I think it’s my very top pick for 2024. I don’t have any complaints, really-even though I was super skeptical about it, knowing the very problematic Retribution and some nonsense Arashi. But Behemoth is on a completely different level. Even the initial release is surprisingly good and smooth overall. Obviously, there will be improvements, fixes, and more content, but it’s already so well done! 👍 There are moments I could probably call the best VR experience to date in terms of both impression and execution.
I think you've had the most chill review. The majority of reviewers either kiss this games ass or most of which rip it a new one. lol. I like the balance that you pointed out both good and bad. They could patch the issues it has. Thanks bro. I literally bought it on pc while watching your vid. Got a 3090 so I can max this shit out!!!
Thank you! That’s what I aim for! Arm you with the info you need so that you can make the decision. It all depends on what you like! I love me some good atmosphere and Behemoth sets a pretty good one. And it’s gonna look great on that 3090!
This is a fair critique. I particularly appreciate you going into detail about your thoughts regarding combat. Here's to hoping they improve it in the D7 patch.
The patch that released yesterday resolved all the issues I had with combat. Really enjoying the game now, so much more responsive with swinging and hit detection.
I like that your honest in your opinion of the game . I just think we have all been spoiled and are expectations are too high on a lot of things in life . I will play it and make my own choice . God speed son
Melee combat in VR has always been considered an unsolvable problem. If your virtual weapon follows the position of your real one, and enemies react realistically to a weapon inside their bodies, all combat is trivial. The experience will always feel disjointed (your virtual body not following your movements) or broken (enemies not reacting to your weapon properly or dying to ridiculous moves), so you pick your poison. It could work without weapons with a more gamey system based on very fast impact animations and enemies mostly kept at a distance, like Batman uses.
It's not a problem with melee combat, but a problem with that insistence of making it full physics based. Games like Until you Fall have great melee combat with snappy movement, Batman too, for example. They work because they don't let "physics" handle interactions. They gamefy the world, just as every single videogame made before. In normal gaming "physics based" movement and combat usually is used for rage games for a reason. I don't really understand why people insist so much on doing melee combat fully physics.
@@shippous the insistence of using physics stems from it being vr, were you can do any movement humanely possible, so to hell with movelists and guided attacks. i am not saying guided games like batman and until you fall are bad but that i prefer physics games like blade and sorcery and the topic of the video, behemoth. i also understand that physics means the game is less polished feeling because you have full freedom and may break it and do immersion breaking things, but if physics gets very polished then it trumps any guided game, my dream game is a more polished and bigger blade and sorcery kinda game lol
@@nasercartoon6067 Sure, in a perfect environment with everything working perfectly, simulated physics would be the best! But in reality, most VR games are made with low budget by a small team. Trying to perfect every possible physics interaction is just impossible. So instead they should invest said effort into making a polished experience that FEELS GOOD. But I totally agree with you!
Awaited this one eagerly, but was sorely disappointed. Behemoth encounters were fun and interesting, but the human combat was janky and imprecise. Compared to Legendary Tales, the melee was very poorly implemented. I uninstalled when I got to one particularly poorly designed boss encounter with a shield. It simply wasn't worth the frustration.
lmao, You left a comment on one of my videos earlier. I gave up at that boss too. I tried probably 10 times tonight and I just can't anymore. The game broke me. I'm waiting to see what the patch on the 12th will address but otherwise I'm done. Too many inherent issues that make the game feel sloppy as hell, which is a shame because I really enjoyed many aspects of the game.
@@jankmedia1985i used the axe and strength and miraculously downed him in 20 seconds after dying to him over and over on barbarian mode, if i had to do it again id probably rather have rats nibble my toes off
I had a problem with the inventory slots also until I set it to standing corrected at the main menu. They have seated, standing, and standing corrected. It was set to seated by default.
Agreed on the combat. You spend too much time fighting the system, rather than the enemies. Mostly though, I’m wishing the Behemoths had more presence in the story and moment to moment gameplay. Sometimes during the rather long human portions, one could forget that this game even has Behemoths at all. It feels likes 2 games stitched into one. That said though, this is still way better than your average VR game and I’m really enjoying the good moments it does have.
Totally agree! Not sure if you made it to the end of the video or not, but I say something pretty similar. I would have loved to of felt more hunted by and harassed by the Behemoths. Like maybe one is chasing me down and throwing trees at me until you can duck into a cave. Or your fighting enemies and then BOOM one gets stomped on and flattened out of no where. Or you are about to leap across a chasm and the behemoth crushes the platform you wanted to land on.
I agree with you on many aspects of this game. The game looked phenomenal, and I personally don't care for the story. I was so excited to play this game, and a lot of things amazed me, biggest example is the rope physics. The whole feel of the game was great. I love how you can hear the bellows in the background as you traverse the behemoth's territory. I also love how you had to physically cover your ears /mouth to handle certain problems. I loved the introduction to collectables and i wanted to find all of them, mostly the monster statues. The upgrades are mid, but wanted, and extremely helpful The combat felt really janky, especially the fight with the second behemoth. For the most part, I loved it, but there were many times where it felt wrong. For example, if you were to grapple an enemy's weapon and pull, they don't get staggered or drop their weapon. It's extremely confusing when fighting bowmen who have the high ground. I do enjoy the fact that the enemies get more armor the further along you are, and I'm pretty sure the story explains this. And to your statement about breaking the armor, the axes are specifically made so that they destroy shields and armor easier than other weapons. I really do like how they added four extra weapon slots, because I wanted more weapons that I could hold, for example the giant sword you get by beating the first mini boss. Although, I rarely use them because I forgot I had the option to. The strength system was really useful (although the beginning of the game I forgot I had it most of the time) but you can abuse the hell out of that ability. I think what they could have done is make it so that the ability charge is slower while in combat, but it charges normally any other time since you need the ability to complete puzzles. I really hope they come out with a DLC of some kind adding more giants, weapons, and new stories. P.S.: The knives are supposed to be throwables, which is why you're able to find lots of them laying around, and you're able to store up to three in one slot. And why you use a lot of stamina when throwing anything else.
I gave up at the 3rd miniboss, dude with the shield. The combat is inherently borked in this game, it truly is. At times it can be really fun but most of the time it's a complete mess. Outside of that, I really enjoyed the moment to moment gameplay. The first two Behemoth fights were underwhelming to me. I dunno, too scripted and it looked neat but the whole thing was just sloppy as hell. Constantly fighting against the game and waiting through scripted moments. I have a hard time believing that Skydance intended the game to release like this, seems like something came up in development and caused a huge setback, QA seems like it didn't even take place. I'm hopeful that patches will clean up aspects of the combat because this game could be a total dime with some tweaking.
The thing with the 2nd is that climbing wasnt being responsive, the radius of your grip is too big in aome of the thin rot sections and it made the experience incredibly wonky. This game would be much smoother on a 2nd playthrough. Way too much trial and error because of the mechanics. I knew what to do but the game wouldnt reciprocate and at other times the scripted sequence was too slow, in that I had already tried to do what the game expected of me, but the scripted sequence won't allow you to complete the action, so by the time I actually could do what the game wanted me to do, I was trying something else. Just a mediocre experience but on a 2nd run, I'd know how to approach it to make it a smooth experience. @bmackVR
shame about the combat this looked really promising- interestingly enough I think shadow of the colossus ONLY had boss fights iirc. did you think they should add more bosses overall to the current amount of human fights or tone down the human fights and leave boss count as is?
If the length of the game stays the same. I think it needed 1-2 more behemoth fights and then probably just tone down the number of human fights and sacrifice a mini boss or two.
I feel like the dodge shouldn't have a cooldown, it should affect the stamina meter, but allow you to spam it 8-10 times on a full meter, and holding down the button could be a sprint option rather than the slight jog that the game gives you. I never had an issue with stamina in combat or climbing and tying dodge to the meter would lend better IMO. The slight cooldown for the dodge is quick but its still too slow and movement in general is slow as hell. No quickturn, slow run speed. You are way too hamstrung and the rage mode is a total baked in exhaust valve because the default user combat options cant keep up with what the game throws at you.
Agreed! Stamina was rarely a problem for me in this game, and it's all because of the rage boost. If it starts to go low, just activate it. I think in my 10 hours of playing I only fell off a ledge once because of the stamina and it was because the controls didn't feel super natural.
Ive been looking for an actual review for days now. And no youre not being too harsh. Speak of everything bad and everything good so that i know where there game is at rn. Most reviews simply speak the praise of this game, yet i see mfs malding on reddit xD
The combat feels like dark souls in vr which i really like No the parries and blocks are not inconsistent, watch your gamplay footage to verify it The hit box includes all your body and head so if you get hit in the head by a long sword before blocking or parrying then it will register as a hit. Most games have the hitbox to be just the chest
I've also noticed that the weapons colliders area bit off when you try and rub them together. Axes are shaped like bigger boxes and swords are much thicker. Not sure if that has an effect on combat or not
Where does Behemoth rank in your top 10 of 2024? And thank you to SkyDance for providing me with the keys to review this game!
NUMBER 1 and I’m ONLY 2 hours in!
@ haha you’ve been swept off your feet.
I think it’s my very top pick for 2024. I don’t have any complaints, really-even though I was super skeptical about it, knowing the very problematic Retribution and some nonsense Arashi. But Behemoth is on a completely different level. Even the initial release is surprisingly good and smooth overall. Obviously, there will be improvements, fixes, and more content, but it’s already so well done! 👍 There are moments I could probably call the best VR experience to date in terms of both impression and execution.
1, I have 16hrs on the game and it is astonishing, combat is so fun once you get the hang of it and the parrying also
@ I may have fucked up some parrying with the unblockable attacks.
I think you've had the most chill review. The majority of reviewers either kiss this games ass or most of which rip it a new one. lol. I like the balance that you pointed out both good and bad. They could patch the issues it has. Thanks bro. I literally bought it on pc while watching your vid. Got a 3090 so I can max this shit out!!!
Thank you! That’s what I aim for! Arm you with the info you need so that you can make the decision. It all depends on what you like! I love me some good atmosphere and Behemoth sets a pretty good one.
And it’s gonna look great on that 3090!
This is a fair critique. I particularly appreciate you going into detail about your thoughts regarding combat. Here's to hoping they improve it in the D7 patch.
Time will tell!
The patch that released yesterday resolved all the issues I had with combat. Really enjoying the game now, so much more responsive with swinging and hit detection.
Glad to hear that! Maybe I’ll do a follow up video soon!
I like that your honest in your opinion of the game . I just think we have all been spoiled and are expectations are too high on a lot of things in life . I will play it and make my own choice . God speed son
Hope you enjoy it! I certainly did.
Melee combat in VR has always been considered an unsolvable problem. If your virtual weapon follows the position of your real one, and enemies react realistically to a weapon inside their bodies, all combat is trivial. The experience will always feel disjointed (your virtual body not following your movements) or broken (enemies not reacting to your weapon properly or dying to ridiculous moves), so you pick your poison. It could work without weapons with a more gamey system based on very fast impact animations and enemies mostly kept at a distance, like Batman uses.
Agreed, it’s not an easy thing to do. But I do think other games have made it feel much better.
It's not a problem with melee combat, but a problem with that insistence of making it full physics based.
Games like Until you Fall have great melee combat with snappy movement, Batman too, for example.
They work because they don't let "physics" handle interactions. They gamefy the world, just as every single videogame made before.
In normal gaming "physics based" movement and combat usually is used for rage games for a reason.
I don't really understand why people insist so much on doing melee combat fully physics.
@ well said!
@@shippous the insistence of using physics stems from it being vr, were you can do any movement humanely possible, so to hell with movelists and guided attacks. i am not saying guided games like batman and until you fall are bad but that i prefer physics games like blade and sorcery and the topic of the video, behemoth. i also understand that physics means the game is less polished feeling because you have full freedom and may break it and do immersion breaking things, but if physics gets very polished then it trumps any guided game, my dream game is a more polished and bigger blade and sorcery kinda game lol
@@nasercartoon6067 Sure, in a perfect environment with everything working perfectly, simulated physics would be the best!
But in reality, most VR games are made with low budget by a small team. Trying to perfect every possible physics interaction is just impossible.
So instead they should invest said effort into making a polished experience that FEELS GOOD.
But I totally agree with you!
Awaited this one eagerly, but was sorely disappointed. Behemoth encounters were fun and interesting, but the human combat was janky and imprecise. Compared to Legendary Tales, the melee was very poorly implemented. I uninstalled when I got to one particularly poorly designed boss encounter with a shield. It simply wasn't worth the frustration.
Understand! I was surprised by the amount of human combat. It combat should have been like 50% behemoth and 50% human. Instead we got like 80-20
lmao, You left a comment on one of my videos earlier. I gave up at that boss too. I tried probably 10 times tonight and I just can't anymore. The game broke me. I'm waiting to see what the patch on the 12th will address but otherwise I'm done. Too many inherent issues that make the game feel sloppy as hell, which is a shame because I really enjoyed many aspects of the game.
@@jankmedia1985i used the axe and strength and miraculously downed him in 20 seconds after dying to him over and over on barbarian mode, if i had to do it again id probably rather have rats nibble my toes off
Tbf the hole fandom is to a split I was not disappointed at all I loved the game❤
If it is the one I'm thinking of, I hit strength and shot an explosive arrow at him before he finished talking. Laughed my ass off.
I had a problem with the inventory slots also until I set it to standing corrected at the main menu. They have seated, standing, and standing corrected. It was set to seated by default.
Agreed on the combat. You spend too much time fighting the system, rather than the enemies. Mostly though, I’m wishing the Behemoths had more presence in the story and moment to moment gameplay. Sometimes during the rather long human portions, one could forget that this game even has Behemoths at all. It feels likes 2 games stitched into one. That said though, this is still way better than your average VR game and I’m really enjoying the good moments it does have.
Totally agree! Not sure if you made it to the end of the video or not, but I say something pretty similar. I would have loved to of felt more hunted by and harassed by the Behemoths. Like maybe one is chasing me down and throwing trees at me until you can duck into a cave. Or your fighting enemies and then BOOM one gets stomped on and flattened out of no where. Or you are about to leap across a chasm and the behemoth crushes the platform you wanted to land on.
Thank you for an honest review
Happy to provide it! Thanks for watching!
I agree with you on many aspects of this game. The game looked phenomenal, and I personally don't care for the story. I was so excited to play this game, and a lot of things amazed me, biggest example is the rope physics. The whole feel of the game was great. I love how you can hear the bellows in the background as you traverse the behemoth's territory. I also love how you had to physically cover your ears /mouth to handle certain problems. I loved the introduction to collectables and i wanted to find all of them, mostly the monster statues. The upgrades are mid, but wanted, and extremely helpful The combat felt really janky, especially the fight with the second behemoth. For the most part, I loved it, but there were many times where it felt wrong. For example, if you were to grapple an enemy's weapon and pull, they don't get staggered or drop their weapon. It's extremely confusing when fighting bowmen who have the high ground. I do enjoy the fact that the enemies get more armor the further along you are, and I'm pretty sure the story explains this. And to your statement about breaking the armor, the axes are specifically made so that they destroy shields and armor easier than other weapons. I really do like how they added four extra weapon slots, because I wanted more weapons that I could hold, for example the giant sword you get by beating the first mini boss. Although, I rarely use them because I forgot I had the option to. The strength system was really useful (although the beginning of the game I forgot I had it most of the time) but you can abuse the hell out of that ability. I think what they could have done is make it so that the ability charge is slower while in combat, but it charges normally any other time since you need the ability to complete puzzles. I really hope they come out with a DLC of some kind adding more giants, weapons, and new stories.
P.S.: The knives are supposed to be throwables, which is why you're able to find lots of them laying around, and you're able to store up to three in one slot. And why you use a lot of stamina when throwing anything else.
Have you thought about making a channel? That was a pretty well thought out and explained comment. You clearly have a passion for this stuff.
I gave up at the 3rd miniboss, dude with the shield. The combat is inherently borked in this game, it truly is. At times it can be really fun but most of the time it's a complete mess. Outside of that, I really enjoyed the moment to moment gameplay. The first two Behemoth fights were underwhelming to me. I dunno, too scripted and it looked neat but the whole thing was just sloppy as hell. Constantly fighting against the game and waiting through scripted moments. I have a hard time believing that Skydance intended the game to release like this, seems like something came up in development and caused a huge setback, QA seems like it didn't even take place. I'm hopeful that patches will clean up aspects of the combat because this game could be a total dime with some tweaking.
It's not great
If you didn't like the 2nd Behemoth fight, this isn't a game for you.
The thing with the 2nd is that climbing wasnt being responsive, the radius of your grip is too big in aome of the thin rot sections and it made the experience incredibly wonky. This game would be much smoother on a 2nd playthrough. Way too much trial and error because of the mechanics. I knew what to do but the game wouldnt reciprocate and at other times the scripted sequence was too slow, in that I had already tried to do what the game expected of me, but the scripted sequence won't allow you to complete the action, so by the time I actually could do what the game wanted me to do, I was trying something else. Just a mediocre experience but on a 2nd run, I'd know how to approach it to make it a smooth experience. @bmackVR
Try again after yesterdays patch. So far I'm having a blast. I guess I have realistic impressions.
I need to dive into it post patch
shame about the combat this looked really promising- interestingly enough I think shadow of the colossus ONLY had boss fights iirc. did you think they should add more bosses overall to the current amount of human fights or tone down the human fights and leave boss count as is?
If the length of the game stays the same. I think it needed 1-2 more behemoth fights and then probably just tone down the number of human fights and sacrifice a mini boss or two.
I feel like the dodge shouldn't have a cooldown, it should affect the stamina meter, but allow you to spam it 8-10 times on a full meter, and holding down the button could be a sprint option rather than the slight jog that the game gives you. I never had an issue with stamina in combat or climbing and tying dodge to the meter would lend better IMO. The slight cooldown for the dodge is quick but its still too slow and movement in general is slow as hell. No quickturn, slow run speed. You are way too hamstrung and the rage mode is a total baked in exhaust valve because the default user combat options cant keep up with what the game throws at you.
Agreed! Stamina was rarely a problem for me in this game, and it's all because of the rage boost. If it starts to go low, just activate it. I think in my 10 hours of playing I only fell off a ledge once because of the stamina and it was because the controls didn't feel super natural.
Ive been looking for an actual review for days now.
And no youre not being too harsh.
Speak of everything bad and everything good so that i know where there game is at rn.
Most reviews simply speak the praise of this game, yet i see mfs malding on reddit xD
Yeah I’ve noticed this as well. Especially regarding this game. I think a lot of people give its short comings a pass.
Is it strange this reminds me a lot of God of War?
Now that you mention it, not strange at all lol
@bmackVR Really one of those one off the cuff thoughts but I can't shake it now 🤣
I made the same comparison lol, gives me god of war + shadow of the colossus meets sword fighting vr games
I was thinking morr Dantes Inferno
It's a weird mix of mechanics but it is a step in the right direction for VR. We are still a long ways away from a true open world VR epic.
Yep! If this game was the minimum bar for VR games with a budget, I would be happy with that.
The combat feels like dark souls in vr which i really like
No the parries and blocks are not inconsistent, watch your gamplay footage to verify it
The hit box includes all your body and head so if you get hit in the head by a long sword before blocking or parrying then it will register as a hit. Most games have the hitbox to be just the chest
I've also noticed that the weapons colliders area bit off when you try and rub them together. Axes are shaped like bigger boxes and swords are much thicker. Not sure if that has an effect on combat or not
The amount of people rimming the game even after saying there's quite a few bugs in ridiculous
I still enjoyed it, despite its flaws.
did not like the combat at all.
Melee combat is tough to get right and I think I was ruined by Asgard’s Wrath 2.
It's pretty bad honestly. Their own previous games were so much better.
I liked Saint's and Sinners but I actually never finished it. I thought the scavenging and recycled environments felt a little to repetitive to me.