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Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Necroscope

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Codex 2014
I think that Phantom Pain could've been an amazing game, but it ended up as another underdeveloped open world blandfest. The gameplay is great, the graphics too, it's nicely optimized, I didn't encounter any bugs, but everything else seems tied up in a hurry. The main character barely speaks, the story is clearly unfinished and there's just too little variety to everything. I derived some fun out of it, but it got boring after a while and I gave up at some point. "The Lost Tapes" and the overall vibe of the story is probably the best thing that came out of it.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
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Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
MGS 4 is probably the worst MGS game.
At least MGS4 felt like an MGS game. 5 lost its essence.
You sure that's not your agoraludophobia thing talking?
You nailed it in the head. I wouldn't call it agoraludoenynajephobia, but I certainly didn't like the huge ass open world. MGS3 and 4 both had open areas in them, but they were more limited. And I like that design more.
 

Ezekiel

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I legitimately can't think of a single series that did not degrade sharply in this decline era.

DMC

Devil May Cry certainly did decline. It fell victim to the movie trend, to every game needing to be more about the story now. Yet its story somehow felt more pointless than Devil May Cry 3's. Too many cutscenes. DMC3 usually saved them for the beginning and end of a level and to introduce bosses.

Two hours of cutscenes in DMC3.



Three hours of cutscenes in DMC5.



I also preferred playing as one character through the entire game. You don't spend enough time with them.
 

Ash

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I legitimately can't think of a single series that did not degrade sharply in this decline era.

DMC

Devil May Cry certainly did decline.

Fuck me, thank you.

DMC peaked with the original. An all-round good game.

2 is trash we all know. Same as the reboot.
3 added fast weapon swap, the style switch system, generally the combat improved slightly. However, the strong art style and atmosphere of the original was degraded. the game is worse to look at than the original somehow. All DMCs suffer level design rehashing, but it became prevalent starting with 3. Additionally, the level design in any DMC is simply not as good as the original, even with the annoying swimming section it has. Music? Also much rehashing compared to the original. DMC1 also had some degree of platforming exploration and puzzle focus. Most of this is still present in the later games to varying degrees, but combat became the focus. Listen the combat is good but it's not THAT good. You mostly wail on easy copy-paste enemies with poorly telegraphed attacks racking up style meter for more orbs you don't really need with little danger (until you unlock later difficulties). Ninja Gaiden has better combat. Most fights right from the start are intense as fuck. Most common enemies will end you if you don't master the combat and quick. It's engaging from start to finish, while DMC is just a rhythm game disguised as combat UNTIL the boss fights. even the God of War trilogy lets you play on hard from the start, and actually poses a challenge consistently if you do so.
4. Again minor improvements to combat, but suffers all the same shit as 3 and some dialed up further, especially the rehashing.
5. There's an OK game in there somewhere. the anime shit originally very minimal in DMC1 has now peaked with 5 including a motocycle weapon that Dante dances a jam with jus cus, "how much convoluted nonsensical story do we care to add" is now peak, mysterious generic emo anime character Z is added to split up character development/progression even though he plays like shit. Level design is a straight line at this point, and when it opens up its rarely in interesting ways. Music? LOL it's now this pop trap dubstep trash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpPaTM48h74

Series declined. Still some competent games at least, but it could have been so much more. and also less animu cringeyness too.

Ninja Gaiden (2004) is the peak of this genre. Sadly also another series that declined.

I think that Phantom Pain could've been an amazing game, but it ended up as another underdeveloped open world blandfest. The gameplay is great, the graphics too, it's nicely optimized, I didn't encounter any bugs, but everything else seems tied up in a hurry. The main character barely speaks, the story is clearly unfinished and there's just too little variety to everything. I derived some fun out of it, but it got boring after a while and I gave up at some point. "The Lost Tapes" and the overall vibe of the story is probably the best thing that came out of it.

the gameplay mechanics are great - being able to roll on the ground, the constant switching from TPS to FPS is more natural and empowering than top-down to FPS, you can double-reload to chamber a round, things like that, otherwise motherbase stuff aside it's mostly all the same as MGS3, even with some stuff removed. However level design is highly relevant to gameplay, as is mission design, and in 5 it all sucks as we all seem to agree. the result is the gameplay isn't that good. Despite the gameplay mechanics in MGS3 being more restrictive mainly due to the camera, it's way more engaging because of the level design, boss fights, and diversity of encounters. consider the jungle world 1. It has swamps with tightropes above, beware catch leeches and disease, find the secrets, avoid getting slowed down and eaten by a croc. Or take on the crocs because there is a reward for catching every animal or something like that if I recall. that's the swamp. there's like 12 areas in the jungle at least and each is vastly different to the last. Dark caves with mushrooms that act as an energy source, secret nooks, snakes and other critters. The fight with The End, I could go on. Each level is designed as an obstacle course and interactive playground. Meanwhile MGSV is here's a open place, next to nothing is interactive and you'll be doing the same shit over and over in it. Umm, have fun! Shit gameplay. MGS3 despite being 50% movie game had some pretty fine gameplay. It's too bad because if you skip all the cutscenes it's quite a short game, when it really deserved more game time. Oh, it helps that old Metal Gear is somewhat challenging too while the 8 second full regen health timer, reflex mode and stuff of 5 kind of ruin that too.

Zelda revitalized itself
The last Donkey Kong games was also pretty good

Breath of the Wild? we'll see, no comment as I've not played. same with DK.

No idea why these new nintendo games are so damn ugly though. 3D games don't have to lack detail and look worse than something from 1993.

1200px-SloppySands.png


This literally looks uglier than a nearly 30 y/o simple nintendo game.
 
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sullynathan

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Devil May Cry certainly did decline. It fell victim to the movie trend, to every game needing to be more about the story now. Yet its story somehow felt more pointless than Devil May Cry 3's. Too many cutscenes. DMC3 usually saved them for the beginning and end of a level and to introduce bosses.

Two hours of cutscenes in DMC3.



Three hours of cutscenes in DMC5.



I also preferred playing as one character through the entire game. You don't spend enough time with them.

You picked the wrong videos, both of them lots of gameplay.

DMC5 has more like 2 hours while DMC 3 has 1.5 hours



You can play the game as Vergil entirely.

Ninja Gaiden has better combat. Most fights right from the start are intense as fuck. Most common enemies will end you if you don't master the combat and quick. It's engaging from start to finish,
Obviously this is a lie. Ninja Gaiden does the inverse in which the bosses are mostly shit but the regular enemies are challenging even though they rely heavily on grab moves that the player can't break out of. That's not better combat. It also has 1 to 1 exact same level design as DMC.

Yea yea, we get it you don't like over the top manga or the music, no one really gives a shit. The DMC enemies have well telegraphed moves something ninja Gaiden doesn't even have half the time.
 

DJOGamer PT

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Fuck me, thank you.

DMC peaked with the original. An all-round good game.

2 is trash we all know. Same as the reboot.
3 added fast weapon swap, the style switch system, generally the combat improved slightly. However, the strong art style and atmosphere of the original was degraded. the game is worse to look at than the original somehow. All DMCs suffer level design rehashing, but it became prevalent starting with 3. Additionally, the level design in any DMC is simply not as good as the original, even with the annoying swimming section it has. Music? Also much rehashing compared to the original. DMC1 also had some degree of platforming exploration and puzzle focus. Most of this is still present in the later games to varying degrees, but combat became the focus. Listen the combat is good but it's not THAT good. You mostly wail on easy copy-paste enemies with poorly telegraphed attacks racking up style meter for more orbs you don't really need with little danger (until you unlock later difficulties). Ninja Gaiden has better combat. Most fights right from the start are intense as fuck. Most common enemies will end you if you don't master the combat and quick. It's engaging from start to finish, while DMC is just a rhythm game disguised as combat UNTIL the boss fights. even the God of War trilogy lets you play on hard from the start, and actually poses a challenge consistently if you do so.
4. Again minor improvements to combat, but suffers all the same shit as 3 and some dialed up further, especially the rehashing.
5. There's an OK game in there somewhere. the anime shit originally very minimal in DMC1 has now peaked with 5 including a motocycle weapon that Dante dances a jam with jus cus, "how much convoluted nonsensical story do we care to add" is now peak, mysterious generic emo anime character Z is added to split up character development/progression even though he plays like shit. Level design is a straight line at this point, and when it opens up its rarely in interesting ways. Music? LOL it's now this pop trap dubstep trash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpPaTM48h74

Series declined. Still some competent games at least, but it could have been so much more. and also less animu cringeyness too.

Ninja Gaiden (2004) is the peak of this genre. Sadly also another series that declined.

It's somewhat sad seeing you post this drivel Ash
If I didn't know you better I would say you're retarded, but since that isn't the case I'll go ahead and say you're being ignorant (and even a bit edgy to make this post more entertaining), or perhaps just misremembering them

So I'll start by reminding you that at the end of the day, DMC is a fucking Brawler.
The gameplay (and specially the combat mechanics) and enemy design are the end-all and be-all of the experience, the rest are details
Nice details that can definitively elevate or sour the whole experience sure, but still not the burning hot core that determines the game's final quality
And DMC5 is not only the best of the series in those regards but also one of the best in the genre

Now for DMC1, I do share the opinion that it is a good game and pleasant experience that should still be played despite its age
But dude take your fucking googles off...
As a 3D Brawler it's undeniably not a particularly good one
And even in its sort of RE exploration is not a very good game either - due it's structure of short missions with clear and explained goals and the fact that almost everything in the level but the right path get blocked off, it's pretty much impossible to get lost in any way
I don't know what you see in that game's platforming, when it's controls don't have enough precision to properly support it
By the way fuck off with saying DMC3 combat improvements are minor, not even shitposters at /v/ would say something this moronic

Also do you hate fun in video games?
Because chainsawing a demon with a motorcycle is fun

Calling it a rhythm however is the most stupid thing I've ever seen you write
Specially since this is a criticism you didn't lay down at Sekiro's feet
Even though in that game enemies can only be dealt with in very specific patterns, and its arsenal+moveset have a very limited range of purposes and highly restrictive usage
Design maladies which DMC doesn't suffer from, neither does Ninja Gaiden, neither does God Hand, neither does Bayonetta, neither does W101
But by your own dumb argument the above titles, which everyone with half a brain and some experience in the genre know are the best examples of it, are rhythm games

As for Ninja Gaiden
Go the replay the game again man...
You're exaggerating its qualities (or not remembering its defects)
I've completed Sigma 1 late last year (and been waiting for a good enough 360 emulator to play NG2)
What sullynathan said is true
NG boss design is shit - they're either "Simon says" type bosses, or so basic and generic that make you wish for a skip button, or the "human" bosses which the best thing you can say about them is that they don't suck
The regular enemies are the ones that are fun to fight but even them it's mostly the human ones as the monsters also greatly vary in design quality
Most of the time the difficulty doesn't come from the enemy design, but from the fact that every enemy has a hyper aggressive AI and deals a lot of damage - plus some attacks that have unclear or inconsistent rules and worst of all, absolutely no counters or defenses for (like the grab attacks Sully mentioned)
Another significant problems with NG is how every weapon has quite a few redundant moves, the lack of quick weapon switching discourages improvisation and, possibly the biggest fail, how the most basic move of the game is easily one of the most OP moves (talking about Flying Swallow)
Overall the Ninja Gaiden series hasn't realized it's full potential, so even it's best game is behind God Hand and Bayonetta as well

Finally, why are you complaining about unlockable difficulties in DMC and not in NG, or any other japanese action games?
Because in case you didn't notice, every japanese action game does difficulty progression like that
It's how they like it, how they think replayability for these games should be like
The 1st run is meant to learn the game, unlock most shit and have a good time
Subsequent playtroughs are the ones for challenge
So bringing up God of War into this is just ridiculous man

This literally looks uglier than a nearly 30 y/o simple nintendo game.

The game looks fine
Shut up and fucking try it already
Tropical Freeze has great level design

 
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or just pull a "fuck you fanboys" like in MGS 2

I really don't know where players got it from.

- Snake's majority of dialogue were just inane questions; by comparison in MGS2 he had much more interesting things to say, both "mentoring" and otherwise, while the idiot protagonist's role was taken by Raiden
- consequently, his appearances on the screen were much more badass than you could convey by being a PC
- Storywise, it just couldn't be any other way (and the story's just 11/10)
- I really couldn't give a rat's ass how the small Pacman silhouette in the center of a screen looks like
 

Bigg Boss

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Sep 23, 2012
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or just pull a "fuck you fanboys" like in MGS 2

I really don't know where players got it from.

- Snake's majority of dialogue were just inane questions; by comparison in MGS2 he had much more interesting things to say, both "mentoring" and otherwise, while the idiot protagonist's role was taken by Raiden
- consequently, his appearances on the screen were much more badass than you could convey by being a PC
- Storywise, it just couldn't be any other way (and the story's just 11/10)
- I really couldn't give a rat's ass how the small Pacman silhouette in the center of a screen looks like

You played as the cool guy for a little bit then were forced to play as a blonde cartwheeling pussy the rest of the game. It was meant to say "you don't get what you want" most certainly. I kept hoping it would switch back. Raiden is and always will be a faggot. It makes it hard to replay even though it is peak Metal Gear.
 
Unwanted

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You played as the cool guy for a little bit then were forced to play as a blonde cartwheeling pussy the rest of the game. It was meant to say "you don't get what you want" most certainly. I kept hoping it would switch back. Raiden is and always will be a faggot. It makes it hard to replay even though it is peak Metal Gear.
it is worth mentioning that he didn't sound as a whiny faggot in the japanese version. Lots of questionable choices in the western release of MGS 2 (translation, dubbing...)
 

Bigg Boss

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You played as the cool guy for a little bit then were forced to play as a blonde cartwheeling pussy the rest of the game. It was meant to say "you don't get what you want" most certainly. I kept hoping it would switch back. Raiden is and always will be a faggot. It makes it hard to replay even though it is peak Metal Gear.
it is worth mentioning that he didn't sound as a whiny faggot in the japanese version. Lots of questionable choices in the western release of MGS 2 (translation, dubbing...)

Yeah, I mean at the age of 12 or so my friend and I talked shit about Raiden the whole game. We loved it but we were like "Want more Snake" which I think is a valid complaint.

The translation of the first game is what made it so good. All that OSP shit was added in by the English guys that know military shit.
 
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and so today i had my first meeting ever with kojima.
holy fucking fuck of flying fuckers of fuck, how can anyone in his sane mind ever take this retarded hack seriously? he's nothing more than an average david cage on lsd, a wannabe movie director without skill, knowledge or even only a good idea, in just a few minutes he managed to abuse all the worst tropes, worse than "baddie falling on glass coffee table", multiple times, then retardness galore with superhuman powers and mysterious monsters, a thing which just ate for breakfast antitank bullets and grenades suddenly gets stopped by few drops of water, and that's where i stopped, still way deep into the tutorial, which forced the player to stay still for tens of minutes with nothing happening on screen, then forced him to crawl, then to stumble around, then to crawl more, then to stumble again and crawl some more, all the while taking control away every time it could, a cardinal sin the world stopped chasing since half-life more than 20 years ago, meeting with enemy soldiers who can't see the main character, literally invisible to their eyes despite being right in front of them, in the direction they're looking at, soldiers who shoot anyone, anyone but the main character right in front of them, because kojima thinks he's the greatest director ever, so cunning and smart he thinks he is.
the people who made him rich are even more retarded than him.
 

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