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 From the increasingly decrepit mind of Grasshopper Manufacture comes Let It Die, which was released without fanfare on PSN several hours ago. It's a brawler, it's free-to-play, and yes, that title does sound like a cry for help. After a series of underwhelming indie releases and middle-profile games like Killer Is Dead, a lot of the shine has come off Grasshopper's avant-garde image, with former visionary Suda51 quietly retreating from high-profile development. Let It Die was originally developed as a different title under the name Lily Bergano, and then released a terrible trailer a couple of years ago that mostly seemed to consist of beating up an endless procession of mooks in a sewer. No one was impressed.  Back the gently caress up, bro. But, after spending about five hours straight with the thing, I can say I've gotten more entertainment out of Let It Die than any of Grasshopper's work since the No More Heroes games. Suda51 is on record as saying he had very little to do with this title, but his signature aesthetic still permeates the thing - your BFF is the above cool dude, Uncle Death, a skateboarding Grim Reaper with a distinct south-of-the-border accent who acts as both your main source of tutorials and the owner of the arcade where the game Let It Die (that is, the game within the game) is located. He lets you play the game by placing a beetle on a chessboard so it can create a holographic rendering of the screen with its antenna. Your main source of stat buffs is a mushroom stew-obsessed woman who pole-dances with her ladle. You are guaranteed to spend at least half the game in your underpants. And Akira Yamaoka crawls out of his sewer grate for yet another soundtrack mixing snarling ambience with surprisingly poppy guitar rock. Okay, that sounds silly to the point of being obnoxious. How's it play? Adequately, for the most part.  The story is straightforward. A Bad Thing happened on Earth in 2026. There's a big-rear end tower south of Tokyo now. There's a Good Thing at the top of that tower, maybe, with about a billion nasties between you and it. Go ye forth and die repeatedly on your way to the treasure. The game is a pretty by-the-numbers brawler/roguelike with all the usual tropes that entails. Both your weapons and armor degrade, there's little in the way of combos, and floors are randomly generated with regular shortcuts back to the central hub where you can heal up and bank your available cash and experience. Weapons can be equipped to either hand, with a steadily building Rage gauge allowing you to use super attacks with varying properties for each weapon. Damaging an enemy enough to dizzy it will also let you use a Mortal Kombat-esque finishing move that lets you get extra cash for the kill. There are various side-objectives to undertake in the form of killing x enemies, killing x enemies with y weapon, traversing an entire floor without dodging or buck-rear end naked, etc., which allow you to claim extra prizes. The main twist of the gameplay comes from the roguelike system, which is sort of like a cross between Dark Souls and ZombiU in execution. A slain player character will respawn as a special enemy type called a "Hater," with all of its stats, levels, and equipment intact. If you traverse back to your original point of death and kill the Hater, then Uncle Death will happily scythe its rear end and transport it back to a meat locker in the hub where you can extract the character for a second try. Get killed again, though, and it's bye-bye to your inventory and levels. Character EXP gets reset with each new character, but every weapon type also has its own proficiency stats that persist across all characters, so you're making incremental progress even if your dumb rear end keeps getting wasted by enemies. And you probably will get wasted. Enemies are hellaciously aggressive, and even though their attack patterns are simple and often easily interrupted, getting swarmed by two or three at once can turn bad very quickly. Even better/worse, other players' Haters also appear on each floor, with no regard for the floor's standard level, so you can be picking your way across a bunch of level 7 foes only to run into a level 25 Hater who'll splatter you into the wall. The only positive thing is that Haters kill everything indiscriminately, so it's possible to leave them butchering standard enemies and then run like hell if need be. Killing Haters also earns you a secondary currency that allows you to forge weapons at the lobby's shop. F2P. No. gently caress no. F2P is a blight on this world. Luckily, Let It Die's development was produced and collaborated by GungHo Online Entertainment, the makers of Puzzles and Dragons - which is, by most accounts, one of the most level-handed F2P titles out there. Let It Die does display the usual trademarks of this awful business model: there's a daily pull, cooldown timers for equipment development, and a premium currency called "Death Metal" that allows you to buy continues and storage box upgrades, along with a 30-Day Express Pass that gives you free stat-boosting decals, additional equipment slots, and access to a premium golden shortcut elevator that lets you move from floor to floor without spending cash (and which, in an amusing dick move, always opens tantalizingly when you encounter it before its doors slam shut in your face). But you can definitely go for quite some time without even having to think about buying Death Metal, and the Express Pass's benefits seem almost laughably negligible. Maybe the game will tighten its grip enough to make this crap seem necessary, at which point I'll drop it. Maybe it'll bore me before then. I definitely plenty of value out of it already for something free. Between its lack of press, bashful release, and questionable pedigree, Let It Die is almost certain to, well, die within a couple of months at most. Still, if you're looking to spray some blood for a weekend without having to pay anything, it's worth checking out. The tutorial alone is worth the price of admission, which is nothing. Hints and tips! Hitting X at the end of a sprint will allow you to do a dropkick. The dropkick is love. The dropkick is life. It routinely does over 100 damage even if blocked and will often stagger enemies as well. It's also a bitch to land and leaves you extremely vulnerable if you miss, so death or glory. MK2 Tubers look intimidating but can be killed in a single Hammer combo. Their downward drill attack leaves them incapacitated if it misses. If you pick up a Boomshroom, never leave it as the active item in your inventory. One wrong button press will make you eat the myconid grenade and...yeah. The multiplayer terminal allows you to upgrade the storage capacity of your freezer, bank, and SPlithium terminal. Take advantage of its services as much as possible. Snails take two stomps to kill; the second merely knocks them out and makes them stop spewing poison. Take a moment between picking up multiple snails or else the toxin buildup will proc Deadly Poison on your character and you'll spend a while puking your guts out. The fireworks gun is loving useless - except as a portable grill! Killing Beasts with it will result in cooked versions of those items. (Thanks to Lakbay for this one) L3 allows you to crouch. This is normally just used to pick up Beasts, but it can also be used to sneak up behind enemies and execute a stealthy German suplex. Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Dec 5, 2016 |
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Dec 4, 2016 08:21
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Which there were more people giving it a shot, Im sick so cant play videogames. Would love to hear more impressions
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Dec 4, 2016 14:34
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People keep saying 'this will be the time suda finally gets heavily involved again' and it never is. 
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Dec 4, 2016 14:54
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I played this for a few hours last night and it's way deeper than it first appears, with the dungeon having many branching floors and the stats that carry over body to body. The controls feel a bit clunky, but tolerably so? It's definitely worth a try, and if you try it, try it at least until you hit the arcade. It's fun-ish and kind of hard to put down honestly. Edit: Also, the shopkeeper is Steampunk Hitler in Space. Merrill Grinch fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Dec 4, 2016 |
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Dec 4, 2016 15:15
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I Superman punched someone so hard that they blew up in a fountain of blood. I was wearing only my underwear and a traffic cone. Game seems fun, and I don't mind treating this as a mobile game and getting my daily login and playing in bursts.
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Dec 4, 2016 17:00
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Game is fun and surprising guy polished, way better than I was expecting from a free title. The F2P stuff definitely isn't super blatant, but it'll depend on how it lasts into the mid-late game. Of course, THAT will depend on whether or not the game is fun enough to warrant going into the mid-late game. I've played unhealthy amounts of dark souls and bloodborne and while this isn't quite as polished as those its not bad, so maybe I'll put a decent chunk of time in and see.
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Dec 4, 2016 17:30
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Really enjoying this for the most part. I hate the mobile game crafting/shop timers but otherwise it's much better than you'd expect.
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Dec 4, 2016 17:38
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I'm about to grab this off the PSN Store but I don't have PS Plus on me. Can this still be played single player or does it require online connectivity?
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Dec 4, 2016 17:41
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Alfalfa The Roach posted:I'm about to grab this off the PSN Store but I don't have PS Plus on me. Can this still be played single player or does it require online connectivity? It's always-online, unsurprisingly. Got to get money out of people somehow even if you don't go for the premium options.
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Dec 4, 2016 17:42
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Well, that sucks. Guess I could always get a PS Plus subscription with my next paycheck
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Dec 4, 2016 17:48
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This reminds me heavily of the Rengoku series for the PSP, and as one of the 17 people who played that (and loved the absolute poo poo out of the second game), that's an extremely good thing. Only thing I'm not entirely sold on is the contrasting wackyness of stuff like Uncle Death with the non-stop body horror and corruption aesthetic. If this is what Lily Bergamot was supposed to be, I kinda wish we'd gotten that instead. Don't get me wrong though, this is probably the most fun I've had playing a Freemium game in years, possibly ever, and I genuinely cannot wait to see where the game goes from here.
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Dec 4, 2016 17:50
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I already said it in the PS4 thread but I'm digging everything about the game but the actual combat, which feels really loose and sloppy coming off of too much Dark Souls, though I was doing fine until the connection dropped. Definitely going to put some time into it though, I like its style. Is there any indication how long it actually takes to hit the top floor? Also, Uncle Death is great.
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Dec 4, 2016 17:51
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Nothing feels better than hitting a hater nemesis who is twenty levels higher than you with a vomit mushroom. Eat hot steam iron, jameswoods!
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Dec 4, 2016 18:01
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Anyone else unable to play? Finally got this giant file downloaded and it's saying they are doing emergency matienince for whatever reason.
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Dec 4, 2016 18:41
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veni veni veni posted:Anyone else unable to play? Finally got this giant file downloaded and it's saying they are doing emergency matienince for whatever reason. Same here.
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Dec 4, 2016 18:44
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Yeah, I was playing and the server just started lagging really badly. Apparently it crashed due to load or some such, but I can't find anything anywhere that says when it will be back up. It's a real shame because I'm starting to get into it. Got real lucky and got the hammer blueprint so I'm looking forward to laying waste to other newbies and upgrading the hell out of my base.
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Dec 4, 2016 19:00
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I was really looking forward to this, because Grasshopper and Akira Yamaoka, but yea, emergency maintenance.
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Dec 4, 2016 19:16
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Protip: you can go back down to previous floors, so if you find a bunch of blueprints or something and don't want to risk pushing forward, you can head back if the last floor had an elevator or something.
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Dec 4, 2016 19:34
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IS there a guaranteed way to trigger those Goretastic execution things or is it as random as it seems?
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Dec 4, 2016 20:03
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How the do I flick a mushroom? I can't get the touch pad prompt to work for the life of me.
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Dec 4, 2016 20:51
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veni veni veni posted:How the do I flick a mushroom? I can't get the touch pad prompt to work for the life of me. Click the left side of the touch pad. It should give you the throw trail.
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Dec 4, 2016 20:53
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veni veni veni posted:How the do I flick a mushroom? I can't get the touch pad prompt to work for the life of me. Touchpad left side is throw, touchpad right side is eat. I wouldn't recommend getting the two confused.
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Dec 4, 2016 20:53
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I wasn't too clear on something, are the levels randomly generated or are we all playing the same thing?
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Dec 4, 2016 20:58
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Alfalfa The Roach posted:Well, that sucks. Guess I could always get a PS Plus subscription with my next paycheck Err, that doesn't mean you need PSPlus. I don't have a PLUS sub and I can play through this game. Also didn't sony have a rule if the game is like F2P or free, no PLUS sub is needed for online or did they change that recently. Shindragon fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Dec 4, 2016 |
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Dec 4, 2016 21:06
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This game is so weird. So far, I'm digging it. Not sure if it's really THAT good, or if Souls games have just conditioned me to be impressed with things that are challenging and obtuse.
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Dec 4, 2016 21:30
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So when you kill the first mini boss an alternate exit opens on floor one, leading to a floor with a crashed subway train tileset. That floor has two exits in turn, each leading to yet even more alternates for floor three. So yeah, if there's a point to all this then it's going to be complicated...
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Dec 4, 2016 21:39
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Anyone know what stats do what yet besides the obvious ones like HP? e: Oh weapons need it. The text size could stand to be a bit larger, didn't even see that until I saw there are decals to reduce the cost. RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Dec 4, 2016 |
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Dec 4, 2016 21:41
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this looks a hell of a lot like Death Cargo
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Dec 4, 2016 21:42
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I'm digging the quirkiness but the gameplay just feels super meh.
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Dec 4, 2016 22:08
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I keep getting a prompt that says "Floor ahead hasn't been prepared yet, please wait and try again." when trying to do anything past the first middle boss? Including interacting with the PvP raid station. Kinda preventing me from progressing. Anyone else run into this and figure out how to fix it?
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Dec 4, 2016 22:34
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ArkInBlack posted:I keep getting a prompt that says "Floor ahead hasn't been prepared yet, please wait and try again." when trying to do anything past the first middle boss? Including interacting with the PvP raid station. Kinda preventing me from progressing. Anyone else run into this and figure out how to fix it? Is your game not fully downloaded? It was like 8gb and then like, I don't know... looked like 12 more or so? It was playable after the 8.
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Dec 4, 2016 22:45
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Feenix posted:Is your game not fully downloaded? It was like 8gb and then like, I don't know... looked like 12 more or so? Ha ha, that might it, missing like 2 gigs still. E:Yeah that was it. ArkInBlack fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Dec 5, 2016 |
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Dec 4, 2016 22:50
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This is like Warframe and Resident Evil Revelations raid mode with Japanese quirkiness, I like it so far but I don't know how long I'll remain interested edit: the floors are randomly generated from prefab tilesets like phantasy star online to the guy asking Lakbay fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Dec 4, 2016 |
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Dec 4, 2016 23:07
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Alfalfa The Roach posted:Well, that sucks. Guess I could always get a PS Plus subscription with my next paycheck You don't need PS Plus for (any on PSN as far as I know) f2p games. Mine isn't active and I've been able to play just fine as long as the servers aren't undergoing maintenance. Really glad Darlene didn't go Hater on me when I got dumped with an error back to the main menu this morning
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Dec 5, 2016 02:15
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Oh, I didn't know about that caveat. Thanks for letting me know, I'll go ahead and start it up right now
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Dec 5, 2016 02:18
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The servers are crapping out You can use the fireworks gun to cook frogs and rats! The grilled versions heal for more
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Dec 5, 2016 03:12
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That's a drat good tip. The thing is so low damage that it's really hard to level up the mastery for it, but I just know it's gonna be really good somehow. It will always set enemies on fire or something else similarly really useful. That being said, its rage move is a really powerful rocket that I accidentally blew myself up with. My tip is one I'm a little embarrassed to admit I didn't figure out until way late, but you press down on the dpad to access the map. PBnJamo fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Dec 5, 2016 |
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Dec 5, 2016 05:13
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PBnJamo posted:My tip is one I'm a little embarrassed to admit I didn't figure out until way late, but you press down on the dpad to access the map. Holy hell, I was trying to figure that out myself. This is what I get for not reading my Death Rolodex. Has anyone figured out if there's a stat to make the dodge roll less... bad? Maybe I've played too much Souls and Monster Hunter, but the roll feels like the enemy recovers before you do.
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Dec 5, 2016 05:48
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My tip - abuse the hell out of the multiplayer Raid mechanic while the getting's good. Most people still don't even know it exists yet and it lets you attack their bases and hoover up their money and SP with impunity. The multiplayer terminal is also how you upgrade the capacity of your bank and Fighter Freezer, and the former is essential if you want to buy mushroom stew. But I'd recommend avoiding any players whose names begin with Y2K. I'm pretty sure they're bots, since they're all based in Japan and they're all rank 4 (obvious pun), and that means their defenses are a lot sturdier than those of the average schmuck.
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Dec 5, 2016 06:03
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 14:28 |
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I only played for an hour or so. Does it get more interesting as far as enemy encounters go as the game goes on?
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Dec 5, 2016 06:34
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