If we ever get a Devil May Cry 5, what improvements to the series would you like to see?

More than anything I’d like to see better enemies. The current stock of enemies doesn’t seem to really play around Dante or Nero’s abilities. They seem to be alright combo fodder in terms of hit-reactions, but they don’t have a moveset that really plays with or responds to the movesets of the main characters. A more diverse set of physical combo properties for enemies would be cool too, like different combo weights, similar to how God Hand does things. A bunch of enemies seem designed in ways that seem counter-fun, like the fausts and mephistos that have the no hitstun cloak that you need to get rid of, then just pound on them when they have no ability to fight back. Or the Blitzes that make it so you can’t fight them with the majority of your moveset and are only remotely fun to fight as Dante who can parry them and who actually has an array of projectile moves. Or the Chimeras that fuck everything up at regular intervals and you basically just stop attacking them during that time. Or the Cutlass that you can’t very easily attack with melee and which disappear underground. Or all the different enemies across the series who can go through walls, leaving you unable to attack them. Or the enemies with shields that need to be broken through. These things don’t create a dynamic. They never ask the player to make tricky evaluations, they’re all about procedure, which is boring. They don’t allow the player to get varying levels of advantage or disadvantage in the fight. Some cues from Nioh enemies might be cool, but it’s hard to tell how much would really carry over. Obviously Bayonetta is the go-to example as most similar to DMC. Maybe MGR and Ninja Gaiden too, just no incendiary shurikens.
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What’s so great about LoZ? There aren’t any advanced mechanics are there? inb4 muh micropositioning

M-Muh micropositioning!

I’m not gonna claim it’s the most deep game of all time, but it really emphasizes player movement around enemies in a way few other games do. The 2d top down action game roster is actually fairly limited (apart from twin stick shooters) and the original legend of zelda is one of the few successful games in that lineup.

There are a few advanced mechanics, but they’re not really why the game is deep. (spin attack, some weird reverse bomb thing that works on darknuts, and forcing bomb drops on the 10th enemy)
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I was a tester/consultant for DESYNC after the creator Sean Gabriel, added me on steam out of the blue because he was a friend of a friend and curious what I’d think about his game. I went into the game not receiving any information on how to play it, attempting to figure it out purely for myself so I could give better feedback about how to inform players about how to play the game. I suggested a lot of changes over the course of development and a fair number made their way into the final product. I did not get to play a lot of later areas until extremely late into the project, meaning I never fought the second and third bosses until release, and never used a few late game weapons like the rail cannon, stake gun, and wavescythe until release. I’m very proud of my contribution to the product, although I did not serve as one of the primary developers and they are worthy of a lot of praise for their combined efforts. Continue reading →

Have you played Skyrim or any of its mods?

Okay, here’s my skyrim experience:

First I started the tutorial. After following a straight path I eventually got a weapon. From there I realized that I could beat up the guide character and he would never die or aggro. I got my two handed skill up to like 26 or something before the tutorial was over.

Then I tried to keep attacking the tutorial guide after leaving the tutorial, and he aggro’d. I had saved after aggroing him so I had to kill him, so I did that. Continue reading →

You said Breath of the Wild lives or dies on its combat. What specifically did you not like about the attack animations or enemy designs?

I guess I get to cite my own highlight video. Continue reading →

What do you consider to be some of the deepest games ever, or at least by you?

Considering depth is my standard of quality, you could just ask what I think the best games are.

I’d probably go with like, Guilty Gear AC+R, Project M, Starcraft Brood War, Quake, most of the best stylish action games. Probably throw Go in as well, that really stands out among tabletop games. Continue reading →

What do you think of the combat in the Mass Effect series?

I played about half of Mass Effect 1 and beat Mass Effect 2, but it was so long ago I don’t really remember it. I remember it was REALLY boring cover shooting. Mass Effect 1 was a poorly optimized abomination that managed to run poorly on my much newer than the game computer, when ME2 didn’t. Enemies don’t move a lot. They shoot hitscan bullets, there’s the usual regen health/shields. You play peekaboo with cover and try to tank enemy hits while shooting them, because they take damage permanently and you don’t. They also don’t take hitstun, and all your weapons use the same ammo (ME2), or have cooldowns with unlimited ammo (ME1). There isn’t a lot of reason to move around during combat, because enemies don’t move around much, and you’re basically always using mid/long range effective weapons. Occasionally enemies throw grenades, I think. I don’t think you have grenades, only cooldown abilities, some of which might resemble grenades. Continue reading →