(Repost because for some reason my comment got removed, it seems) Sorry to hear that Army of Zin wasn't your cup of tea. In hindsight, i could've figured as much, as much fun as i had with it. Calling the combat a "fall from grace" does feel quite harsh though. I know your taste lies with concentrated, deliberate design and though i've never played Ghosts to Glory, it has not escaped my attention in what ways Army of Zin is easier. But regarding the moves... correct me if i'm wrong, but did you mainly keep it at basic strategies/moves for most enemies? Or did you never feel the need to try and style on the enemies, like DMC does? Trying to see how far you can build up your Hit/Combo meter, which i believe you never touched up on. Or seeing how you can juggle or divide your attention between enemies or just mix up moves because it feels fun to do. You feel like a pretty skilled player and from your years with action games, especially the more challenging ones like Ninja Gaiden, God Hand and i believe higher-difficulty KH2, Army of Zin does not challenge you in the same way as it perhaps once could have. Even being the product that it is. For me it was fairly challenging when i played it and my experiences up to that point were with Darksiders 1 & 2 and Heavenly Sword. And i think a bit of Jade Empire. Anyway: I liked to switch up moves a lot. Definitely wasn't optimal and would perhaps have been a drama for a more experienced player like you to see play out :P But i wasn't content to sit around with the base moves. I had all this other stuff, let's see how i can make them work even if they're not essential. As said before, you really resonate when moves and enemies have deliberate designs, right? At what point do you feel incentive or interest to use moves that are like... additions, bonuses on top of the basis? Like for example, say there's a game with a sword guy. Sword guy has a Combo (left slash, right slash, spin slash), Jump Attack, Launcher, Distance Closer, Dodge and Defend. A very basic system. Say there's a pause combo where the animation after the second input becomes a double kick by sticking the sword in the ground. Visually it looks cool but doesn't have an effect of a launcher or a push-away. On a technical level, that doesn't add much. On a feeling of subjective experience, it can be nice for a player to see/feel like they are not continuously doing the same thing. I'm well aware that enemy design does have to accomodate for that, like you said with the Clockwork Bruisers. Can definitely see why Baron is the best boss for you, because he forces you to get technical and doesn't leave much room for goofing about. Really good Rival/Opposite/Equal type of boss. The Vault was quite a blast for me because of how many Zin there were to hit, how many there were to switch attention between and how i could make the moves i wanted to work, work. Though admittedly with reckless abandon. I've been thinking about that in recent times, having a concentrated, concise system vs. something with more options. And a player's motivations to engage more with the different options. Intrinsic or extrinsic. In what way do you think you would have looked at Army of Zin differently, if you hadn't played Ghosts to Glory beforehand? Honestly at this point i'm getting a bit nervous of what you may think of Soulstice, Clash and Kya whenever you can get to them. - Clash has the advantage of being more limited: All stances and Specials are different, as are the enemy team-ups. The Ritual can further add a strange element into the fight. There's a forum on steam where people discuss their different Builds, mention individual moves within Stances that they favour, etc. So even if "optimal choices" do exist, there is fun to seek out what Stances you personally resonate most with, and making them work. Or even challenging yourself with stances you don't have as much feeling for, and learning them to see how you can make them work. - Kya sucks on the front of the bosses and i'm very certain that with your own level of skill, you will breeze through the Wolfun. Spare perhaps the Kronos. Even still, it's a positive anomaly for having so many options while also having enemies with more deliberate AI AND quite a few other mechanics, from wind gliding and skydiving to animal riding and board sliding. - Soulstice has a LOT of systems to it and all weapons, like with Clash's stances and specials, do have their own unique animations and differences. Plus an incentive to mix things up through the Unity (a mix of a Style and Magic system). There is a LOT of moves and quite an amount of enemies. Too many to go into detail here. So much on offer, to the point it requires a second playthrough to unlock everything. Weapons do have deliberate strengths and weaknesses to particular enemy types (as described in the Weapon Codex and Bestiary), but i'm starting to think you may find a lot of them superfluous. Regardless of these worries and disagreements: It's clear you have a lot of love for the Maximo series, especially with going the extra mile to find those records of concept art and ideas. I too hope it may properly return one day alongside you. Here's to hoping that it may find a proper return one day. Thank you still for all your videos. I hope your Halloween went well, and wish you a lot of fun for the new month. Wish you well and take care!
I think you can have both an efficient and focused gameplay loop while providing style-driven options. DOOM Eternal and the original God of War trilogy are the best examples of that. God of War's old combat was deep enough to have spawned a 6 hour combat analysis video, and DOOM Eternal features a lot of tech and possible playstyles despite its focused and concise gameplay loop. They're not as deep in style-driven options as DMC, but that's alright, as they strike a strong balance between allowing for a variety of playstyles and still wanting players to engage in a certain level of efficiency. He enjoys some more style-driven games with tons of options, he just doesn't like the way this game goes about it, especially relative to its predecessor which probably created the wrong expectations.
The cancellation of Maximo 3 has a long history. But it all boils down to the fact that Capcom had 0 interest in Maximo and that they hated it from the beginning for not being a game made in Japan.
It pains me that Capcom refuses to acknowledge Maximo's existence. We haven't seen the character in anything else. Not the Vs. games. Not even a small cameo
If it wasn't for the whiny people who said GTG was too hard (it's actually quite easy) AOZ would have had the same difficulty. Even though they took away a lot of cool things that GTG had like the Parrilla's powers (although that is still in the game codes) AOZ is a good sequel. By the way AOZ reached the title of "Greatest Hits" of ps2. So it wasn't a failure.
Considering the team behind Maximo also did Final Fight Revenge and Streetwise, it seems they had plenty of ideas and a love of arcade Capcom, but never found the success to zero in on a concept for more than one entry.
They forced Tom Senkine to cancel Maximo 3 because of Okomoto to make those games. Then Capcom took it upon themselves to shut down the studio after that because of what a disaster it was. And they knew that would happen because Capcom wanted to destroy Capcom Digital Studios.
I've been way ahead of you in recommending that one :P I'm a big fan of the game and mentioned Soulstice a few times, along with Clash: Artifacts of Chaos and Kya: Dark Lineage. And now i'm adding Cookie Cutter, Decline's Drops, Magenta Horizon and Immortal: And the Death that Follows to the list as well.
Heyyy, hope you don't mind me repeating myself. I left a similar comment about two videos back, thought you didn't get notified or something. I was hoping to ask if you take fan suggestions? There's a couple neat action games I know that could be fun to analyze.
![[ ออกกอง ] วัยหนุ่ม 2544 โลกหลังลูกกรง..ทัวร์กองถ่ายหนังใน "คุกของจริง" | JUSTดูIT.](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vB--aOkZCpw/mqdefault.jpg)
Would be nice to see you analyze Rygar, it's an interesting title.
Would be awesome to see a video on a full tier list so far
YES, here we go!
(Repost because for some reason my comment got removed, it seems)
Sorry to hear that Army of Zin wasn't your cup of tea. In hindsight, i could've figured as much, as much fun as i had with it.
Calling the combat a "fall from grace" does feel quite harsh though. I know your taste lies with concentrated, deliberate design and though i've never played Ghosts to Glory, it has not escaped my attention in what ways Army of Zin is easier.
But regarding the moves... correct me if i'm wrong, but did you mainly keep it at basic strategies/moves for most enemies? Or did you never feel the need to try and style on the enemies, like DMC does?
Trying to see how far you can build up your Hit/Combo meter, which i believe you never touched up on. Or seeing how you can juggle or divide your attention between enemies or just mix up moves because it feels fun to do.
You feel like a pretty skilled player and from your years with action games, especially the more challenging ones like Ninja Gaiden, God Hand and i believe higher-difficulty KH2, Army of Zin does not challenge you in the same way as it perhaps once could have. Even being the product that it is.
For me it was fairly challenging when i played it and my experiences up to that point were with Darksiders 1 & 2 and Heavenly Sword. And i think a bit of Jade Empire.
Anyway: I liked to switch up moves a lot. Definitely wasn't optimal and would perhaps have been a drama for a more experienced player like you to see play out :P
But i wasn't content to sit around with the base moves. I had all this other stuff, let's see how i can make them work even if they're not essential.
As said before, you really resonate when moves and enemies have deliberate designs, right? At what point do you feel incentive or interest to use moves that are like... additions, bonuses on top of the basis?
Like for example, say there's a game with a sword guy. Sword guy has a Combo (left slash, right slash, spin slash), Jump Attack, Launcher, Distance Closer, Dodge and Defend. A very basic system.
Say there's a pause combo where the animation after the second input becomes a double kick by sticking the sword in the ground. Visually it looks cool but doesn't have an effect of a launcher or a push-away.
On a technical level, that doesn't add much.
On a feeling of subjective experience, it can be nice for a player to see/feel like they are not continuously doing the same thing.
I'm well aware that enemy design does have to accomodate for that, like you said with the Clockwork Bruisers. Can definitely see why Baron is the best boss for you, because he forces you to get technical and doesn't leave much room for goofing about. Really good Rival/Opposite/Equal type of boss.
The Vault was quite a blast for me because of how many Zin there were to hit, how many there were to switch attention between and how i could make the moves i wanted to work, work. Though admittedly with reckless abandon.
I've been thinking about that in recent times, having a concentrated, concise system vs. something with more options. And a player's motivations to engage more with the different options. Intrinsic or extrinsic.
In what way do you think you would have looked at Army of Zin differently, if you hadn't played Ghosts to Glory beforehand?
Honestly at this point i'm getting a bit nervous of what you may think of Soulstice, Clash and Kya whenever you can get to them.
- Clash has the advantage of being more limited: All stances and Specials are different, as are the enemy team-ups. The Ritual can further add a strange element into the fight.
There's a forum on steam where people discuss their different Builds, mention individual moves within Stances that they favour, etc.
So even if "optimal choices" do exist, there is fun to seek out what Stances you personally resonate most with, and making them work.
Or even challenging yourself with stances you don't have as much feeling for, and learning them to see how you can make them work.
- Kya sucks on the front of the bosses and i'm very certain that with your own level of skill, you will breeze through the Wolfun. Spare perhaps the Kronos.
Even still, it's a positive anomaly for having so many options while also having enemies with more deliberate AI AND quite a few other mechanics, from wind gliding and skydiving to animal riding and board sliding.
- Soulstice has a LOT of systems to it and all weapons, like with Clash's stances and specials, do have their own unique animations and differences. Plus an incentive to mix things up through the Unity (a mix of a Style and Magic system).
There is a LOT of moves and quite an amount of enemies. Too many to go into detail here. So much on offer, to the point it requires a second playthrough to unlock everything.
Weapons do have deliberate strengths and weaknesses to particular enemy types (as described in the Weapon Codex and Bestiary), but i'm starting to think you may find a lot of them superfluous.
Regardless of these worries and disagreements: It's clear you have a lot of love for the Maximo series, especially with going the extra mile to find those records of concept art and ideas. I too hope it may properly return one day alongside you.
Here's to hoping that it may find a proper return one day.
Thank you still for all your videos. I hope your Halloween went well, and wish you a lot of fun for the new month.
Wish you well and take care!
There are a lot of cool combos in AOZ, I don't think he knew how to make them.
I think you can have both an efficient and focused gameplay loop while providing style-driven options.
DOOM Eternal and the original God of War trilogy are the best examples of that. God of War's old combat was deep enough to have spawned a 6 hour combat analysis video, and DOOM Eternal features a lot of tech and possible playstyles despite its focused and concise gameplay loop. They're not as deep in style-driven options as DMC, but that's alright, as they strike a strong balance between allowing for a variety of playstyles and still wanting players to engage in a certain level of efficiency.
He enjoys some more style-driven games with tons of options, he just doesn't like the way this game goes about it, especially relative to its predecessor which probably created the wrong expectations.
The cancellation of Maximo 3 has a long history. But it all boils down to the fact that Capcom had 0 interest in Maximo and that they hated it from the beginning for not being a game made in Japan.
It pains me that Capcom refuses to acknowledge Maximo's existence.
We haven't seen the character in anything else. Not the Vs. games. Not even a small cameo
If it wasn't for the whiny people who said GTG was too hard (it's actually quite easy) AOZ would have had the same difficulty. Even though they took away a lot of cool things that GTG had like the Parrilla's powers (although that is still in the game codes) AOZ is a good sequel. By the way AOZ reached the title of "Greatest Hits" of ps2. So it wasn't a failure.
Considering the team behind Maximo also did Final Fight Revenge and Streetwise, it seems they had plenty of ideas and a love of arcade Capcom, but never found the success to zero in on a concept for more than one entry.
They forced Tom Senkine to cancel Maximo 3 because of Okomoto to make those games. Then Capcom took it upon themselves to shut down the studio after that because of what a disaster it was. And they knew that would happen because Capcom wanted to destroy Capcom Digital Studios.
could you do soulstice in the future
I've been way ahead of you in recommending that one :P
I'm a big fan of the game and mentioned Soulstice a few times, along with Clash: Artifacts of Chaos and Kya: Dark Lineage.
And now i'm adding Cookie Cutter, Decline's Drops, Magenta Horizon and Immortal: And the Death that Follows to the list as well.
Original Maximo is one of my favourite games and Army of Zin was a huge disappointment for me, I just couldn't get into it.
Heyyy, hope you don't mind me repeating myself. I left a similar comment about two videos back, thought you didn't get notified or something.
I was hoping to ask if you take fan suggestions?
There's a couple neat action games I know that could be fun to analyze.
Yeah, he takes fan suggestions
It's hard to remember that Capcom used to make all sorts of games when they will only throw out something every blue moon.