Very loosely ordered based solely on combat (& by extension how the game's length and pacing and level/enemy design affects the combat & my desire to keep playing). just wanted a place to type out my thoughts about this genre. 3D games only. not sure if I should include Souls type stuff... Gonna avoid listing things I haven't played recently
It just nails everything lol. The mob combat & bosses are always engaging & the combat system feels complete in a way that very few of these do. Like this could be a respectable 3D fighter (& I guess the souls games already almost are)
First one where the Jump to Dodge thing clicked & I enjoyed the weapon variety, even though there was rarely a reason not to use the sword (& weapon switching mid combo was annoying cuz of the few weapons I didn't want to use). Goes on for a few hours too long tho, imo
I just really like how simple it is but still feels grounded & gives you a sense of space. You just helm breaker shit until you build Devil Trigger and then you shoot lighting from the sky until everything dies and it kinda rules for a 4 hr experience.
Incredible core combat, but the repetitive mission design & maximalist loot is overwhelming & drags things down. Eventually gave up cuz I heard the sequel is better about those shortcomings so I'll play that one.
Color coding & assist system are bad but the game feel with rhythm matching feels real good and the moveset gives a lot of opportunities to style on ppl. Fundamentally very similar to DMC4&5 but mostly pulls it off & feels great. Levels are a bit too long tho & it takes too many of them to get your base moveset.
insanely fun mob fights - better than anything else on this list except maybe Nioh & sekiro - but boss fights are kinda dull and level progression/"puzzles" are such a slog that I gave up on it about half way through. I really like the middle ground this achieves with it's control. there's a level of commitment to animations like the roll & jump not letting you have aftertouch, but the animations themselves are so fast and have just the right amount of heft so it gives the whole thing this flow of committing to something and then getting control back to make another decision and then giving that back & it just feels incredible, stands out even among the rest of these
The rhythm of punching and dodging to is so fricking satisfying dude. The low, close, over the shoulder perspective makes it really stand out from the rest of these and building your own combo strings allows for a lot of fun expressivity and a level of engagement with the core mechanics i love. Unfortunately, the dynamic difficulty and later stage boss design really drains the fun out of it for me, the constant stress is just too much for me to handle, Id much prefer a more fluctuating ebb and flow.
The fundamentals are strong and everything feels good on a base level but its so focused on spectacle boss fights that kinda end up playing out the same because of the dodge mechanic that it feels very repetitive. The mobs are less interesting/challenging than the first game too.
Lack of poise makes heavy builds very annoying. Game in general is much more unforgiving early on than future soulsbourne games. Specific to the remake - adding an item burden fucking sucks so much. I didn't think it would matter too much & I get the thinking that it'll help limit healing items, but it makes comparing items & especially armor an absolute nightmare if you're not just going off of a build guide you found online.
fun mob combat, especially with Nero, bosses are ok, not great not terrible. Wish there was a bit more enemy variety, but they're mostly just there to get beat up on without putting up much resistance. But the biggest issue is that the level design is the worst of both worlds from the RE influenced design of 1,2,3 and the more linear streamlined story of DmC & V (which I vastly prefer). just feels like a chore to get thru, even tho I love doing the combat. & even by the end the combat started to get boring cuz of how many of the same enemy sets you have to fight over and over
Weird middle ground between grounded games where positioning matters like Dmc & Arkham combat where you literally teleport to get the hit regardless of distance. Theres interesting expressivity built into the air juggle and grapple to/from stuff as well as using the environment but enemy design prevents u from getting into a good flow. Miles' new powers do a lot to alleviate that and open up even more expressivity but the core problem is still there.
Feels like a better Dark Souls 3, but all the bosses rely on similar tricks, and the open world and just sheer amount of dungeon crawling makes the combat feel tiring more than fun.
Hits and parries feel great but the enemy & level design gets old despite having only 5 levels. I like the arcade+progression structure a lot, but the requirements to permanently unlock abilitys felt a bit too grindy & the stuff you're unlocking feels a bit stale, it's all very boxed in to this idea of what a martial arts movie should be and that holds it back from doing very much of anything interesting or capital-F Fun. You really just never get to style on the enemies the way I want out of a beat-em-up game.
very flat simple & stiff but I appreciate that on some level. It's more annoying when the enemies are inconsistent about getting stun locked & stuff, those points of rule-breaking really make it hard to take it seriously
the bones of a souls game but without the knowledge of how to implement something like this. Doesn't commit enough in either direction to being Animation based or Hitbox based and ends up feeling clumsy - stiff when I want it to be fluid, organic when I want it to be mechanical
Very fast and weightless but once i got into a rhythm of finding the fastest knickdown -> cou de gras with each weapon class/spell it was pretty stisfying
Enemies just don't give a fuck about stun lock or anything so it's hard to take seriously as a system because its rules never feel grounded enough for me to care
It's just floaty and bad and never challenges you to actually engage with the combat
looks satisfying but the glory kill stuff got boring by the end of the first real level and even though I'm generally a fan of QTEs, they're way too repetitive and plain here & the slomo actually ruins what little flow there is to the crowd management. It feels like the QTEs in Yakuza, but instead of breaking a bicycle over a dudes head and then using a traffic cone as a baseball bat to yeet them into a cabaret club, Kiryu just slomo punches a guy 3 times. By the start of the second level I was already actively avoiding them or waiting to stack as many kills as possible so I didn't have to watch them all one by one. It's kinda a shame cuz I like the strategy layer the game has of being able to select if the QTEs give you more XP or build focus or restore health.
Just an absurd amount of animation priority. feels stiff & clumsy & just flows so bad. Actively offputting to play.
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