say, knock it off its perch or into a place it otherwise is trapped in it'll eventually teleport back to its spawn point. Thankfully it retains any damage you've done but man, why do that?


Also what carries over between replaying levels? I think the little spirits you've found do but do shortcuts stay unlocked?

Snak
Oct 10, 2005

I myself will carry you to the Gates of Valhalla...
You will ride eternal,
shiny and chrome.
Grimey Drawer

Yodzilla posted:

Something I noticed that's kinda odd/bad is that in a given level if you attack an enemy and, say, knock it off its perch or into a place it otherwise is trapped in it'll eventually teleport back to its spawn point. Thankfully it retains any damage you've done but man, why do that?


Also what carries over between replaying levels? I think the little spirits you've found do but do shortcuts stay unlocked?

Shortcuts do not stay unlocked. The Kodamas are persistent shrine upgrades even between missions, I think (the second mission has the ones you found from the first mission).

Yodzilla
Apr 29, 2005

Now who looks even dumber?

Beef Witch
Ugh that kinda sucks. Yeah I wonder what the replayability of the full game is going to be and if there's even a reason to go back to previous missions.

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.
The one thing about this game that really is truly harder and meaner than dark souls is, if you die you drop your souls Amarita on your little cute spirit animal, and like dark souls you have to get it back without dying. BUT, unlike dark souls, if you die on the way to your spirit, not only are those souls gone forever, but you don't drop a subsequent bloodstain. Any souls you picked up on the way to trying to retrieve your souls are ALSO gone.

That seems needlessly punitive! Comeon Team Ninja cut a guy some slack.

As a result, you can call your spirit animal to return from your bloodstain at a shrine, but doing so means all the souls (and apparently some items drop on death?) are gone, but you get the spirit animal back so if you die you'll create another one.

The chaotic and extremely lethal nature of the combat also means I find myself dying, dropping lots of souls, and then getting owned by somebody I've killed many times because I'm rushing a little too much to get back to my souls.

In DS3 usually once you get to a certain point, you can get back to that point relatively safely. If you really get careless and rush sometimes you die on the way to a bloodstain, but not nearly as often as I'm finding in Nioh. One little slipup is all it takes for you to get straight up murdered. That in itself is fine by me though.

I just wish you'd always drop a bloodstain no matter what, like dark souls.

LawfulWaffle
Mar 11, 2014

Well, that aligns with the vibes I was getting. Which was, like, "normal" kinda vibes.
I'm looking forward to a "no armor, no damage" run through of the demo and the subsequent game. Really, this game seems like it'd be the perfect vessel for a one-hit kill mode, with maybe the Yokai taking two or three.

e: The 8-4 Play podcast talked about the game for twenty minutes or so, and they thought the controls weren't tight, the menus were bad, and they had problems about the Ki costs and the exhaustion penalty. They compared Nioh with Dark Souls a lot, but I think that does the game a huge disservice. Demon/Dark Souls innovated on the action-RPG genre so much that it's going to be harder and harder to find titles that draw no inspiration. Leaving your experience where you died was a great idea that balances risk and reward while allowing players to grind levels and feel tense excitement when trying to recover a large cache of exp. A stamina gauge easily inserts a layer of tactical complexity to any combat system by making players consider each move and its timing to truly master it. The Souls games brought large environments filled with nooks and crannies and shortcuts, so that even if you died you would have a better understanding of the critical path and can avoid areas you've already cleared out. Being able to summon other players to help you does a great job of making a single-player game easier for those having trouble, and letting those who help gain strength without risking anything. Those are good game design decisions, and of course we're going to see them in more and more games. And a feudal Japanese setting is a good place to implement them.

But focusing on Nioh being a Souls clone ignores the big contributions that Team Ninja brought to the table. Positioning is more important, as any attack to the back deals critical damage. You can exert a limited amount of control as to where enemies are (by way of parrying) to exploit this. There's more to think about at any given moment during a battle. In Dark Souls, depending on your build you could attack five or six times while still having enough stamina to dodge roll away from a rebuttal. Nioh wants the player to have total control over their attacks by rewarding a playstyle that takes deliberate pauses. Not to push too hard on the "it's like real life" argument, but it makes sense (to me) that a samurai who could die in one hit would be careful to balance offense with defense and strike in controlled bursts. Spirit releases(?) and the types of Ninjitsu and magic abilities available really drive home that this is being created by a team with a lot of experience making action titles, and to ignore that is ignoring a huge part of what's going to set Nioh apart.

Bottom line, if you're going into Nioh expecting Dark Souls, you're going to be disappointed. If you're going to make that comparison, you need to bring Way of the Samurai and Ninja Gaiden into the mix as well, because those are equally important to the game's design.

LawfulWaffle fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Apr 29, 2016

lets hang out
Jan 10, 2015

There's a weird thing where sometimes when I get summoned and first meet up with the host my spirit animal flies into them. Anyone used summons enough to know what's happening there?

Randomzx
Jul 26, 2007

8-Bit Scholar posted:

I do think, if Team Ninja is scanning threads like these for feedback, that they NEED to fix the damage values in this game.

To be blunt, every single enemy being capable of one or two-shotting me, even in full armor, is a pain in the rear end. I can get the appeal of having so little margin for error, but at this point it just doesn't feel balanced at all. Levels become grueling campaigns until you just level up enough to overpower enemies around you. The combat engine is great and nuanced and it's totally possible to clear a stage of enemies while sustaining minimal damage, but the sheer threat enemies present makes fights more stressful than fun.

The crawling enemies are the loving worst, their grab attack feels very off, like it has a really really good hit box and they can launch into it with very little in the way of tells.

I'm not sure how I feel overall about the lock-on system, but i sort of dig that it no longer automatically faces and locks my character on towards the enemy like it does in Dark Souls. This allows for great mobility, but it can gently caress you over at times too and you may get locked into comboing uselessly in the opposite direction of your enemy. The additional mobility, however, also makes it so much easier for you to expose your weak point, the back, to your enemy. If the lock on worked like Dark Souls, you'd have a bigger defensive advantage in battle because your back would always be facing away from your foe.

Its really just the fact you take MASSIVE damage bonus from being hit in the back. And with the soft lock-on feature, you'll be exposing your back a lot with casual movements. And it seems running out of stamina/ki also increase the damage you take. This goes both ways for you and your enemies, hence one of the parries just instantly place you behind the opponent.

This was done even in the Witcher series, for example on the Witcher 2 on one of the highest difficulty, getting hit in the back pretty much instantly kills you.

Randomzx fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Apr 29, 2016

Randomzx
Jul 26, 2007

Sylphosaurus posted:

Holy poo poo, I thought that people were exaggerating but the main character is pretty much Geralt of Rivia.

Well where did you think the 90s low-budget live action Geralt got his katana from?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6bidTGtuhw

Real hurthling!
Sep 11, 2001




the level 2 shortcut run is quite a gauntlet

Snak
Oct 10, 2005

I myself will carry you to the Gates of Valhalla...
You will ride eternal,
shiny and chrome.
Grimey Drawer

Real hurthling! posted:

the level 2 shortcut run is quite a gauntlet

Yeah the intermediate shortcuts are barely useful. It's a pretty cool area though. Once I got confident enough to fight the big guys without using bombs and only using like one elixir per, it really opened up. The fact that they usually drop 1 or 2 elixirs is really nice.

Evil Eagle
Nov 5, 2009

Real hurthling! posted:

the level 2 shortcut run is quite a gauntlet

My second time through I just went straight for the east gate key and skipped the shortcut.

Davincie
Jul 7, 2008

level 2 = run for the tree with mist you can knock down, run for the door next to spawn, run for the key, activate the save point right next to the boss. but my god, so much annoying stuff you have to dodge

Real hurthling!
Sep 11, 2001




Davincie posted:

level 2 = run for the tree with mist you can knock down, run for the door next to spawn, run for the key, activate the save point right next to the boss. but my god, so much annoying stuff you have to dodge

oh poo poo. i didn't know about the trees that would make it a lot easier

Snak
Oct 10, 2005

I myself will carry you to the Gates of Valhalla...
You will ride eternal,
shiny and chrome.
Grimey Drawer
Wait... There's a shrine by the boss? Is the key that item in the tree? Dueling revenants is fun. You get a cup to summon a sunmurai bro every time you win. And you can always find a super easy one to beat. I fought one that had no armor at all.

VocalizePlayerDeath
Jan 29, 2009

lets hang out posted:

There's a weird thing where sometimes when I get summoned and first meet up with the host my spirit animal flies into them. Anyone used summons enough to know what's happening there?

My bro believes that's you lending your animal to them temporarily until they retrieve their bloodstain.

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
I really want to like this demo more but they need to really fix fighting multiple enemies at once and enemy health

I do not mind your character being a glass cannon if the enemies are too. It feels weird that every enemy is objectively stronger than you are.

Real hurthling!
Sep 11, 2001




Mel Mudkiper posted:

I really want to like this demo more but they need to really fix fighting multiple enemies at once and enemy health

I do not mind your character being a glass cannon if the enemies are too. It feels weird that every enemy is objectively stronger than you are.

mid stance axe for crowds. no problem

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Real hurthling! posted:

mid stance axe for crowds. no problem

If even one survives your stamina is now hosed and its an instant kill

Plus, only having one form of one weapon being effective for crowds is an issue in itself.

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IthilionTheBrave
Sep 5, 2013
Am I the only one who finds it a bit odd that they refer to spears as, well, spears rather than yari? At first guess it's because the term isn't as well known to an English audience compared to, say, ninjutsu and katana. But I still find it weird when you look at the names for bombs, how the katana themselves are named, how all the armor is named, the tea cup for summoning. That's not the only bit of inconsistent translation, either. The poison and paralysis ninjutsu are given translated names, but then you have makibishi instead of, say, caltrops. You have the kekkai talismans from Onmyoji, and then right next to them you have... sloth talismans.

Really, my entire point here is that it seems a bit odd how inconsistent they seem to be with what terms to translate and what terms to leave Japanese. I understand a lot of it could be due to Western familiarity with certain terms (that and just calling them tea cups would sound a bit silly), but would your average English speaker really be familiar with what the heck kekkai means? I'm definitely not asking for some Japanophile-fest where half the terms are left untranslated Just Because, but I would like a bit more consistency in some parts of it. But hey, this is an alpha demo, so I wouldn't be surprised if the translation was a bit rushed and the final product delivers what I'm asking for on this front.

What's everyone else's thoughts on how they think it should be handled?

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