My first playthrough was on hard, and I thought the combat was fantastic.
The enemies had just enough damage to blow through your shield in a few shots and this made cover, skylines and traps an important aspect of the game. Watching Jeff play it on the quick look on normal it felt like watching some weird COD knock off where you could just run in a room shoot the shit out of everything with iron sight and sometimes throw in a vigor just for shits and giggles. Playing on hard, made taking cover essential and running around from cover to cover helped tremendously. Running around like a little shit is part of the game and is especially true when battling a handy-man, this is perpetuated by the presence of skylines which if I'm not mistaken is in every handy-man battle including the one with Chen - it was a hook but given the minimum distance needed for latching onto it, the increased mobility was still there. I think the game is varied and interesting enough if you play it like that by using the various vigors and experimenting with what works on which enemies, that being said I can understand how there would be a 100% efficient combo either with spamming crows, electricity or whatever.
I thought the two weapon limit was odd at first, frustrating later, and justified at the end. In the beginning it didn't matter because the weapon choices were few and ammo was abundant. Later on in the game when the fights became prolonged, running out of ammo during a fight was commonplace and it got frustrating. Weapon and ammo management is an aspect I didn't expect. Running around with an empty gun and picking up whatever weapon was on the floor made it more interesting because it felt desperate and natural. Natural in a way that a a man can only carry two guns and picking up a gun on the floor mid-fight was a very realistic thing to do. Thinking about it, at the end of it all. I think having more than two guns at one time could have made the game too easy while lessening the impact upgrades can have.
The ONE thing I hate about the combat is that death is not permanent. The respawning ruins the game and provides no form of consequence for dying except losing a bit of dosh. To me dying and respawning just meant that I could brute force my way through certain sections. I wish there was no respawn, because each arena fight would then be a sort of puzzle and dying just meant you could approach it differently with ammo and salts intact.
I've seen some reviews and read some comments and the combat seems to be the weakest part of the game. I'm sure there are things that could be nitpicked and downright criticised that I've missed. But often, I ask the question: Compared to what? I can't recall a game that had such fulfilling combat since HL2. Its not perfect, but its the best combat I've experienced in an FPS so far.
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