Made it all the way to the final boss fight - against Bowser, obviously? - but I've struggled enough with it that I decided to call it a day. It's a multi-stage battle that, as far as I can tell, requires you to use your rage ability. That's ok, except that it's hard for me to recharge it during the battle so it's a bit more frustrating than simply having to learn attack patterns and dodge attacks.
Now that I think about it, I might be "underpowered" for the end? There's lots of things I could have purchased but have not and I don't really feel like returning to old levels to "farm" them, so I feel it's better to simply move on.
And this is a strange thing to say about a Nintendo game! (that it's grindy...)
I started to play this fully expecting to not really like it, not get too far, but at least have some sense of how the game works. So far it's full of surprises (for me at least).
I'm probably playing on the equivalent of "easy" (I think the mode was explained as "recommended for newcomers to the DMC series", which is exactly me), so the game has not been that challenging for me. Rather, it's been enjoyable as I'm trying to learn to execute some of the combo abilities I've unlocked. I guess that's surprise number one.
My second surprise is how many cut-scenes the game has and how often I've noticed I'm smiling at something genuinely funny that happened. I was expecting annoying man-bro teenage snark. And, there's a little bit of that - but it's not that bad. It's sort of on the right side of snark/funny. I guess that's too surprises. Lots of cut scenes and the humor.
Third surprise is that, and I've only played 5 missions, there are (at least?) two playable characters! I've started with Nero and now I'm playing with "V". And V plays VERY differently from Nero. He doesn't really attack, he has these demons you control that are sort of like your attacks. He's weak...there's other energy bars you need to pay attention to. Obviously he's got his own set of upgrades and stuff.
So. Lots of fun! I might even (try) to finish this one! The try is because who knows what'll happen with the difficulty level.
I picked this up a while ago because I was curious about the game. I recall it getting "ok" reviews, but that it got a lot of media attention. What I don't remember right now is if the media attention was from the crowdfunding campaign (this would have been in the early days of videogame crowdfunding) or after that (e.g. failed to deliver? needed more money? crowdfunding drama?)... or something else entirely. I remember there being drama and attention... Maybe the episodic thing they wanted to do was also super fresh at the time and that was driving the games media cycle?
So, here I am, maybe 10 years later? More? Playing the game on a PS4...I think the crowdfunding was all about touch interfaces and the (at the time new?) ipad? So. What is the game?
Well, it's episodic. I finished episode 5. It's a stealth game. It's set in some sort of dystopian fascist 1984-style future, and it has an interesting split-attention thing going on. You control both a character who must move around in a 3rd person 3d space to escape (walking around, hiding in lockers, avoiding guards, finding items, that sort of thing) while at the same time you control a "hacker" (I have no idea who) who can hack items and hop around from camera-to-camera. So, you often have to scout ahead (by hopping to other cameras - you only see things through the PoV of a camera - mostly), see what's up, unlock things, hack things, etc. and the hop back to a camera that gives you a view of the character such that you can see what you're doing when you're controlling her.
It works! And, I appreciated that there weren't a lot of high-stakes time-based challenges because the camera hopping (which changes your perspective) can really slow things down and it was easy for me to get caught on corners and that sort of thing. It wasn't too hard, and I enjoyed the first episode - lots of cut-scenes though...and...lots of humor? This was unexpected...
- So, all of the guards carry around a passport you can scan to see who they are. And they all appear with realistic-looking pictures and sort of normal names. But, I was a bit confused that they also had flags from countries all over the place. It all clicked when I scanned a guard whose picture was not a photo but a cartoon character. Specifically Tycho or Gabe from PennyArcade! I then realized - OH! The photos are all of Kickstarter funders! (which was also indicated on the passport, I just hadn't noticed!). The guards are all essentially criminals with mental and behavioral problems...and it's cool that, even as late as the PS4 version, the creators are holding up to what I imagine was promised during the Kickstarter campaign. Still, it was a weird 4th wall breaking thing for me...
- Which was perhaps augmented because... When you pick a guards pocket you get a game disk! (3.5 inch disc) Each disc is of a different indie game - which was cool - and there's commentary on the game and everything. This made no sense to me at all either...Though it was cool, I thought. And perhaps a sign of what the indie community was then (when things were really taking off!). Later on I discovered why there were all these disks - you get help from a turncoat guard who is into retro games and whose collection was raided by his fellow bullying guards (thus, the discs everywhere). It was a reasonable explanation - but it came too late and also in a context such that I felt it was lucky I even found it...
So, overall - will I continue playing? I had some fun with the game, but not enough to be compelled into the later episodes. I took a quick peek and it seems the ratings/scores went down starting with episode 3, so I felt I played enough to get a good feeling of the game (I thought the black hacker market where you could sell intel/dirt you found along the way in exchange for new abilities was pretty cool), without needing to spend more time on it.
I've been at it in fists and starts since sometime in November? (or maybe it was December). Basically, whenever "the kids" were all around - we'd play a bit of this. In the end it was just two of us who finished it.
What I found interesting is how little the "modern" additions (more moves and combos, an upgrade progression system for each character, collectibles and challenges for each level) to the brawler style seemed to matter. At least to us. Sure, it was nice to level up and get stronger - but it wasn't something we were chasing, it just happened as we played. I never paid too much attention to the combos - and I'm guessing if we were playing on the harder difficulty levels this might have been different...we just sort of played through on basic, definitely lost lives, but were still able to pull through. The collectibles were fun, and we did go back an replay a few levels to pick them up. But, they didn't seem to add too much to our experience of the game...
What DID feel good - and I recognized as being a "modern" addition - where all the fun animations and little tidbits in levels. Quite a few were gags and such - and it made the experience such that I enjoyed paying attention to what was going on in the different scenes and such. So, instead of the game having three times as many enemies/enemy types - it just added new/bespoke to the level animations (e.g. regular enemy comes out of a store eating an ice cream) that were fun to watch. It made the game feel like it had more depth. This isn't a knock on the older/original games at all, it's just an "art budget" sort of thing. What do you do when you want to do something that really closely resembles an old game (in style and gameplay) but can do it with current tech? Go for the subtle improvements - like better animations (more frames? more resolution, but still pixel-based looking).
