World of Darkness Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood - action-RPG adaptation from Cyanide

[rusty_shackleford]

honestly expected more from Cyanide, of orcs and men & the GoT RPG were both pretty good

the combat is fun though, if you want to play a game where you're a pissed off werewolf destroying shit then I'd recommend it

 

[DJOGamer PT]

So the game is shit?
Also why are you splinting posts?

No.
Because surprinsingly, against all my expectations, the combat is pretty fun, and I am going to talk about it

Is it like the Batman/Spider-Man and pretty much all Western Brawlers of the last decade?
No

Saying it's like a 2000's brawler is indeed very apt
Because the closest brawler I can think of for this game are the classic God of War games (it is in fact very similiar to old GoW)

Which hey... at point this I'll take it, seeing the last decent Western Brawler was what? 40K: Space Marine, 10 years ago? God of War 3, 11 years ago?


I'll explain what I've learned so far, so this isn't in any way complete, it's just the basics:


So you have your Light Attacks and Heavy Attacks
Everyone knows what light attacks do, as for the heavy attack they do easilly triple the damage of regular attacks and can stun & open the guard of beefier oponents

So just spam Heavy Attacks, got it
Not so fast bro...
Heavy Attacks have very large wind-up windows, so not only will you be taking damage during that time you can also be interrupted by a shotgun or sniper loaded with silver bullets (these besides doing massive damage lower you total HP for the rest of the fight)
Plus you can't start any combo string with heavy attacks, rather they exist to end a combo

You can dash, which not only exists to dodge but also to tackle and you can insert a dash in a combo and even start a combo from a dash

Jumping to dodge is also possible and you can even do a very brief (like 1/2 hits) juggle combo mid-air

Also unlike every western brawler in the last decade this game has Hitboxes!
Imagine that!

Ok let me explain
You see ever since Arkham Asylum there's been this weird tend in western brawlers, where traditional hitboxes have been done away with
So unless you are performing some area of effect move, your attacks will only hit the enemy you were "locked-on" to (nevermind the fact you actually see Batman's spinning kick go through 3 guys heads)
This is obviously shit because it's artificial and takes versitility away from the combat

This is something Werewolf doesn't suffer
You can kill 10 mooks at once if an attack lands

Like God of War there's also a Rage meter - which amplifies your attacks properties
The more damage you make, to more enemies, without getting interrupted, the more Rage you build up
Rage is required to perform special moves and each move take up a bar of rage (you start with 4)
You can also like GoW and nuDoom, put yourself in danger to perform a execution which fills up a bar of rage

Then you have two Stances: the Agile Stance and the Heavy Stance
Agile is the one that allows to perform the more acrobatic moves, run around in combat and higher Rage generation - but its less powerful and it's moves are all meant for crowd control
The Heavy Stance is obviously slower but more powerful and it's attacks are focused on 1v1
Plus each Stance has it's own special moves

Finally, with enough Fury (a kind of slower to build-up long term Rage) you can Frenzy - this game's Devil Trigger/Spartan Rage
You get the speed of the Agile Stance coupled with the power of the Heavy Stance
But you lose access to the special moves and regeneration



And this is it for the combat mechanics
Now I could talk about enemy design, but I've seen little so far and written already a wall of text
So for now I'll just say I am enjoying this and the game is worth at most some 10 euros



EDIT
As for the skill trees
I am happy to say that for the ones relating to combat, they aren't like that boring shit you see in every game nowadays were 9 out of 10 are just % increases and the remaning 1 actually gives you something to play with
No
Here they are all about new abillities and properties for your moves
The utilitary ones do increase your stats they are few in number so their increases aren't small

 

[DJOGamer PT]

This game is no more an ARPG than Batman: Arkham Asylum and PS4's Spiderman is

The "If it's marketed as an RPG it goes into RPG Discussion" rule was adopted to avoid these subjective arguments.

Enjoy this forum being drowned by every game with a progression system
Because nowadays every game with one markets itself as an RPG

 

[rusty_shackleford]

agree on most parts with that, combat music seems decent so far too.
They did a good job of making you feel like you're playing a werewolf, stance control is important/fun, etc.,

 

[rusty_shackleford]

This game is no more an ARPG than Batman: Arkham Asylum and PS4's Spiderman is

The "If it's marketed as an RPG it goes into RPG Discussion" rule was adopted to avoid these subjective arguments.

Enjoy this forum being drowned by every game with a progression system
Because nowadays every game with one markets itself as an RPG

tbh when a random dev does it I'm sort of whatever
but when a dev who has made some ok/decent RPG titles does it, it's annoying

cyanide did the GoT RPG, of orcs and men, and aarklash
also, they did the Styx game which had great stealth and it feels very barebones here. They should have either dropped it or leaned into it all the way, half-assing it just makes it dumb.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

they did the Styx game which had great stealth and it feels very barebones here.

This is the ones I actually don't understand
And another thing that makes think this game really is just a paycheck job for future projects, and as such they only wanted spend enough funds to make sure the combat would be solid
Because like you said mechanically speaking this stealth is completely barren

 

[Zombra]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/745810721/desert-child-a-hoverbike-racing-rpg

If you love RPGs, you're gonna love this!

 

[Jenkem]

The "If it's marketed as an RPG it goes into RPG Discussion" rule was adopted to avoid these subjective arguments.

more OFFICIAL CODEX POLICY


mods are complicit

 

[Ismaul]

The "If it's marketed as an RPG it goes into RPG Discussion" rule was adopted to avoid these subjective arguments.

more OFFICIAL CODEX POLICY


mods are complicit

Goddamn it Jenkem you really need to repeat yourself in every fucking thread? Fuck off and start a thread of your own.

 

[Jenkem]

How am I repeating myself? This is about OFFICIAL CODEX POLICY ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF WHAT IS AN RPG and the first time I've talked about it.

 

[Caim]

yer mum is an rpg

 

[lycanwarrior]

Still better than CP2076

Yeah from the videos I've seen, CP2077 barely looks more of a "RPG" than the Division 2 lol.

Cyberpunk's loot system even sounds more similar to what you find in Destiny/Division looter-shooter games.

 

[orcinator]

I was wondering if this game had Pentex but after a quick search realized Enron is a subsidiary corp.
Now the real question is, does the game have Black Dog Game Factory?

 

[J1M]

https://www.ign.com/articles/werewolf-the-apocalypse-earthblood-review

Lol even IGN gave this as low as a 4/10. It's looking like so far every prediction I've had about this game has come true. It's a boring shitty ugly buggy mess. Shocker.

Completed 3 missions. Using a controller for obvious reasons.

Not trying to be a contrarian here, but it's more fun than the Marvel Avengers game in the same genre. Controls feel better too.

Presentation is uneven, but I'm not going to dock a game 5 points for that. The main character has better visuals than Cyberpunk 2077, but some of the other characters look like they were lifted straight out of Deus Ex 2. :D

You can feel that the game isn't taking itself too seriously. There's no additional rewards for ghosting through a mission that would encourage degenerate quicksave behavior. You could play that way if you wanted to, fly off into a fit of rage immediately (including during dialogs!), or you can takedown/sabotage/prep an area to give you an edge in the combat should you be detected. Unlike most other games, being detected isn't really a bad thing because it means you get to turn into werewolf form.

Other positive design notes:
-shortly after handing you your first skill points the game immediately tells you how you can reset them at base camp, discouraging hording and encouraging build experimentation
-the items you find during exploration provide a massive amount of XP (basically 25% of a skill point)
-wolf form moves quickly
-creating a stealth game that doesn't make me resent the stealth or want to reload upon detection is actually a fairly big design accomplishment
-it feels like a game, not a game pretending to be a movie

Main negative:
-the camera doesn't provide enough field of vision when you are just walking around, feels clausterphobic

They did a pretty terrible job of marketing this thing, but if your primary interest was some 90's nostalgia and World of Darkness osmosis, I think you will enjoy it well enough.

 

[Fedora Master]

But how is the lore implementation?

 

[JDR13]

The game *is* shit. Anyone claiming otherwise is being retardedly optiimistic or hasn't actually played it.

Also, anyone making comparisons to CP 2077 is peak level autistic. Earthblood makes CP 2077 seem like Game of the Decade.

 

[Fedora Master]

Okay so I acquired this. I take old Werewolf rather seriously since it was one of my first PnP games.
It's clearly a consoleshit game that happened to be ported to PC as well, so that's strike one.
The TTN (Time to Nigger) is under 20 seconds after the intro. Strike two...

e: Yea, it's clear the devs used the setting but not the rules. At all. Which is fiiiiiine I guess, they had to game-ify the whole thing. Story so far seems odd. Cahal wouldn't leave his pack over an accidental rage kill. At least I wouldn't play Werewolves that way.

Character animations during dialogue is absolute shit. Enemy AI seems to be rather dumb as well.

 

[J1M]

But how is the lore implementation?

Couldn't answer that, not familiar enough with the tree-hugger books. Did find it amusing that the humans allied with the wolves act more like preppers than Greenpeace though. ie. Armed to the teeth and sleep under the stars vs. chaining themselves to a tree at dawn and going home to their parent's luxury condo at night. Also, the fact that the wolves think they can scare away the big corporation that knows where they live instead of having to move feels authentically shortsighted enough to be accurate.

It's hard to tell what year the game is set in, which is probably a good thing because I think all WoD games should be set as 90s period pieces.

 

[Fedora Master]

But how is the lore implementation?

Couldn't answer that, not familiar enough with the tree-hugger books. Did find it amusing that the humans allied with the wolves act more like preppers than Greenpeace though. ie. Armed to the teeth and sleep under the stars vs. chaining themselves to a tree at dawn and going home to their parent's luxury condo at night. Also, the fact that the wolves think they can scare away the big corporation that knows where they live instead of having to move feels authentically shortsighted enough to be accurate.

It's hard to tell what year the game is set in, which is probably a good thing because I think all WoD games should be set as 90s period pieces.

It can't be past 2000 since, you know, the world ended at that time. As far as your description of the garou goes, that's pretty accurate to the lore. These are eco-terrorists, not hippies.

QUALITY

The aftermath of a Werewolf attack is fairly accurate, I'll grant 'em that.

e: Apparently Cahal went ronin for 5 years. That's highly unlikely, especially for a Fianna. (It took 3 mission to even get a mention of his Clan by the way. But that just makes it MORE unlikely that there are any blacks around.)

e2: Okay, this is neat.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

It can't be past 2000 since, you know, the world ended at that time. As far as your description of the garou goes, that's pretty accurate to the lore. These are eco-terrorists, not hippies.

Well technically someone could make a game in the New World of Darkness, which would be set in about 2000-2010 period. I remember that the Hunter: The Vigil books routinely referenced 9/11, War on Terror and Patriot Act, had secret MiB-like organisation (Task Force Valkyrie), which explicitly used War on Terror as a cover for global fight against the supernatural monsters and even a faction called Network Zero, which was basically a bunch of 4chaners from /x/ who had a thing for posting stuff like Werewolf attack videos on sites like BestGore. What is of most relevance for this thread, the setting also included an organisation known as Talbot Group, which was literally a "Werewolf therapy group" with a long term goal of making humanity accept Werewolfs as a specific minority that requires understanding and respect.

 

[DeepOcean]

Unlike most other games, being detected isn't really a bad thing because it means you get to turn into werewolf form.

Big question, can you get away by smashing the left mouse button on most enemies? Second question, most combat arenas are just industrial looking installations? Any combat system where I can get away by spamming the left button bore me to tears and pretty much most of the footage I saw were on industrial looking installations that can also become very repetitive fast.

 

[Fedora Master]

Hank Hill is a servant of the Wyrm! I knew it!

 

[Fedora Master]

Unlike most other games, being detected isn't really a bad thing because it means you get to turn into werewolf form.

Big question, can you get away by smashing the left mouse button on most enemies? Second question, most combat arenas are just industrial looking installations? Any combat system where I can get away by spamming the left button bore me to tears and pretty much most of the footage I saw were on industrial looking installations that can also become very repetitive fast.

From what I can tell the game revolves around one Cairn and one Endron facility literally 500m away from it. (The "outside" is basically a big fucking consoleshit tube level)
Im playing on the middle difficulty and died a couple of time from just smashing left click, so it takes at least SOME effort during fights. It's no Batman combat though and it gets very hectic.
Also I have zero clue why they have a combo meter. Fighting doesn't give you shit, you level up by hoovering up potted plant spirits, not by combat.

e: Cahal keeps snapping innocent employees necks, goddammit, that's the best way to accrue Wyrm taint you fuck.

e2:

Who the fuck designed this skybox? Have these people ever been outside at night in the wilderness?
AND WHERE IS FUCKING ANTHELIOS?

e3: Im getting some serious Rogue Warrior vibes. Cahal will snap a guys neck and go "MOTHERFUCKA SHOULDA PICKED ANOTHER JOB" or read a note about how they pumped chemicals into the water supply on purpose just comment "MOTHERFUCKERS..."

 

[Fedora Master]

Does this look like particularly good combat? (No.)

Also this shit has no business being in the RPG forum, you dumb fucks.

 

[Caim]

It can't be past 2000 since, you know, the world ended at that time.

Nope, that's been retconned. Welcome to the post-revised era, we've got books that you bought over a decade ago but this time... IN FULL COLOR!

Well technically someone could make a game in the New World of Darkness, which would be set in about 2000-2010 period. I remember that the Hunter: The Vigil books routinely referenced 9/11, War on Terror and Patriot Act, had secret MiB-like organisation (Task Force Valkyrie), which explicitly used War on Terror as a cover for global fight against the supernatural monsters and even a faction called Network Zero, which was basically a bunch of 4chaners from /x/ who had a thing for posting stuff like Werewolf attack videos on sites like BestGore. What is of most relevance for this thread, the setting also included an organisation known as Talbot Group, which was literally a "Werewolf therapy group" with a long term goal of making humanity accept Werewolfs as a specific minority that requires understanding and respect.

The cavalcade of fuckups that form the Compacts and Conspiracies from Hunter: The Vigil are one of my favorite things in all of the World of Darkness. From the guys who eat mummies to not-Umbrella Incorporated employing not-Frank Reynolds to implant monster parts into rich old dudes to give them erections to the talk group that has an image of its founder consoling a crying vampire with Raoul Duke watching, the not-Belmonts, the folks who want to "reform" werewolves and have them deal with the problems caused by spirits (aka the thing that werewolves are supposed to do) to the group that features Dante from the Devil May Cry series and everything in between.