Ken's Rage Demo is up @ PSN!

Currently downloading it myself as I type this. (From my PS3, no less.)

YOU ARE LYING TO ME, BOB! WHY ARE YOU LYING? YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, BOB!

Downloading now.

Anyways, yeah playing it now.,

I just finished Rei's part now. My god, it is annoying to hear these guys speak Japanese when they can barely pronounce it, why don't they just say the English names?

Anyways the game's fun so yeah, definitely buying.

^
It'd probably be worse even though it's pretty bad now. Just one of Rei's move would translate to some crazy shit like this; "RISING BIRD SONG OF THE SOUTH: BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH WORDS WORDS WORDS WOOORRDDSSS!!"

Just an example (I don't know the actual fucking translation. Just know it'll be long as hell). So basically it's better than the American names just for the fact that it's shorter. IF they could compress the English names to something smaller, I'd take those instead.

Anyway, I'm going to have to wait until someone ups the demo online since I can't go onto PSN.

Actually they managed to minimize most of the names.

It's alright.

Baal wrote:

Actually they managed to minimize most of the names.

Oh so they actually did translate the moves and put effort into minizing them. Cool. I thought they recycled the JP VA when shouting moves.

Yeah, that's why I wanted them to speak the fucking English names WHICH ARE SUBTITLED RIGHT AFTER THE ATTACK IS FINISHED.

So, they put effort into translating and shortening the names but still shout moves in Japanese?

That's stupid.

Baal wrote:

YOU ARE LYING TO ME, BOB! WHY ARE YOU LYING? YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, BOB!

hahaha what a story, Baal.

Anyhow, Wow, I am so hyped for November 2nd.

Only played each part once, and I wish I'd done Rei's first, since it was basically a tutorial. Rei was more fun to play as too.

Once again though, it mostly came down to just hammering square and every now and then pressing triangle. I can never seem to click with these games. I much prefer combo systems based around timing the buttons presses.

Is it worth trying for someone who hasn't heard of the series before?

MAYBE.

Which means no.

Skip wrote:

Is it worth trying for someone who hasn't heard of the series before?

Yes, because i'm going to be talking about this a lot so you might as well at least know who ken and rei are.

loved the manga, i'll probably get a kick outta the game when baal inevitably brings it over during a visit. so i've just gotta get the whole 'waiting' thing outta the way--i'm good at that realrealgoodGODDAMMITINEEDSOMECOFFEE!

Skip wrote:

Is it worth trying for someone who hasn't heard of the series before?

Fist of the North Star was my first exposure to anime. But I only saw the film a couple times and that was years ago. What really matters is if you enjoy Dynasty Warriors type games.

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

Skip wrote:

Is it worth trying for someone who hasn't heard of the series before?

Fist of the North Star was my first exposure to anime. But I only saw the film a couple times and that was years ago. What really matters is if you enjoy Dynasty Warriors type games.

Hater, there's a lot of extra stuff characters can do in this and the visuals in this game especially the cam are great.

I found the camera slightly annoying. I don't doubt there's plenty of extra content but the basic system seemed a bit boring. Do the combos actually evolve throughout these games, or do you just unlock more single-button-press special moves?

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

I found the camera slightly annoying. I don't doubt there's plenty of extra content but the basic system seemed a bit boring. Do the combos actually evolve throughout these games, or do you just unlock more single-button-press special moves?

Essentially you wil end up getting a series of square + triangle modifier moves. But even pressing triangle alone shows that moves are chargeable rei had 3 different moves just pressing triangle once. Its extremely easy to link combos in this game, you can use cancelling and its definitely possible to get infinites going, if you know what you are doing, its also possible to combo cancel (something i find is extremely rare in this specific genre).

Various special moves, unlockable moves as you level up. You have grabs, you can dodge. By activating hyper mode you unlock a whole other set of combos. Thats a fuckload of moves, and yes Ken will get a lot better after he's been levelled he's meant to be shit at the beginning, cause he's god like by the end of the series and end of this game. Rei and the others won't improve anywhere near as much.

This game has more moves then most games. I'm honestly not sure what you want in a game though, as for me enslaved had platforming which i didn't dictate where i jumped the game did, and combos were purely the square button, that in my mind is a lot more about pressing one button then this game is.

I get the impression you never played final fight 3 or streets of rage 2, both games had combat based around one button, but the number of moves you could pull off were ridiculous this is pretty much the same.

Also camera was fully controllable with the right stick, although by being good i was referring to how it panned out when it showed objectives, i loved the motion blur effect.

Enslaved wasn't a beat 'em up, I wasn't expecting deep combat.

I'm not saying that demo wasn't fun, it just didn't really sell me on the game. I find games like this a lot more rewarding when there's an element of timing to the combos. All it seems to be pressing square and triangle at a ratio of about 5:1. Yeah, you can enter hyper mode and get new combos, but you're still just hammering square and triangle. Same for throws. And the special moves are just a single button press from the look of it.

I just don't find it to be a very engaging battle system. It's fun (well, Rei was fun, in the demo) and it looks cool, but there didn't seem to be anything to really sink my teeth into. No learning curve, other than the parry.

You'll have to play it and explain some stuff to me in more detail.

A_Nonny_Moose wrote:

Enslaved wasn't a beat 'em up, I wasn't expecting deep combat.

I'm not saying that demo wasn't fun, it just didn't really sell me on the game. I find games like this a lot more rewarding when there's an element of timing to the combos. All it seems to be pressing square and triangle at a ratio of about 5:1. Yeah, you can enter hyper mode and get new combos, but you're still just hammering square and triangle. Same for throws. And the special moves are just a single button press from the look of it.

I just don't find it to be a very engaging battle system. It's fun (well, Rei was fun, in the demo) and it looks cool, but there didn't seem to be anything to really sink my teeth into. No learning curve, other than the parry.

You'll have to play it and explain some stuff to me in more detail.

I'll post some stuff after i get the game, as i'm honestly not sure how to do everything on this, plus i can actually say whats unlocked as you level up.

Anyway my comment on Enslaved was regarding the somewhat mindless nature of platforming of that style, and as the platforming is mindless what the game would fall back on is the comment, which is literally pressing square.

If i compared it to say assassin's creed (which i actually think has pretty shitty combat as its too easy), the platforming is way more exciting like when you try to get up somehwere and you have a moment of thinking well how the hell am i supposed to do that, i thought the interior levels handled this better but i did like figuring out how to climb some tall structures to sync as well.

The combat in enslaved got better. I was expecting to get more combos, but you don't, which was disappointing. But you learn how to use everything. On hard mode the area attack is more necessary for facing multiple enemies.

You get a counter, which helps because on hard mode the enemies block a lot more so you have to relying on breaking their attack strings. On most enemies you can just attack back to break their string, but they can instantly block even then. And with a couple enemy types it's impossible to break their attack string once they've started, and if you mess up the counter (and it's not easy to do the counter) you're guaranteed to take a few hits, and I've said before that you take a surprising amount of damage in this game if you ever get hit. One string from the tougher enemies would kill you without any of the upgrades.

The charge attack is necessary for shielded enemies, and there's two attacks you can do from a dodge roll, depending on your timing. You also get a focus attack which breaks guard and shields and is a sure kill for the enemy that gets hit by it, but to use it you need to land a bunch of hits first, which can be troublesome with all the blocking they do.

If Enslaved was a beat 'em up then I might have some complaints, but the battle system is fine for how it's used in the game.