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Giant Bomb #8 | It's a Hit!

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hamchan said:
I don't think Patrick will like Dynasty Warriors. I don't think he's much of a fan of the Three Kingsoms period and I don't think he'll be into the gameplay at all.

It's not a game that you suddenly get and understand its hidden brilliance like Dark Souls or Monster Hunter either, it really is as shallow as it looks. And this is from someone who really enjoys the series too.
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Didn't someone give him the Three Kingdom novels? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say he hasn't read them yet.
 
Myggen said:
I'm sure you'll get your wish (Brad is back and Dan Ryckert, by all accounts, begins work on monday next week).
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When does Jason start? Anyone know?

And Dan himself has confirmed that he starts on Monday at his new gig (whatever that is).

Hopefully he won't have too many HR hoops to jump through and can find the time to do the Bombcast.
 
BTA said:
She hasn't done any back pedaling. The thing she meant to be specifically targeting an issue about women is now about all forms of diversity. That's it.

And yeah, it's not like he's following her and several of the other people you're talking about on Twitter or anything. Or that they've already talked about these issues weeks ago, calmly. Or that he even retweeted that article with the not getting an e-mail back thing in it and thanked the author for writing it.

You're defending people who don't need defending by attacking their friends, plain and simple.

EDIT: Didn't see the mod post; I'll shut up now.
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If you're interested in continuing, you can PM me. But yeah I disagree with you :).
 
hamchan said:
I don't think Patrick will like Dynasty Warriors. I don't think he's much of a fan of the Three Kingsoms period and I don't think he'll be into the gameplay at all.

It's not a game that you suddenly get and understand its hidden brilliance like Dark Souls or Monster Hunter either, it really is as shallow as it looks. And this is from someone who really enjoys the series too.
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Maybe if he went out of his way to learn some of the history of the characters of the Three Kingdoms it'd go a long way towards finding something for him to latch on to. Kinda like that Dota movie, Free To Play.
 
Patryn said:
When does Jason start? Anyone know?

And Dan himself has confirmed that he starts on Monday at his new gig (whatever that is).

Hopefully he won't have too many HR hoops to jump through and can find the time to do the Bombcast.
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Well, looking at Jason's Twitter he seems to be on his way to SF very soon. He's talking about moving today, and something about the back brace his wife is wearing as they're moving or something. So I wouldn't be shocked if he begins work next week or the week after.
 
EmCeeGramr said:
https://twitter.com/jeffgerstmann/status/481866839702921216
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I imagine Jeff hyperventilating in a corner.
 
Patrick needs to play one of those Orochi Warriors games, they have the Samurai and Dynasty Warrior casts and are full of fanservicey nonsense.
 
Someone really needs to create a Jeff Gerstmann Game Jam, where you have 3 days (Majora's Mask) to create a game that combines elements of Yoshi, Musou, Shenmue, Majora's Mask, and NiGHTS™




(literally yesterday I was thinking about an anti-Jeff game where you rode Yoshi into Musou battles and had three days before the moon fell on you)
 
kadotsu said:
Sengoku Basara fanboys are THE WORST.
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I completely understand why Patrick would be skeptical about Sengoku Basara. The musou genre is infamous for its lack of challenge and lack of change over the past decade. But I want to back up Jeff here because I really think Sengoku Basara is one of the best things Capcom has been putting out. People ask where old school Capcom went, where their talent for creating game’s filled with personality disappeared to, you can still see it alive and well in this series. Sengoku Basara exudes a charisma and attention to personality few games can match and, perhaps more surprisingly, it’s actually a fairly interesting action game.

Well, let’s look at why someone might not like Dynasty Warriors. The most common complaint is that there’s no challenge- there are few enemy types, the enemies stand around more than they attack, and when they do attack all they do are simple slashes. The level design is uninteresting- it’s lots of open field and clear paths you just run through. The fields are only populated by the braindead enemies. The physical layout of the level doesn’t even change the way you play. The character variety is weakened by the lack of challenge. Any difference in how the characters may play is downplayed by a lack of situations that force you to explore and exploit those differences. Characters in effect don’t feel too different since there isn’t much to do with them other than blow away a crowd of enemies, something every character is effective at.

This effectively means the interaction between the player and the game is weak. It doesn’t provide enough feedback for the amount of work the player puts in. When you look at an action game like Devil May Cry, the moveset for each individual weapon isn’t actually that large. But it’s fun because each weapon and their moves have different utility and the game provides you a variety of enemies with which to explore the effectiveness of these utilities in different situations. Dynast Warriors doesn’t give you a satisfying variety of obstacles to tackle with your movesets and it’s even possible the games’ characters honestly don’t differ too much in utility.

I imagine this is a large part of why Mark says he doesn’t find the concept of fighting thousands of enemies appealing. There haven’t been many, if any, games that have taken that concept and built a variety of combat situations out of it. It ends up feeling like you’re playing the same situation over and over. Because you are.

This isn’t to say the Musou franchise is devoid of inspiration. There are actually interesting things to the combat system in Hokuto Musou 1(Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage 1) related to the juggle-based combo system and the importance of crowd control. Specifically the first game- the second game removed a lot of what made FoTN interesting for a Musou game. The game design in One Piece Kaizoku Musou (One Piece: Pirate Warriors) had some interesting things going on in the way it tied your combat abilities to your mobility options and the way you had to sacrifice one for the other. These aspects of the games are more apparent if you start on Hard difficulty from the beginning however. If you play normal difficulty, much like DW the enemies are too easy to give you the opportunity to explore the mechanics.

Sengoku Basara is clearly Capcom trying to get that Musou money, but they also tried to tackle some of those issues with the DW series. I’m going to specifically talk about the game dynamics circa Sengoku Basara 3. SB3 overhauled the game mechanics to develop and solidify the concepts they established in the first two entries. SB4 actually presents another shift in the game dynamics and by charting the changes you can get a look at how Capcom is trying to transcend the Musou genre conventions and move the series into a more developed, character driven action series.

Sengoku Basara adds the combo/“Hit Counter” metagame. A combo in this sense isn’t the quite the same as in a fighting game because while each hit increases your Hit Count but your combo doesn’t end the moment the enemy recovers. Your Hit Count remains for a moment even if you aren’t hitting anyone, giving you the opportunity to find more enemies and start increasing the Hit Count again. But the higher the Hit Count, the quicker the Hit Count will reset. Think of it like combo proration in a fighting game- the longer the combo the faster you need to hit to keep it going. The hit Counter will also reset if you are ever hit.

As your Hit Count increases, you get money to fall from enemies. Each 100 hits add a multiplier bonus to your money drops and gives you neat money spewing effects for every kill. Every 500 hits activates Fever Mode, a period of time where you get bonus money multipliers and your hit counter will never reset unless you get hit. Furthermore every 1000 hits activates Super Fever which provides even higher money multiplier bonuses. This is the most effective way to build money in the game. The Hit Count provides a large amount of positive feedback that Dynasty Warriors is missing. It gives you more money, it gives you higher numbers to count, it gives you visually satisfying money spewing out of defeated soldiers and “caching” sound effects, and gives you big, flashing logos and effects for Fever and Super Fever modes Fever Modes can also be constant goalposts; while playing a level you think “I’m at 700 hits. Let me see if I can hit 1000,” which soon turns into “I’m at 2200 hits, let me see if I can hit 2500.”

The Fever and Super Fever Modes are not only good sources of money but also act as “checkpoints”, giving you time to rest and reposition yourself, scope out the area, or travel to a new location.

But this combo meta-game creates a unique approach to the gameplay different from your typical musou game and changes the “dumb soldier” dynamic. The enemies in the game are now a resource for generating hits: you want to keep your combo going and get it as high as possible but you need constant enemies for that. Clearing out a group of enemies and leaving nothing behind will give you nothing to continue your combo with which now forces you to consider where groups of enemies are in relation to each other. Mashing the attack button will make you whiff and attack the air, making you waste time and probably lose your hit count- the stereotypical “you just mash attack in a musou game” doesn’t really work effectively here. Furthermore the tevel layout, enemy placement, enemy types, and mission objectives you have to complete to actually beat the level all change how you approach combos in each level. Aggressive enemies are a threat to your combo count since one hit resets your Hit Count. There are enemies with projectiles that can hit you from afar; there are slow enemies with large range and are less susceptible to hitstun; there are enemies designed just to slow your movement down; there are evasive enemies that make it more difficult to get a hit.

When you look at a character’s moveset in Sengoku Basara the ability to keep a combo going is one of the things you consider. It’s not just a matter of strength and defense as nice as those are but you also need to look at a character’s speed of attacks, the ability to hit large areas, the ability to cover distance, how many hits do the moves do, how quickly can he or she build the super and style meters, etc. Just things that you think will help keep that meter up. Hitting large areas is an obvious perk but attacks with movement are important as well. Those let you cover distance while building hits and is useful for traversing areas sparse of enemies. If you have moves that can carry enemies with you that’s even better because you can ride their hits until you reach a new group of enemies (although you have to remember that enemies can only take a certain number of hits after they’re dead before they can’t be touched anymore). Building super meter is good because your combo counter won’t disappear throughout the duration of the super move; characters with fast meter build or super moves that travel far distances are really useful because of this. The style meter is used to enter a super mode that slows down time but your combo counter also won’t reset for the duration of that mode so it’s very useful too.

Sengoku Basara’s approach to character design allows a broader range of gameplay styles compared to Dynasty Warriors. DW uses a two button combat system consisting of a Light Attack and Charge Attack. Each character can press Light Attack a certain number of times to do a combo chain while the Charge Attack typically does one attack that you can charge to make stronger or increase its range. New moves are executed by pressing the charge button in the middle of your character’s Light Attach combo chain, making your character do a new move that ends the combo. Certain moves can be followed by another Charge Attack to do a stronger EX Move. The limitation of this system is that your moves are all built off of your regular light attack chain. Everything must be designed as a follow-up to some other attack. There isn’t much interaction between the moves within your moveset since the Charge Attacks force you to start over from the beginning of your Light Attack combo chain.

Sengoku Basara does give the characters an equivalent “Light Attack” combo chain but also gives them a set of unique, individual special moves. The special moves are executed with unique button commands and aren’t tied to any other moves. This gives Capcom more freedom in designing what a character can do since the moves are completely separate entities from each other. These moves don’t even have to be attacks. Combat in Sengoku Basara is also designed to be very fast fluid. The characters have moves to keep them moving and ways to cancel from one move into another or to cancel a move into a dash. The game is designed to keep the player active, letting you constantly push forward through the level even as you’re fighting rather than having you sit in one place trying to swat away a group of soldiers. I think this is what JJ was getting at when he as saying you are constantly zooming through levels.

One thing that helps keep the flow of combat smooth is the characters’ moves are designed to work well together. A character’s flow is determined by where the enemies land as you hit them since that decides what you can follow up with. If a character has one move that knocks enemies very far away chances are the character has some option that lets him keep attacking those enemies, perhaps a move that makes him dash far or a projectile of some sort, and then you'll be able to follow up with another attack after that. If enemies get knocked into the air then the character can probably do an air combo, an aerial special move, or a combination of the two, land, then do more stuff. Sometimes you might have a lot of different options and have to decide based on your proximity to a wall or whatever enemies are in the area but the characters are designed so that you can always be doing something.

The characters in Sengoku Basara are where Capcom has been putting all of its action game chops. You can think of each character as an individual weapon from Devil May Cry or Bayonetta- each character features a specific design philosophy distinct from anyone else and explores various action game mechanics and concepts. Sengoku Basara has a major emphasis on making sure each character plays distinct from each other and a lot of the character ideas are actually fairly interesting. You could take a lot of these character ideas and probably flesh them out into full games.

Capcom also put a lot of effort into infusing loads of personality into each character. Everyone has distinct animations for the way they move, their running, their slowing down, their guarding, their evading, and even their standing animations. Suffice it to say just as much work was put into making sure everyone’s attacks are incredibly expressive and evocative of the character. The way Akechi Mitsuhide carries himself, dragging his scythes behind him and putting minimal effort into his attacks, the way Sanada Yukimura’s body follows through every attack he does, and Katakura Kojuuro’s stoic and precise sword slashes make each character’s personality instantly recognizable even if you can’t understand the language.

For examples on how the characters are made to play distinctly from each other, first look at Naotora II. She wields a giant sword so the obvious assumption that she’s slow but strong isn’t hard to make. She’s one of the slowest characters in both movement and her “light attack” combo chain (often referred to as the “s-string” for some reason) but of course her sword covers a huge range. What makes her so cool is her ability to mix her special moves. Her basic five special moves are 1) a sword slam that goes into a repetition of swings, 2) and upward swing that launches enemies, 3) a large forward swing with a large arc, 4) running forward and thrusting the sword, an 5) an aerial flip that turns her around and slashes from behind the enemy. They’re cool moves in their own right but in the first half of each move’s startup animation you can input another special move’s command to do something completely different. If you cancel Naotora’s 3rd special move, the arced swing, into her 2nd move, the launcher, she instead swings her sword upwards and launches a giant tornado. If you cancel her aerial flip into the forward dash + thrust, she’ll do an angled thrust to the ground from mid-air. If you cancel the forward run into the arced swing she’ll do a 360 degree swing followed by a stronger forward arced swing. The only exception to this is her first special move that can only be cancelled into, not out of. So in total you could say she has 21 different special moves.

But then you look at Hideyoshi Toyotomi, a giant hulk that towers over pretty much everyone else in the game. Fittingly his moveset revolves around grabbing people with a single hand and throwing them around the field. He has a move solely used for grabbing people but most of his other moves have the ability to grab people at some point in them. Once someone is grabbed he or she can then be swung around like a weapon, giving Hideyoshi larger range for his attacks, or thrown like a projectile. Overall he is one of the slower characters but his range and strength compensate for that. He can also pound the ground and make the earth erupt (the stones from that eruption can be grabbed and used as a weapon too), he can yell really loud for a 360 degree attack, and he can jump in the air and do a spinning piledriver. His super specials look suitably ridiculous: he can punch the air so hard a giant force of air in the shape of his hand flies forward or he can clasp his hands together with such force that somehow the air several meters in front of him smashes together like two walls, bringing a huge group of enemies together into a straight line. Many of these special moves also change if Hideyoshi is holding someone, so instead of that yelling special he’ll instead be able to smash the person he’s holding back and forth on the ground.

Hideyoshi also has the ability to do special ending moves at the end of regular combo or any of his special attacks. Each of these combo enders are enhanced versions of his regular special moves and are done by pressing one of the special moves button at a specific time; the timing is a little tight so you need to get a good rhythm down. Further, Hideyoshi can combo from one ender into another. You can’t repeat the same combo ender twice in one combo and you can do a max of four but that fourth move will be an even more enhanced, more powerful move, such as a 5400 degree spinning pile driver that creates a vortex to suck surround enemies into the air with you. These “combo-ender enders” all look incredibly cool and end with Hideyoshi using some poor soldier to create a giant crater in the ground.

Maeda Keiji uses a ludicrously unwieldy sword that grants him long range but somewhat average to low speed attacks (amusingly at the beginning of a level he throws his sword’s scabbard into the sky and it never comes down except for during certain special attacks). Keiji’s gimmick revolves around one of his special moves called “Love Tactics”. When used by itself it’s a move that can cancel into itself infinitely, rotating through a series of many different kinds of attacks ranging from sword throws to launching kicks. What’s interesting is that every move in his arsenal can be “love canceled” into either a unique move or some part of the default Love Tactics combo string. One of Keiji’s moves has him dash forward with his sword held horizontally and launch the enemies into the air with a sword swipe; if you hold the attack button down Keiji will jump after the launched enemies. If you love cancel the attack during the dash Keiji will trip and fall forward, doing a wide area attack and breaking guards. If you love cancel after the launching sword swipe Keiji will start the regular Love Tactics combo with a downward kick, knocking the enemies back onto the ground. If you love cancel after he jumps into the air then Keiji will do a series of aerial sword slashes ending with a downward slam. Keiji’s gameplay revolves around learning these different love cancel moves and how they can be used to follow up with each other; he’s a good example of a character where you need to learn that “flow of moves” I mentioned earlier. He has so many different things he can do but all of these attacks put enemies into a position where he can do something else. This learning process and the amount of possibilities makes him hard to grasp (especially with the strict timing of Love Tactics’ cancels) but very versatile.

Perhaps most interestingly, if you time it right he can even cancel his own death.

Nagamasa Azai is a well-rounded character with quick attacks and fast movement. He’s themed like a tokusatsu super hero (a combination of Super Sentai and Kamen Rider) and poses after everything he does. His moves use his sword and his shield, the swords for the bulk of his moves (such as drawing a laser cross into the air and shooting it outwards) and the shield for ranged attacks that draw enemies together (throwing it like a boomerang). His gimmick is that he can charge himself up to three levels albeit in a different way from Shibata Katsuie. Nagamasa has an invisible meter that builds as you attack people and you go up one level when it’s full. One of his special arts is used just for charging and you can see your progress while charging with it. The first level enhances his sword, the second level his shield, and the third his body. Level three makes his incredible strong, leaving laser slashes in the air with every strike and doing heavy damage will of his attacks. All of his special arts are powered up and enhanced and he can do special versions that cause him to pose while the screen freezes and Japanese text appears on the screen. Those will revert you back to level one however, which will eventually happen anyway after a certain amount of time.

Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier Nagamasa will pose after every move he does and will have some part of him glimmer or shine. If you do his charging special art right after that shine you will instantly charge one level. This lets you quickly build your levels while attacking. Even more interesting is that his charging special itself has two glimmer points on startup and if you time it right for both you will instantly charge up to level three. The problem is that the transformation takes so long that your combo will end. If you’re starting a combo putting yourself instantly into level three is great but mid-combo you’ll want to be get the one-level charges after every move since those allow you to keep your combo afterwards.

Hanbei Takenaka is Hideyoshi Toyotomi’s devoted retainer who wields a combination sword+whip like Ivy from Soul Calibur. All of his moves have a sword version executing by tapping the move commands and a whip version by holding the buttons down- naturally, the sword is faster but the whip has greater range. You can seamlessly switch between the sword and whip during his regular combo and he has great utility out of both weapons in his special arts. One of Hanbei’s sword special arts is a dash forward followed by two thrusts; it does good damage, can break guards, and moves him forward a little bit. The whip version of that move will him shoot the whip forward and pull it back along with any enemy it hits, gathering enemies for further combos. One of his secret arts makes him Very mad and he gets double hits off every move and the whip attacks get a delayed after-image that hits enemies and looks neat.

Every character in Sengoku Basara is designed like this- everyone has a unique gimmick that makes them play differently from the rest of the cast. The fun in Sengoku Basara is learning how to play these characters and how to effectively maintain combos with them.
 
Dragon said:
Remember #PS4NODRM?

I realize you're being tongue and cheek, but that Simms character is the last person to spout about diversity. She can barely form a coherent sentence. Giving her the time of day is like giving 9/11 conspiracy theorists the time of day. She has no leg to stand on, and neither do they.



Elizabeth Simms seems to spew typing diarrhea on twitter. I doubt Patrick and her are friends. And even if they are, she went about it the wrong way. It's nice she's back pedaled but really her hypocritical views did nothing.
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I'm hardly a Simms fan but that's a really really gross comparison.
 
Tan said:
Something about Spintires makes me super uncomfortable.
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Have you tried to put it into 4wd or lock the diff?

Patrick put so much of his life/himself into his work but is also one of the most professional & the news guy on the staff. I have trouble parsing what his tone is or what he filter, if any, on to the site.
Jeff could be selling stereo equipment to minors in the back of his sweet ride but wouldn't talk about his side business on the site.

But please Patrick continue to play Yoshi, Majora and Dynasty Warrior to Spite Jeff.
 
Let's just be happy it isn't Vinny. In five months' time, we'd have five different video features, Spoiler-cast, Bombcast discussion, preview videos, private streams - all for Dynasty Warriors.
 
So I have started watching the Spintires QL and I am kinda into this. I think I want to play it...

santeesioux said:
Patrick needs to play one of those Orochi Warriors games, they have the Samurai and Dynasty Warrior casts and are full of fanservicey nonsense.
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I really don' think their stories are great though. Too much nonsense and not enough cutscenes. I would always recommend DW8 as an entry point. Samurai Warriors 4 will probably also be great.

PS: Even as a Musou fan I have to say that Sengoku Basara is the best around. Sucks that we will probably never get another one localized. SB3 though is amazing.
 
HamPster PamPster said:
I completely understand why Patrick would be skeptical about Sengoku Basara. The musou genre is infamous for its lack of challenge and lack of change over the past decade. But I want to back up Jeff here because I really think Sengoku Basara is one of the best things Capcom has been putting out. People ask where old school Capcom went, where their talent for creating game’s filled with personality disappeared to, you can still see it alive and well in this series. Sengoku Basara exudes a charisma and attention to personality few games can match and, perhaps more surprisingly, it’s actually a fairly interesting action game.

Well, let’s look at why someone might not like Dynasty Warriors. The most common complaint is that there’s no challenge- there are few enemy types, the enemies stand around more than they attack, and when they do attack all they do are simple slashes. The level design is uninteresting- it’s lots of open field and clear paths you just run through. The fields are only populated by the braindead enemies. The physical layout of the level doesn’t even change the way you play. The character variety is weakened by the lack of challenge. Any difference in how the characters may play is downplayed by a lack of situations that force you to explore and exploit those differences. Characters in effect don’t feel too different since there isn’t much to do with them other than blow away a crowd of enemies, something every character is effective at.

This effectively means the interaction between the player and the game is weak. It doesn’t provide enough feedback for the amount of work the player puts in. When you look at an action game like Devil May Cry, the moveset for each individual weapon isn’t actually that large. But it’s fun because each weapon and their moves have different utility and the game provides you a variety of enemies with which to explore the effectiveness of these utilities in different situations. Dynast Warriors doesn’t give you a satisfying variety of obstacles to tackle with your movesets and it’s even possible the games’ characters honestly don’t differ too much in utility.

I imagine this is a large part of why Mark says he doesn’t find the concept of fighting thousands of enemies appealing. There haven’t been many, if any, games that have taken that concept and built a variety of combat situations out of it. It ends up feeling like you’re playing the same situation over and over. Because you are.

This isn’t to say the Musou franchise is devoid of inspiration. There are actually interesting things to the combat system in Hokuto Musou 1(Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage 1) related to the juggle-based combo system and the importance of crowd control. Specifically the first game- the second game removed a lot of what made FoTN interesting for a Musou game. The game design in One Piece Kaizoku Musou (One Piece: Pirate Warriors) had some interesting things going on in the way it tied your combat abilities to your mobility options and the way you had to sacrifice one for the other. These aspects of the games are more apparent if you start on Hard difficulty from the beginning however. If you play normal difficulty, much like DW the enemies are too easy to give you the opportunity to explore the mechanics.

Sengoku Basara is clearly Capcom trying to get that Musou money, but they also tried to tackle some of those issues with the DW series. I’m going to specifically talk about the game dynamics circa Sengoku Basara 3. SB3 overhauled the game mechanics to develop and solidify the concepts they established in the first two entries. SB4 actually presents another shift in the game dynamics and by charting the changes you can get a look at how Capcom is trying to transcend the Musou genre conventions and move the series into a more developed, character driven action series.

Sengoku Basara adds the combo/“Hit Counter” metagame. A combo in this sense isn’t the quite the same as in a fighting game because while each hit increases your Hit Count but your combo doesn’t end the moment the enemy recovers. Your Hit Count remains for a moment even if you aren’t hitting anyone, giving you the opportunity to find more enemies and start increasing the Hit Count again. But the higher the Hit Count, the quicker the Hit Count will reset. Think of it like combo proration in a fighting game- the longer the combo the faster you need to hit to keep it going. The hit Counter will also reset if you are ever hit.

As your Hit Count increases, you get money to fall from enemies. Each 100 hits add a multiplier bonus to your money drops and gives you neat money spewing effects for every kill. Every 500 hits activates Fever Mode, a period of time where you get bonus money multipliers and your hit counter will never reset unless you get hit. Furthermore every 1000 hits activates Super Fever which provides even higher money multiplier bonuses. This is the most effective way to build money in the game. The Hit Count provides a large amount of positive feedback that Dynasty Warriors is missing. It gives you more money, it gives you higher numbers to count, it gives you visually satisfying money spewing out of defeated soldiers and “caching” sound effects, and gives you big, flashing logos and effects for Fever and Super Fever modes Fever Modes can also be constant goalposts; while playing a level you think “I’m at 700 hits. Let me see if I can hit 1000,” which soon turns into “I’m at 2200 hits, let me see if I can hit 2500.”

The Fever and Super Fever Modes are not only good sources of money but also act as “checkpoints”, giving you time to rest and reposition yourself, scope out the area, or travel to a new location.

But this combo meta-game creates a unique approach to the gameplay different from your typical musou game and changes the “dumb soldier” dynamic. The enemies in the game are now a resource for generating hits: you want to keep your combo going and get it as high as possible but you need constant enemies for that. Clearing out a group of enemies and leaving nothing behind will give you nothing to continue your combo with which now forces you to consider where groups of enemies are in relation to each other. Mashing the attack button will make you whiff and attack the air, making you waste time and probably lose your hit count- the stereotypical “you just mash attack in a musou game” doesn’t really work effectively here. Furthermore the tevel layout, enemy placement, enemy types, and mission objectives you have to complete to actually beat the level all change how you approach combos in each level. Aggressive enemies are a threat to your combo count since one hit resets your Hit Count. There are enemies with projectiles that can hit you from afar; there are slow enemies with large range and are less susceptible to hitstun; there are enemies designed just to slow your movement down; there are evasive enemies that make it more difficult to get a hit.

When you look at a character’s moveset in Sengoku Basara the ability to keep a combo going is one of the things you consider. It’s not just a matter of strength and defense as nice as those are but you also need to look at a character’s speed of attacks, the ability to hit large areas, the ability to cover distance, how many hits do the moves do, how quickly can he or she build the super and style meters, etc. Just things that you think will help keep that meter up. Hitting large areas is an obvious perk but attacks with movement are important as well. Those let you cover distance while building hits and is useful for traversing areas sparse of enemies. If you have moves that can carry enemies with you that’s even better because you can ride their hits until you reach a new group of enemies (although you have to remember that enemies can only take a certain number of hits after they’re dead before they can’t be touched anymore). Building super meter is good because your combo counter won’t disappear throughout the duration of the super move; characters with fast meter build or super moves that travel far distances are really useful because of this. The style meter is used to enter a super mode that slows down time but your combo counter also won’t reset for the duration of that mode so it’s very useful too.

Sengoku Basara’s approach to character design allows a broader range of gameplay styles compared to Dynasty Warriors. DW uses a two button combat system consisting of a Light Attack and Charge Attack. Each character can press Light Attack a certain number of times to do a combo chain while the Charge Attack typically does one attack that you can charge to make stronger or increase its range. New moves are executed by pressing the charge button in the middle of your character’s Light Attach combo chain, making your character do a new move that ends the combo. Certain moves can be followed by another Charge Attack to do a stronger EX Move. The limitation of this system is that your moves are all built off of your regular light attack chain. Everything must be designed as a follow-up to some other attack. There isn’t much interaction between the moves within your moveset since the Charge Attacks force you to start over from the beginning of your Light Attack combo chain.

Sengoku Basara does give the characters an equivalent “Light Attack” combo chain but also gives them a set of unique, individual special moves. The special moves are executed with unique button commands and aren’t tied to any other moves. This gives Capcom more freedom in designing what a character can do since the moves are completely separate entities from each other. These moves don’t even have to be attacks. Combat in Sengoku Basara is also designed to be very fast fluid. The characters have moves to keep them moving and ways to cancel from one move into another or to cancel a move into a dash. The game is designed to keep the player active, letting you constantly push forward through the level even as you’re fighting rather than having you sit in one place trying to swat away a group of soldiers. I think this is what JJ was getting at when he as saying you are constantly zooming through levels.

One thing that helps keep the flow of combat smooth is the characters’ moves are designed to work well together. A character’s flow is determined by where the enemies land as you hit them since that decides what you can follow up with. If a character has one move that knocks enemies very far away chances are the character has some option that lets him keep attacking those enemies, perhaps a move that makes him dash far or a projectile of some sort, and then you'll be able to follow up with another attack after that. If enemies get knocked into the air then the character can probably do an air combo, an aerial special move, or a combination of the two, land, then do more stuff. Sometimes you might have a lot of different options and have to decide based on your proximity to a wall or whatever enemies are in the area but the characters are designed so that you can always be doing something.

The characters in Sengoku Basara are where Capcom has been putting all of its action game chops. You can think of each character as an individual weapon from Devil May Cry or Bayonetta- each character features a specific design philosophy distinct from anyone else and explores various action game mechanics and concepts. Sengoku Basara has a major emphasis on making sure each character plays distinct from each other and a lot of the character ideas are actually fairly interesting. You could take a lot of these character ideas and probably flesh them out into full games.

Capcom also put a lot of effort into infusing loads of personality into each character. Everyone has distinct animations for the way they move, their running, their slowing down, their guarding, their evading, and even their standing animations. Suffice it to say just as much work was put into making sure everyone’s attacks are incredibly expressive and evocative of the character. The way Akechi Mitsuhide carries himself, dragging his scythes behind him and putting minimal effort into his attacks, the way Sanada Yukimura’s body follows through every attack he does, and Katakura Kojuuro’s stoic and precise sword slashes make each character’s personality instantly recognizable even if you can’t understand the language.

For examples on how the characters are made to play distinctly from each other, first look at Naotora II. She wields a giant sword so the obvious assumption that she’s slow but strong isn’t hard to make. She’s one of the slowest characters in both movement and her “light attack” combo chain (often referred to as the “s-string” for some reason) but of course her sword covers a huge range. What makes her so cool is her ability to mix her special moves. Her basic five special moves are 1) a sword slam that goes into a repetition of swings, 2) and upward swing that launches enemies, 3) a large forward swing with a large arc, 4) running forward and thrusting the sword, an 5) an aerial flip that turns her around and slashes from behind the enemy. They’re cool moves in their own right but in the first half of each move’s startup animation you can input another special move’s command to do something completely different. If you cancel Naotora’s 3rd special move, the arced swing, into her 2nd move, the launcher, she instead swings her sword upwards and launches a giant tornado. If you cancel her aerial flip into the forward dash + thrust, she’ll do an angled thrust to the ground from mid-air. If you cancel the forward run into the arced swing she’ll do a 360 degree swing followed by a stronger forward arced swing. The only exception to this is her first special move that can only be cancelled into, not out of. So in total you could say she has 21 different special moves.

But then you look at Hideyoshi Toyotomi, a giant hulk that towers over pretty much everyone else in the game. Fittingly his moveset revolves around grabbing people with a single hand and throwing them around the field. He has a move solely used for grabbing people but most of his other moves have the ability to grab people at some point in them. Once someone is grabbed he or she can then be swung around like a weapon, giving Hideyoshi larger range for his attacks, or thrown like a projectile. Overall he is one of the slower characters but his range and strength compensate for that. He can also pound the ground and make the earth erupt (the stones from that eruption can be grabbed and used as a weapon too), he can yell really loud for a 360 degree attack, and he can jump in the air and do a spinning piledriver. His super specials look suitably ridiculous: he can punch the air so hard a giant force of air in the shape of his hand flies forward or he can clasp his hands together with such force that somehow the air several meters in front of him smashes together like two walls, bringing a huge group of enemies together into a straight line. Many of these special moves also change if Hideyoshi is holding someone, so instead of that yelling special he’ll instead be able to smash the person he’s holding back and forth on the ground.

Hideyoshi also has the ability to do special ending moves at the end of regular combo or any of his special attacks. Each of these combo enders are enhanced versions of his regular special moves and are done by pressing one of the special moves button at a specific time; the timing is a little tight so you need to get a good rhythm down. Further, Hideyoshi can combo from one ender into another. You can’t repeat the same combo ender twice in one combo and you can do a max of four but that fourth move will be an even more enhanced, more powerful move, such as a 5400 degree spinning pile driver that creates a vortex to suck surround enemies into the air with you. These “combo-ender enders” all look incredibly cool and end with Hideyoshi using some poor soldier to create a giant crater in the ground.

Maeda Keiji uses a ludicrously unwieldy sword that grants him long range but somewhat average to low speed attacks (amusingly at the beginning of a level he throws his sword’s scabbard into the sky and it never comes down except for during certain special attacks). Keiji’s gimmick revolves around one of his special moves called “Love Tactics”. When used by itself it’s a move that can cancel into itself infinitely, rotating through a series of many different kinds of attacks ranging from sword throws to launching kicks. What’s interesting is that every move in his arsenal can be “love canceled” into either a unique move or some part of the default Love Tactics combo string. One of Keiji’s moves has him dash forward with his sword held horizontally and launch the enemies into the air with a sword swipe; if you hold the attack button down Keiji will jump after the launched enemies. If you love cancel the attack during the dash Keiji will trip and fall forward, doing a wide area attack and breaking guards. If you love cancel after the launching sword swipe Keiji will start the regular Love Tactics combo with a downward kick, knocking the enemies back onto the ground. If you love cancel after he jumps into the air then Keiji will do a series of aerial sword slashes ending with a downward slam. Keiji’s gameplay revolves around learning these different love cancel moves and how they can be used to follow up with each other; he’s a good example of a character where you need to learn that “flow of moves” I mentioned earlier. He has so many different things he can do but all of these attacks put enemies into a position where he can do something else. This learning process and the amount of possibilities makes him hard to grasp (especially with the strict timing of Love Tactics’ cancels) but very versatile.

Perhaps most interestingly, if you time it right he can even cancel his own death.

Nagamasa Azai is a well-rounded character with quick attacks and fast movement. He’s themed like a tokusatsu super hero (a combination of Super Sentai and Kamen Rider) and poses after everything he does. His moves use his sword and his shield, the swords for the bulk of his moves (such as drawing a laser cross into the air and shooting it outwards) and the shield for ranged attacks that draw enemies together (throwing it like a boomerang). His gimmick is that he can charge himself up to three levels albeit in a different way from Shibata Katsuie. Nagamasa has an invisible meter that builds as you attack people and you go up one level when it’s full. One of his special arts is used just for charging and you can see your progress while charging with it. The first level enhances his sword, the second level his shield, and the third his body. Level three makes his incredible strong, leaving laser slashes in the air with every strike and doing heavy damage will of his attacks. All of his special arts are powered up and enhanced and he can do special versions that cause him to pose while the screen freezes and Japanese text appears on the screen. Those will revert you back to level one however, which will eventually happen anyway after a certain amount of time.

Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier Nagamasa will pose after every move he does and will have some part of him glimmer or shine. If you do his charging special art right after that shine you will instantly charge one level. This lets you quickly build your levels while attacking. Even more interesting is that his charging special itself has two glimmer points on startup and if you time it right for both you will instantly charge up to level three. The problem is that the transformation takes so long that your combo will end. If you’re starting a combo putting yourself instantly into level three is great but mid-combo you’ll want to be get the one-level charges after every move since those allow you to keep your combo afterwards.

Hanbei Takenaka is Hideyoshi Toyotomi’s devoted retainer who wields a combination sword+whip like Ivy from Soul Calibur. All of his moves have a sword version executing by tapping the move commands and a whip version by holding the buttons down- naturally, the sword is faster but the whip has greater range. You can seamlessly switch between the sword and whip during his regular combo and he has great utility out of both weapons in his special arts. One of Hanbei’s sword special arts is a dash forward followed by two thrusts; it does good damage, can break guards, and moves him forward a little bit. The whip version of that move will him shoot the whip forward and pull it back along with any enemy it hits, gathering enemies for further combos. One of his secret arts makes him Very mad and he gets double hits off every move and the whip attacks get a delayed after-image that hits enemies and looks neat.

Every character in Sengoku Basara is designed like this- everyone has a unique gimmick that makes them play differently from the rest of the cast. The fun in Sengoku Basara is learning how to play these characters and how to effectively maintain combos with them.
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That's what I'm saying.
 
Jimmyfenix said:
I won Shenmue for £2 on Ebay a few days ago. it is a sealed copy as well.
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I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, but if you buy 20 copies of Shenmue and mail one to a Powerful Editor Man every month, that would be funny forever.

Xater said:
Don't make fun of him. He isn't wrong but went kind of overboard with his explanation.
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Wasn't his post, in case it wasn't obvious. Still funny, though.
 
Guys, I am not a fan of Simins, either, but we can at least rally around the fact that Kuchera is just the worst.

I also don't understand the hate for Dynasty Warriors when people, including Brad, seem super into Dead Rising which has the same amount of (zero) depth. And I say that as someone who doesn't care for DW whatsoever.
 
ReignofSparrows said:
Guys, I am not a fan of Simins, either, but we can at least rally around the fact that Kuchera is just the worst.

I also don't understand the hate for Dynasty Warriors when people, including Brad, seem super into Dead Rising which has the same amount of (zero) depth. And I say that as someone who doesn't care for DW whatsoever.
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I think it's more about them releasing what seems like the same game over and over again for those who aren't super into the mechanics of it (and even then the game hasn't changed very much since DW3, let's be honest here) and calling them numbered sequels. Brad's love for the DR franchise also seems to have more to do with the humor than the gameplay, even if that's of course also a factor.

edit: ALT+F1 is up, while Jar Time got delayed by an hour it seems.
 
Myggen said:
I think it's more about them releasing what seems like the same game over and over again for those who aren't super into the mechanics of it (and even then the game hasn't changed very much since DW3, let's be honest here) and calling them numbered sequels. Brad's love for the DR franchise also seems to have more to do with the humor than the gameplay, even if that's of course also a factor.
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They never get far enough into the Musou games for them to turn batshit crazy. Also they are lovely melodramatic at the same time. DW8 story was probably one of my favorites that year.
 
Myggen said:
I think it's more about them releasing what seems like the same game over and over again for those who aren't super into the mechanics of it (and even then the game hasn't changed very much since DW3, let's be honest here) and calling them numbered sequels. Brad's love for the DR franchise also seems to have more to do with the humor than the gameplay, even if that's of course also a factor.
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Fair points. I could see someone forgiving (or even enjoying) the gameplay of DW if they also enjoy the trappings, much like I saw people do with Dead Rising because of the humor.
 
ReignofSparrows said:
Guys, I am not a fan of Simins, either, but we can at least rally around the fact that Kuchera is just the worst.

I also don't understand the hate for Dynasty Warriors when people, including Brad, seem super into Dead Rising which has the same amount of (zero) depth. And I say that as someone who doesn't care for DW whatsoever.
Click to expand...

Dead Rising's timing system and all of the mechanics tied to it made it incredibly unique. Dead Rising 3 got rid of the timed mode except for nightmare and subsequently it isn't as well adjusted but the open world and thousands of zombies really make it fun. That's one of my biggest problems with Dynasty Warriors. It used to be the series with "holy shit look at how many dudes there are!" but it's no longer impressive and hasn't been for a while. Would really like them to up the scale.

I still enjoy the genre though, there's a lot of hidden depth and the varied character sets are fun to play around with. Especially like the branching paths in Dynasty Warriors 8 depending on what actions you perform in a mission. Adds a lot of variety and some of the set piece battles are pretty neat.
 
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