HaniBall

gameplay

@darkbeatdk:

THanks for the link. THis actually does look pretty KG. Now let me very selfishly hope the same sex relationships are girl on girl.

You know I don't see much gameplay here, but I don't get a Senran Kagura vibe from it. Is Marvelous the developer or just the publisher?

Anyhoo, Senran kagura actually has pretty decent hack n slash gameplay. The stroy and characters are plenty fleshed out to. Pun not intended.

So not writing this off but not getting my hopes up either.

looks like a merry meshup of Ninja Gaiden and Dark Souls. If they get this even remotely right it should be pretty damn entertaining.

I play in bite size sessions. In the Japanese castle now. There was a section there I got through on pure luck. The minigun brutes actually focused on my helpers for a few seconds :) Definitely some difficulty spikes in the game.

Anyhoo, still having fun with it. Relying on melee wherever possible, which is not often enough. They make me use guns too often for my taste.

I tried the online once and gave up after one game. Nobody there was even trying to duke it out old style. All about the guns with the kids these days.

@lestephan:

I'll be jumping into some multiplayer sessions when the story is over. Have a feeling it will be a couple of weeks though.

But I took my Vita with me and my lil boy to the playground last night and finally finished the first chapter of NGS2+ on Master Ninja. And you know, Rasetsu is a bitch when you meet him that first time. And his grab is a ohk too. But I always felt like I was in control and if I messed up it was my bad. Of course I have spent countless more hours in NGS2 than in DT so maybe I am just not blocking, dodging, countering - whateber it is I'm missing - right. But while the tone and tasteless humor are pure Itagaki win, the combat and bosses so far remind me more of my hard run against Krauser in RE4 :)

But good to hear that he mixes up enemies in later chapters. That is something I was missing so far. he would through a bunch of melee guys at me at once or standard enemies with a couple rocket dudes mixed in but it didn't feel as strategic. But that may all come together in hardcore mode, who knows.

Not sure anybody is even reading here. Seems like the bad reviews have done their job shutting down any interest in this game.

Anyways, I am ashamed to say that I had to drop down to "casual" for the boss battle I mentioned. I am fairly sure I am missing key components of the combat and I will laugh at myself when/if I reach a decent level of skill in this game. But the spike was enormous. Could be a small balancing issue here.

But: I was still having fun. And finally beating him, even on casual, felt like a nice accomplishment.

I have only played a couple of hours. I am enjoying it. It is a fun game. But I am a Itagaki fanboy, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

In terms of the combat I am still waiting for an epiphany. I want to say I am chaining slides, combos and finishers and alternating between shotgun and melee with ease. But I am not. I guess I am still trying to find the right mix. Or maybe there are upgrades or new combos/counters coming later in the game. Right now, the second boss is kicking my ass, hard. He mixes melee with (unblockable) projectiles and I find that my dodge isn't reliable enough to avoid taking dmg. And the guy has some very damaging attacks, including a ohk. I guess the NG crowd will be happy to hear that. And I am too. As long as I get the precision combat to still make it an uplifting experience.

But the jury is still out. It may be that I just suck :)

So I started a new profile on hard this morning in Ascension. For a quick morning session. I played through to chapter 4 (completed the second encounter with the giant insect, after it kills the prisoner).

And: I am not sure I can tell a difference. If you play any character action game on hard. Bayonetta, DmC, mgr:r, NG, you will encounter remixed enemy waves and bumbed up AI. Here? Maybe the enemies hit a little harder? There is certainly no need to parry. And if the answer is a) just see whats coming up in later chapters b) titan is the real hard. Then the answer to both is: play chapter one of any Ninja Gaiden on Mentor and you will have a pretty good idea whether you can make it through (*). That is how you do difficulty is done right. Or DmC, where they mix up the immunities to really light up the dancefloor on SoS.

So, in a nutshell, while I really liked the game, imho, the replay isn't there.

(*) here I already know if I play through to the trials I will probably throw my controller. But also will have a really great fight. That is the only thing that might keep me going. But for now I'll switch over to III and gave that a try on hard.

EDIT: system wont let me post again but I said I'd look at III next and I did. Short morning session again. Up to the first save point.

the beginning of III on hard is a very different animal because a) you start all powered up, so the regular enemies are a complete non issue. and b) most of the first level is a gimmick "epic" boss battle. With 4 phases no less. The last of which I had trouble reading and resorted to jumping around wildly and spamming magic inbetween. Worked quite well :) Then you come up to the Horseman (centaur?) and I got a stick rotation qte and thought to myself how do people like this better. Then I realized, that is probably where you people would parry. See, I can still learn :)

UPDATE: continued Ascension on hard up to where you get the fire weapon this morning. I understand why players would wish for a quick way to control the crowd in such battles. Actually one of the boss battles before also had enemies swarm you while you were trying to get the boss to drop the platform. Grab, throw works alright but it's not as snappy as a quick counter. I guess it's more about the small aoe and breaking out of a swarm then the one on one parry in mgr:r or .souls.

@nasp: I have spent more time with NG and Bayonetta too. My recent favorite was probably mgr:r. Try that if you haven't. And from some of the battles in ascension i get a similar feeling.

But it sounds like i will need to try my hand at parrying. Like i said, i had to for zeus and his gang of clones, but there was spamming involved tbh. And that clearly would not work with the new system.

I will try both and report back :)