You totally can. I remember because It took me a while to figure it out too. Now I get it every time.
Mmh. Could have been that then, simply to get closer, it didn't happen all that often though.
You totally can. I remember because It took me a while to figure it out too. Now I get it every time.
Lol at those defensive posts.
The OP correctly identified several huge flaws in the camera, platforming, and leader control. I can tell there's a really fun game under this mess. Hopefully I'll find the motivation to try again.
Criticism about the camera in small spaces, alternate play modes disrupting the gameflow and making players learn an entirely new control scheme for a 2 minute segment that honestly adds nothing to the game other than to be a "ooh, I get the reference" moment, and the various glitches are legitimate problems with the game. The player blaming the game because they wasted all their resource energy on excessive and unnecessary actions for example, is not.
That's not a bug. You need to have 100 in your party. Any less and nothing happens. If you have less you have to hit the other head to make him vomit more people out. I can see why you didn't know that since I don't think the game ever tells you that. I had to look that part up to get passed it.
Seriously, git gud.
I don't really care, I hate it. That ruined the game for me in a way that death in other games did not. It is a massive de-motivator. It doesn't make me want to learn the game, it makes me want to quit and never play it again.I'm sure it would be. Any game would be easier to learn if you took out the primary motivator for not getting hit.
The god awful frame-rate should keep it from being his best game. Good, stable performance is important in a game like this and Wonderful 101 fails miserably in that regard. Vanquish may only be 30 fps but it was at least relatively consistent. W101 ranges from 60 fps to 15 fps depending on the scene. It's awful.P.S. W101 is better than Bayonetta and Viewtiful Joe. It's Kamiya's best game. The only better Platinum game is Vanquish in my opinion.
No I definitely had 100 guys with me. Can't count how often I just stood there and waited until the hydra barfed my members out. Last guy just stands in front of the eye like an idiot.
So having a discussion about a well liked game in a thread where the title says it isn't very good is being defensive now? That seems a little dismissive. You can hardly just expect everyone to agree when some of OP's issues could be the fault of the player.
Seriously, git gud.
Can't say it any better than that.
Game of the Generation, so far, in my opinion. Has a semi-steep learning curve but stick to it, as it pays off. Honestly one of the most rewarding action games out there. It's fast paced, but at the same time you'll be surprised at how much leeway the game gives you to set up the longer combinations.
As someone who's time is becoming more limited, having a game where the first play through is a tutorial is a big turn off.
Not necessarily a sign of terrible game, but the game might not be for you after all.I realise I might have just lost a lot of you there, but that's my unavoidable conclusion at this stage. Okay, maybe not terrible. But mediocre. Medicore at best. I have a boss battle paused right now for the 3rd time, and the first two I quit because I was just too bored and frustrated to continue. I've never found myself browsing Gaf during a game as much as this one, and eventually you have to admit to yourself that you just aren't enjoying playing the game at all, and are actively trying to avoid playing it. If you really desperately don't want to keep playing a game, isn't that a sign of a terrible game?
1. The core gameplay / action
There are tons of problems here, tons, but the main one (and 90% of my problem with the game) is blindingly obvious from the off: It's impossible to see exactly where your group leader is and what he's doing. He's far too small on a screen filled with action to be sure of where he is in 3D space at any time, and the problem is doubled when he's in the air / jumping. The fact that he is surrounded by a group of 30-100 other tiny characters, a group that is of variable size and shape makes it impossible to pin down where your particular guy is half the time. When you get hit, you're never quite sure you'll be hit until you see your guy go flying.
If I recall correctly, there are multiple mechanics in the game to deal with the battery limit, for example increasing the battery size or restoring it with certain actions etc etc. Some of them you purchase from the shop, some of them you get by levelling up your characters (I think at least). At start, until you get some of those mechanics, I think you shouldn't have to have problems with the batteries. You might be spamming your moves too much possibly.Not only that, but there are far too many game systems layered on top of each other here. The worst is the battery system. This means that if you want to draw a new weapon, block or dodge, you need battery. In practice, this means that you will often find yourself running around an arena, unable to attack or defend until your battery recharges a sufficient amount. In a game with this much going on already, this isn't really acceptable, or necessary. How does this restriction on your core abilities make the game better?
That I can agree with partly (though I actually never used any items I think).The item system is tucked away on the gamepad and never explained. Good luck figuring out which of those un-named icons does what in the heat of battle! Good luck surviving for a single second if you take your eyes off the main screen! Good luck steering a missile (if you can figure out how to get them or what they're for) into one of your nimble opponents!
I dunno, most action games have some sort of downtime mechanics if you get hit I think. MGR has them multiple if you don't dodge or parry or just don't move.Another huge mistake is making you have to collect your men every time you get hit. This leads to a constant loop of getting hit, collecting your men, getting hit, collecting your men, and so on. It's not fun. Surely the game designers expected players to get hit at least some of the time, right? Then why make such a frustrating ordeal out of it? Why make it so that you are so hamstrung when you only have half your team with you?
I dunno. In the normal story levels you have to improvise more and use your arsenal in a more varied way I'd say. It can definitely be hard to pull off some things at every point, but in those you gotta use other ones.What really bothers me about all of this is that in the non-campaign trial missions, where you tend to be in a simple, open, purple room, the core combat systems absolutely shine. Each weapon is distinct and feels fantastic, as tactile and fun as you'd expect from Platinum. Drawing them out is great. Getting an enemy stunned and tossing it in the air for a combo is just an awesome feeling. It's just a shame that in practice in real levels it seems impossible to use these systems consistently. An editor would have been great to just pare back the idea into only the best and more important ones. To strip out the ridiculous amount of different overlying systems you have to struggle with and leave just the best part of the game (the combat) intact.
On this I'm honestly not sure what you mean and as such I can't agree with it at all.I love the fact that the game wants to show you something new every five minutes. I love that, and my jaw has dropped multiple times as the street I was on caved away or I slingshotted onto the back of a jet plane or what have you. But it's not conducive to the implementation of the action at hand in the slightest. It doesn't go well with their core mechanics.
That is an example I can agree with pretty much completely. Later you learn to deal with turtles quite effectively even (though that might really take some time), but the first time they're introduced isn't very good design in my opinion.A perfect example is the turtles. This is an enemy you've never seen before. You've just gotten a new weapon you will obviously need to use to destroy it. Drawing said weapon is tricky at first, trickier than the old ones, but manageable. Add all of this together and good game design would be one turtle on its own, so you get used to drawing the new weapon while you learn the attacks and weaknesses of the turtle.
But no. The game throws two turtles at you. So whenever you get close to one, the other one clips its neck through its friend, knocking you away and scattering your men. You then need to drawn the sickle again, draining your battery. Soon your battery is gone. On top of this, the general difficulties in judging depth due to the camera angles make for one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had. It's obvious you need to block a turtle's 'stomp', flip the turtle over and kill it. But because of the difficulties in telling where you are, the fact that there are two large enemies in a small-ish space with long range attacks that can clip through one another means you simply spend 30 minutes being hit, being shocked that you just got hit considering where you were, gathering men, getting one or two small shots in and dying until you prevail.
That's very unfortunate. Personally though, I wouldn't say there are many other such bad examples of enemy design. I think there is 1 or 2 other enemies that are pretty dumb and overly annoying, but that's it for me.This describes one half of my experience with the Wonderful 101 perfectly. It just hasn't been a fun time at all. It's a slog, a tired zerg rush of getting hit and doing chip damage while wishing you could read the action better.
That I agree with mostly. I don't they're utterly terrible though. I think they're actually kind of interesting most of the time, but the execution certainly fails as the depth is hard to see well in those sections.All of this is without mentioning the utterly terrible platforming parts. Guys, your game isn't Mario Galaxy. Stop with the platforming. Please. Stop.
Well, the idea is to really make you see that the shop is important and I think that's a fine decision (though it could be argued that the shop doesn't really convey that unless you check it in the first place). But yes, maybe some of them could've been in the game ready.3. The non-core gameplay systems / unlockables etc
So I've established that the game throws more at you than you can reasonably decipher, read or handle. But what's really frustrating is that it holds back a whole bunch of tools as unlockables that would make things easier on you. In other games this is acceptable - as the difficulty ramps up you gain access to new powers to keep things fair. Here, much of what is locked feels like essential stuff that should be part of the base gameplay.
In particular, things like the faster draw speed or ability to hold A to increase weapon size would have massively increased my enjoyment of the game so far. Putting the block and dodge behind the in-game paywall rather than in a tutorial as the base mechanics is just bizarre as well.
That I agree with, except for the last sentence. I honestly had no trouble personally, but then again I tried out the demo before I got the game.I'll add the total lack of a functional tutorial in here as well. You've made a hardcore action game with a visual exterior that will obviously attract kids and other not-so-hardcore players. Would it actually kill you to teach these people how to play the game? The opening level is a nightmare of invisible walls, loose controls, bad explanations and horrible audio mix. The opening 30 minutes of a game are the most important. In their rush to impress people, Platinum absolutely butchered the opening of this game, and the repercussions are felt throughout the rest of the adventure.
Partly agreed. It feels a bit like nobody was telling Kamiya to tone it down a little and he just went crazy with it.4. The mini-games / genre switches
The game has a solid action system at its core. It's let down by the camera and other issues I've mentioned, but it's solid. Why then is the game so insistent on taking you way from the base action Platinum have worked so hard to craft only to put you into poorly designed, terribly explained out-of-genre sections? (What I mean by that is turret shooting sections, rail jumping sections, flying sections, basically broken hang-gliding sections etc).
This stuff feels like it comprises about a third of the game, and it's sadly uniformly garbage. Again, an editor would have been great here. "I love your passion, guys, but this does not make the game better and needs to be cut." They desperately needed someone to say this to them.
Well, I haven't got much comments on that, but I did actually mostly like the story and I think it held well together.5. The tone / story
I won't go into this too much because this stuff is far more subjective than the rest and less interesting to debate but what starts as a fun, whimsical adventure becomes one-note and dull a couple of hours in. The female characters were what swayed me, their portrayal is borderline sexist at best, and more importantly just tiresome and cringeworthy. The jokes start to fall flat. I can only watch Blue punch Green after an off hand comment so many times before it loses its charm. I can only watch Pink act like a moronic valley girl so many times, you know?
Was that the first phase of the boss in the lava cave? To be completely honest, I'm not sure how you can fall down from that place. There's plenty of room and it's quite open so it's easy to see.Conclusion
I could go on, and I guess maybe I should leave some points for the replies. All I know is that I'm looking at the pause screen here as my guy has fallen off the edge of this platform while fighting a boss for the third time in a row, and I'm really thinking I'm done with this game. Maybe someone could tell me how far Operation 005 is from the end? Feels like I'm only halfway there.
Sadly, that didn't take very long.inb4 "tldr: it was too hard" lol
To be fair:
Some posts really don't try much to start a discussion. I do agree that the sentiment is to get better at it, but can certainly be argued in a much better way than that.
1. The core gameplay / action
There are tons of problems here, tons, but the main one (and 90% of my problem with the game) is blindingly obvious from the off: It's impossible to see exactly where your group leader is and what he's doing. He's far too small on a screen filled with action to be sure of where he is in 3D space at any time, and the problem is doubled when he's in the air / jumping. The fact that he is surrounded by a group of 30-100 other tiny characters, a group that is of variable size and shape makes it impossible to pin down where your particular guy is half the time. When you get hit, you're never quite sure you'll be hit until you see your guy go flying.
This is the core thing that makes the game a drag to play. I'm no expert at character action games, in fact I probably suck. But I made it through Bayonetta and MGS Rising without any problems or many deaths, and even tried a couple of levels on hard in those games and had tons of fun. Here, I get hit constantly. I don't feel like I can function correctly, I don't feel like I'm properly controlling the game. I initially thought that after a few levels the game would start to make sense. The mechanics themselves did, but my sense of my avatar's position never got better - in fact, as the levels became crazier and the camera angles shifted and more enemies filled the screen, it actually became harder and harder to tell where I was. Countless deaths and even ledge falls have been caused by this.
This is a different problem to other character action games. There, you feel overwhelmed by enemies' attacks: their patterns might be hard to read, they might be too fast, you might not be sure what move is the right one to use against them. This is the point of the genre. That is the challenge you're looking for. Here, the problem is that I can't read what's going on at least 50% of the time. I can figure out the enemy patterns and what I need to do, I'm just not sure exactly where I am relative to an enemy so I can 't do it. That's not the point of the genre, and it's not fun.
Not only that, but there are far too many game systems layered on top of each other here. The worst is the battery system. This means that if you want to draw a new weapon, block or dodge, you need battery. In practice, this means that you will often find yourself running around an arena, unable to attack or defend until your battery recharges a sufficient amount. In a game with this much going on already, this isn't really acceptable, or necessary. How does this restriction on your core abilities make the game better?
The item system is tucked away on the gamepad and never explained. Good luck figuring out which of those un-named icons does what in the heat of battle! Good luck surviving for a single second if you take your eyes off the main screen! Good luck steering a missile (if you can figure out how to get them or what they're for) into one of your nimble opponents!
Another huge mistake is making you have to collect your men every time you get hit. This leads to a constant loop of getting hit, collecting your men, getting hit, collecting your men, and so on. It's not fun. Surely the game designers expected players to get hit at least some of the time, right? Then why make such a frustrating ordeal out of it? Why make it so that you are so hamstrung when you only have half your team with you?
What really bothers me about all of this is that in the non-campaign trial missions, where you tend to be in a simple, open, purple room, the core combat systems absolutely shine. Each weapon is distinct and feels fantastic, as tactile and fun as you'd expect from Platinum. Drawing them out is great. Getting an enemy stunned and tossing it in the air for a combo is just an awesome feeling. It's just a shame that in practice in real levels it seems impossible to use these systems consistently. An editor would have been great to just pare back the idea into only the best and more important ones. To strip out the ridiculous amount of different overlying systems you have to struggle with and leave just the best part of the game (the combat) intact.
2. The encounter design
This game is best when it's at its simplest. When there's just an open, visually clean street filled with big and small enemies to move through and kill. The action is readable, containable and perfectly fun at these moments, yet still challenging. Drawing your weapons works perfectly, the action is smooth, combos feel good - all of that stuff works when the game is operating at a simple level. The problem is that this lasts for all of 5 minutes before the game decides that throwing hordes of enemies at you in rapidly destructing levels would be the best way to proceed.
I love the fact that the game wants to show you something new every five minutes. I love that, and my jaw has dropped multiple times as the street I was on caved away or I slingshotted onto the back of a jet plane or what have you. But it's not conducive to the implementation of the action at hand in the slightest. It doesn't go well with their core mechanics.
Secondly, the way enemies are thrown at you is terrible. Single large enemies are difficult but can be fun. They have an extremely annoying habit of attacking right as you're finished drawing a weapon but you can manage them, because you only need to read them and you at the same time. But the game constantly throws more than you can handle at you, seemingly intentionally.
A perfect example is the turtles. This is an enemy you've never seen before. You've just gotten a new weapon you will obviously need to use to destroy it. Drawing said weapon is tricky at first, trickier than the old ones, but manageable. Add all of this together and good game design would be one turtle on its own, so you get used to drawing the new weapon while you learn the attacks and weaknesses of the turtle.
But no. The game throws two turtles at you. So whenever you get close to one, the other one clips its neck through its friend, knocking you away and scattering your men. You then need to drawn the sickle again, draining your battery. Soon your battery is gone. On top of this, the general difficulties in judging depth due to the camera angles make for one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had. It's obvious you need to block a turtle's 'stomp', flip the turtle over and kill it. But because of the difficulties in telling where you are, the fact that there are two large enemies in a small-ish space with long range attacks that can clip through one another means you simply spend 30 minutes being hit, being shocked that you just got hit considering where you were, gathering men, getting one or two small shots in and dying until you prevail. This describes one half of my experience with the Wonderful 101 perfectly. It just hasn't been a fun time at all. It's a slog, a tired zerg rush of getting hit and doing chip damage while wishing you could read the action better.
All of this is without mentioning the utterly terrible platforming parts. Guys, your game isn't Mario Galaxy. Stop with the platforming. Please. Stop.
3. The non-core gameplay systems / unlockables etc
So I've established that the game throws more at you than you can reasonably decipher, read or handle. But what's really frustrating is that it holds back a whole bunch of tools as unlockables that would make things easier on you. In other games this is acceptable - as the difficulty ramps up you gain access to new powers to keep things fair. Here, much of what is locked feels like essential stuff that should be part of the base gameplay.
In particular, things like the faster draw speed or ability to hold A to increase weapon size would have massively increased my enjoyment of the game so far. Putting the block and dodge behind the in-game paywall rather than in a tutorial as the base mechanics is just bizarre as well.
I'll add the total lack of a functional tutorial in here as well. You've made a hardcore action game with a visual exterior that will obviously attract kids and other not-so-hardcore players. Would it actually kill you to teach these people how to play the game? The opening level is a nightmare of invisible walls, loose controls, bad explanations and horrible audio mix. The opening 30 minutes of a game are the most important. In their rush to impress people, Platinum absolutely butchered the opening of this game, and the repercussions are felt throughout the rest of the adventure.
4. The mini-games / genre switches
The game has a solid action system at its core. It's let down by the camera and other issues I've mentioned, but it's solid. Why then is the game so insistent on taking you way from the base action Platinum have worked so hard to craft only to put you into poorly designed, terribly explained out-of-genre sections? (What I mean by that is turret shooting sections, rail jumping sections, flying sections, basically broken hang-gliding sections etc).
This stuff feels like it comprises about a third of the game, and it's sadly uniformly garbage. Again, an editor would have been great here. "I love your passion, guys, but this does not make the game better and needs to be cut." They desperately needed someone to say this to them.
5. The tone / story
I won't go into this too much because this stuff is far more subjective than the rest and less interesting to debate but what starts as a fun, whimsical adventure becomes one-note and dull a couple of hours in. The female characters were what swayed me, their portrayal is borderline sexist at best, and more importantly just tiresome and cringeworthy. The jokes start to fall flat. I can only watch Blue punch Green after an off hand comment so many times before it loses its charm. I can only watch Pink act like a moronic valley girl so many times, you know?
Conclusion
I could go on, and I guess maybe I should leave some points for the replies. All I know is that I'm looking at the pause screen here as my guy has fallen off the edge of this platform while fighting a boss for the third time in a row, and I'm really thinking I'm done with this game. Maybe someone could tell me how far Operation 005 is from the end? Feels like I'm only halfway there.
Roll on Bayonetta 2, and mark this one down as a beautiful failed experiment. God bless you Platinum, it was an incredible idea, and you went for it with everything you had. It just didn't come off properly. I won't hold it against you.
inb4 "tldr: it was too hard" lol
Seriously, git gud.
Too hard? Play better.
Game wasn't perfect, but it's still really good.
TW101 maingame is easy shit
get better
git gud bro
First post fucking nails it again. What is it with NeoGAF and first posts?
Nah, game's great. You're just bad at it.
First post and all.
Ugh I honestly hated those. Way to make me lose all hype for a boss.
Like why does this game seem to just ignore its battle system so much? And for fucking boss battles of all things? I wouldn't mind it if the Punch-Out sections were just minibosses, but no they're actual bosses.
And then the loading screens...lol...I feel truly sorry for those who decided to replay this game and go for Pure Platinum.
You need to have 100 people and then you will have to keep trying to get 100 people in it. The last person will sometimes be an idiot and not go in properly.
I've had little trouble adapting to and playing through many notoriously difficult games but the type of challenge here is not fun to learn. In the best "difficult" games you want to keep pushing forward and learning the game but here it just feels frustrating and rage inducing. Getting good requires a ton of patience and the way it punishes you is not fun. I'm just not compatible with this type of challenge, I guess. Other Platinum games are my kind of challenge but not this one.
If they simply eliminated the fact that your guys are scattered upon taking a hit I think it would be infinitely more fun to learn.
Unfortunately there will be a contingent of defenders who say you aren't skilled enough and that when you stop sucking the game will be great. But honestly, I think that's a huge cop-out. I don't want to master frustrating game before I can even start to enjoy it. Just like Kid Icarus and Monster Hunter on PSP, I don't want to have to master some super awkward grip where my hand cramps just so that I can enjoy the game.
Sometimes good ideas and mechanics are built on top of poor design. W101 has some great ideas and is pretty unique, but let's not pretend it doesn't have some fundamental flaws just because it's a Kamiya/Platinum game.
You don't have to master it, just learn it. The fact you can play any game more complicated than Pong came from the fact you spent time learning. Go watch someone who doesn't know how to use dual analog sticks try to play Halo.
No one is pretending it doesn't have fundamental flaws, they don't believe it does. Maybe it has some flaws, but not fundamental ones. Requiring a player to learn a new style of game is not a fundamental flaw. (Learning how to play a game and learning how to be good at a game are the same thing, extensions of each other.)
Why "git gud" is a decent point, although probably poorly/rudely expressed:
-If you are not good at something it is likely because you don't understand it. Now imagine someone who doesn't understand the game trying to get their point across to those who do? Those who can see farther see both where that person's sight stops and beyond. Being able to notice this cuts through any argument. Writing a lot of words doesn't spare you from that.
-If you are bad at something, you become frustrated and channel your negative feelings towards the game. Anger is intoxicating. This completely colors your impression of a game and, when it comes down to it, is a practice of distributing blame away from yourself. Once again, what do you think someone who either isn't frustrated or can withstand their frustration see? (Frustration is feeling/being made aware how weak you are.)
I tried the demo and wasn't a fan for the same reasons you listed about the combat
There are tons of problems here, tons, but the main one (and 90% of my problem with the game) is blindingly obvious from the off: It's impossible to see exactly where your group leader is and what he's doing.
Not only that, but there are far too many game systems layered on top of each other here. The worst is the battery system. This means that if you want to draw a new weapon, block or dodge, you need battery. In practice, this means that you will often find yourself running around an arena, unable to attack or defend until your battery recharges a sufficient amount. In a game with this much going on already, this isn't really acceptable, or necessary. How does this restriction on your core abilities make the game better?
Another huge mistake is making you have to collect your men every time you get hit. This leads to a constant loop of getting hit, collecting your men, getting hit, collecting your men, and so on. It's not fun. Surely the game designers expected players to get hit at least some of the time, right? Then why make such a frustrating ordeal out of it? Why make it so that you are so hamstrung when you only have half your team with you?
This game is best when it's at its simplest. When there's just an open, visually clean street filled with big and small enemies to move through and kill. The action is readable, containable and perfectly fun at these moments, yet still challenging. Drawing your weapons works perfectly, the action is smooth, combos feel good - all of that stuff works when the game is operating at a simple level. The problem is that this lasts for all of 5 minutes before the game decides that throwing hordes of enemies at you in rapidly destructing levels would be the best way to proceed.
I love the fact that the game wants to show you something new every five minutes. I love that, and my jaw has dropped multiple times as the street I was on caved away or I slingshotted onto the back of a jet plane or what have you. But it's not conducive to the implementation of the action at hand in the slightest. It doesn't go well with their core mechanics.
3. The non-core gameplay systems / unlockables etc
So I've established that the game throws more at you than you can reasonably decipher, read or handle. But what's really frustrating is that it holds back a whole bunch of tools as unlockables that would make things easier on you. In other games this is acceptable - as the difficulty ramps up you gain access to new powers to keep things fair. Here, much of what is locked feels like essential stuff that should be part of the base gameplay.
In particular, things like the faster draw speed or ability to hold A to increase weapon size would have massively increased my enjoyment of the game so far. Putting the block and dodge behind the in-game paywall rather than in a tutorial as the base mechanics is just bizarre as well.
I'll add the total lack of a functional tutorial in here as well. You've made a hardcore action game with a visual exterior that will obviously attract kids and other not-so-hardcore players. Would it actually kill you to teach these people how to play the game? The opening level is a nightmare of invisible walls, loose controls, bad explanations and horrible audio mix. The opening 30 minutes of a game are the most important. In their rush to impress people, Platinum absolutely butchered the opening of this game, and the repercussions are felt throughout the rest of the adventure.
4. The mini-games / genre switches
The game has a solid action system at its core. It's let down by the camera and other issues I've mentioned, but it's solid. Why then is the game so insistent on taking you way from the base action Platinum have worked so hard to craft only to put you into poorly designed, terribly explained out-of-genre sections? (What I mean by that is turret shooting sections, rail jumping sections, flying sections, basically broken hang-gliding sections etc).
This stuff feels like it comprises about a third of the game, and it's sadly uniformly garbage. Again, an editor would have been great here. "I love your passion, guys, but this does not make the game better and needs to be cut." They desperately needed someone to say this to them.
I've only played the demo and I wasnt a fan. Just wasn't all that fun for me.
With Kamiya action games like Viewtiful Joe, Bayonetta, and Wonderful 101, he's always mindful of packing his games with variety. You'll get some great battles, sure, but they're broken up with a puzzle, or an interesting platforming/traversal section, or some funny cutscene, or a shmup level, or a new weapon, or a big boss fight, just every few minutes. He breaks encounters down into those individuals verses, crafting each level to have various peaks and valleys. Yeah, sometimes he goes overboard like that fuckin' Space Harrier level in Bayonetta or one too many turret sections here, but for the most part, I'm all for it.
If you really desperately don't want to keep playing a game, isn't that a sign of a terrible game?
If those "git gud" posts were accompanied by something this articulate, it'd be one thing.Why "git gud" is a decent point, although probably poorly/rudely expressed:
-If you are not good at something it is likely because you don't understand it. Now imagine someone who doesn't understand the game trying to get their point across to those who do? Those who can see farther see both where that person's sight stops and beyond. Being able to notice this cuts through any argument. Writing a lot of words doesn't spare you from that.
-If you are bad at something, you become frustrated and channel your negative feelings towards the game. Anger is intoxicating. This completely colors your impression of a game and, when it comes down to it, is a practice of distributing blame away from yourself. Once again, what do you think someone who either isn't frustrated or can withstand their frustration see? (Frustration is feeling/being made aware how weak you are.)
No, it's a sign that you don't enjoy playing the game.
If every game was objectively terrible just because you personally don't enjoy it, where would that put us, really? Would other people stop enjoying those games just because you convinced them, somehow, that your opinion was the only information needed to determine the quality of a game?
I guess my point is just that your enjoyment of a game is not necessarily related, in any way, to the actual quality of the game.
It's ok to just, you know, not enjoy it. There's no rule that you have to enjoy every game that isn't terrible.
Okay, checking back in. Thanks to all who took the time to read the OP and reply. Obviously the game inspires strong emotions and I can see why: as I said it's clearly a labour of love, and clearly has tons of depth for expert players.
I would make the light-hearted point to those criticising me that I'm not the enemy - I actually buy every Platinum game! How many of us are out there? Not many! So I reckon I have the Platinum fan credit to go after them a little bit - as I said there are tons of things I love and respect about the W101.
One thing I noticed about the thread (other than the sadly guaranteed 'git good' responses) was that I felt a lot of people were missing or misreading my central point. I tried to make it clearer than clear that I understood the game mechanics and liked them, and that my main issue was 100% understanding where my character was in 3D space. Yet so many posts tried to explain how the mechanics worked, and ignored my camera / 3D space issue.
Being a tiny little guy running around with loose movement controls from an isometric viewpoint and finding it hard to know exactly where you are is a huge issue of mine in the game. I feel like that went misunderstood for a lot of people. I also feel like a lot of people simply didn't have this problem or they'd be picking up on it. It's the same reason I didn't like LittleBigPlanet, the same reason I think Super Mario 3D World is the weakest 3D Mario. This may be something I'm uniquely bad at or sensitive to. But I don't feel like it has anything to do with 'learning the game'. I felt the level design significantly exacerbated this problem that the core game design introduced, and it really makes the game a chore for me.
I thought I was just getting lucky when it finally clicked. Good to see there was some rhyme or reason for it. But, I understand that people want to be told this type of information.
But still, I rather have some cryptic gameplay with hidden depth than have everything explained to me. This game reminds me of NES Mega Man games where you'd get to a boss fight and your main weapon, plus your entire inventory was almost useless against him, and you'd have to use trial an error to figure out the right order to tackle the game. You'd then need to replay the entire level after getting a new weapon and it may still not work.
It harkens back to a time where this was how games were designed:
If you arrive at this point without the right stuff, it was a game over.
Similar stuff is happening in W101. Without experimentation, you'll never know how to quickly take out enemies like the turtles. But it's totally possible to beat even those guys well within 1 or 2 minutes when you figure everything out. We really need more old school games like this.
P.S. W101 is better than Bayonetta and Viewtiful Joe. It's Kamiya's best game. The only better Platinum game is Vanquish in my opinion.
Okay, checking back in. Thanks to all who took the time to read the OP and reply. Obviously the game inspires strong emotions and I can see why: as I said it's clearly a labour of love, and clearly has tons of depth for expert players.
I would make the light-hearted point to those criticising me that I'm not the enemy - I actually buy every Platinum game! How many of us are out there? Not many! So I reckon I have the Platinum fan credit to go after them a little bit - as I said there are tons of things I love and respect about the W101.
One thing I noticed about the thread (other than the sadly guaranteed 'git good' responses) was that I felt a lot of people were missing or misreading my central point. I tried to make it clearer than clear that I understood the game mechanics and liked them, and that my main issue was 100% understanding where my character was in 3D space. Yet so many posts tried to explain how the mechanics worked, and ignored my camera / 3D space issue.
Being a tiny little guy running around with loose movement controls from an isometric viewpoint and finding it hard to know exactly where you are is a huge issue of mine in the game. I feel like that went misunderstood for a lot of people. I also feel like a lot of people simply didn't have this problem or they'd be picking up on it. It's the same reason I didn't like LittleBigPlanet, the same reason I think Super Mario 3D World is the weakest 3D Mario. This may be something I'm uniquely bad at or sensitive to. But I don't feel like it has anything to do with 'learning the game'. I felt the level design significantly exacerbated this problem that the core game design introduced, and it really makes the game a chore for me.
Also, as for getting your men scattered - I understand perfectly that it's punishment for getting hit, I merely think that it's far less fun than the punishment found in other action games. I think that's a fair opinion. In a game where you clearly have to experiment as nothing is told to you directly the fact that getting punished is so annoying and disheartening is a huge issue. People are saying 'figure things out yourself!' and at the same time 'don't get hit!' Those two things don't sync up when you're learning a game and forced to experiment.
I might try to go through and pick out a couple of replies now, I did read them all.
Also, as for getting your men scattered - I understand perfectly that it's punishment for getting hit, I merely think that it's far less fun than the punishment found in other action games. I think that's a fair opinion. In a game where you clearly have to experiment as nothing is told to you directly the fact that getting punished is so annoying and disheartening is a huge issue. People are saying 'figure things out yourself!' and at the same time 'don't get hit!' Those two things don't sync up when you're learning a game and forced to experiment.
The isometric camera always follows the leader's movements, the leader has a ring around them labeled "leader", in default formation the leader is always in front of the group(the leader also responds to directional input immediately vs the rest of the team), in tight formation(holding the L or Dash buttons) the leader is always in the center of the group,.It's impossible to see exactly where your group leader is and what he's doing. He's far too small on a screen filled with action to be sure of where he is in 3D space at any time, and the problem is doubled when he's in the air / jumping. The fact that he is surrounded by a group of 30-100 other tiny characters, a group that is of variable size and shape makes it impossible to pin down where your particular guy is half the time. When you get hit, you're never quite sure you'll be hit until you see your guy go flying.
You can still use Team Attack without battery power, Battery power isn't necessary to create a morph you're already using, doing damage increases battery regen, there's an Custom Block that increases battery regen.Not only that, but there are far too many game systems layered on top of each other here. The worst is the battery system. This means that if you want to draw a new weapon, block or dodge, you need battery. In practice, this means that you will often find yourself running around an arena, unable to attack or defend until your battery recharges a sufficient amount.
It's there to stop the player from spamming shit and put more thought into what they're doing.In a game with this much going on already, this isn't really acceptable, or necessary. How does this restriction on your core abilities make the game better?
You aren't supposed to want to use items in the first place, but yeah that's not very intuitive.The item system is tucked away on the gamepad and never explained. Good luck figuring out which of those un-named icons does what in the heat of battle! Good luck surviving for a single second if you take your eyes off the main screen! Good luck steering a missile (if you can figure out how to get them or what they're for) into one of your nimble opponents!
If you suck at collecting your team without getting hit, you could just go on the defensive and wait a few seconds for them to recover on their own.Another huge mistake is making you have to collect your men every time you get hit. This leads to a constant loop of getting hit, collecting your men, getting hit, collecting your men, and so on. It's not fun. Surely the game designers expected players to get hit at least some of the time, right? Then why make such a frustrating ordeal out of it? Why make it so that you are so hamstrung when you only have half your team with you?
You might have problems with depth perception. Also, 30 minutes? Jeez.On top of this, the general difficulties in judging depth due to the camera angles make for one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had. It's obvious you need to block a turtle's 'stomp', flip the turtle over and kill it. But because of the difficulties in telling where you are, the fact that there are two large enemies in a small-ish space with long range attacks that can clip through one another means you simply spend 30 minutes being hit, being shocked that you just got hit considering where you were, gathering men, getting one or two small shots in and dying until you prevail. This describes one half of my experience with the Wonderful 101 perfectly. It just hasn't been a fun time at all. It's a slog, a tired zerg rush of getting hit and doing chip damage while wishing you could read the action better.
Eh. I thought they were just average, but whatever.All of this is without mentioning the utterly terrible platforming parts. Guys, your game isn't Mario Galaxy. Stop with the platforming. Please. Stop.
Outside of Spring and Guts(which are the cheapest things in the store anyway), I'm not sure what this could be referring to.So I've established that the game throws more at you than you can reasonably decipher, read or handle. But what's really frustrating is that it holds back a whole bunch of tools as unlockables that would make things easier on you. In other games this is acceptable - as the difficulty ramps up you gain access to new powers to keep things fair. Here, much of what is locked feels like essential stuff that should be part of the base gameplay.
This is a fair criticism.I'll add the total lack of a functional tutorial in here as well.
This only makes sense if you assume that this game was made for those people.You've made a hardcore action game with a visual exterior that will obviously attract kids and other not-so-hardcore players.