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Robot Ninja Throwbacks: Talking About Cyber Shadow
- Thread starter ShakeWell
- Start date
I thought you had to press forward and attack at the same time, and also that you had to bat projectiles away with your sword.
Realizing you just had to press forward immediately before the projectile hits you and then knocking them away made it MUCH easier to use
Realizing you just had to press forward immediately before the projectile hits you and then knocking them away made it MUCH easier to use
So then it's basically just the Street Fighter 3 parry?
If in Street Fighter, the punch remained floating in midair until you threw it back into Ryus face a moment later.
I played through the first two stages last night, and one thing that surprises me about the game, at least in the early stages, is how much it seems designed to stop your flow.
I see what Mightyblue said about about slowing you down, and I think that's right but my interpretation of it is a little different. I came to this expecting it to be a game where you hold right, and with a little bit of reflex and some familiarity cut through everything with an unbroken run. It's not that.
It might be closer to that in the later game, but what I discovered was a game that is designed to trip you up. Take as an example the "moth bombs" in level two - you slash them, and then all of a sudden you have to deal with two tiny projectiles flying in an unpredictable pattern at you. I kept getting hit by them, sometimes being knocked into an instant-death hazard, because I expected them to fly in a way that I could easily dispatch them by pushing forward.
That made me realize that this game wants you to be DELIBERATE in your movements. It wants you to make decisions, not plow ahead like a glass cannon that can kill everything quickly but be killed quickly.
To me, the game harkens back to a time when games were difficult because game "design" didn't exist, and the programmers would just put enemies in a level layout and be done with it - except it clearly is designed. It seems to me to be an intelligent designer who identified the joy of accident in those early games, and then worked hard to distill a more nuanced, more deliberate version of it.
I see what Mightyblue said about about slowing you down, and I think that's right but my interpretation of it is a little different. I came to this expecting it to be a game where you hold right, and with a little bit of reflex and some familiarity cut through everything with an unbroken run. It's not that.
It might be closer to that in the later game, but what I discovered was a game that is designed to trip you up. Take as an example the "moth bombs" in level two - you slash them, and then all of a sudden you have to deal with two tiny projectiles flying in an unpredictable pattern at you. I kept getting hit by them, sometimes being knocked into an instant-death hazard, because I expected them to fly in a way that I could easily dispatch them by pushing forward.
That made me realize that this game wants you to be DELIBERATE in your movements. It wants you to make decisions, not plow ahead like a glass cannon that can kill everything quickly but be killed quickly.
To me, the game harkens back to a time when games were difficult because game "design" didn't exist, and the programmers would just put enemies in a level layout and be done with it - except it clearly is designed. It seems to me to be an intelligent designer who identified the joy of accident in those early games, and then worked hard to distill a more nuanced, more deliberate version of it.
This might be the most articulated explanation of the game's design I've read, or at least the one that captures what I've been thinking about it since playing it. When you learn the game and are comfortable with the movements you can move at a pretty good clip, but deliberate movements is probably the best phrase I could think of to describe the flow of the game.
You have to be moving first (and on the ground). Tap RB when moving and you'll start sprinting.
Yeah, the game looks for all the world like Ninja Gaiden, but it's actually Castlevania
Well, I got to the final boss! Interesting choice to have the entire previous area
.
I really can't not beat the game at this juncture, but I was disappointed by the last level, and wish they'd given a checkpoint or two more.
rely on a previously underutilized platforming mechanic. Most frustrating area in the game! Got to phase three of the boss fight on my first try, but it's all so chaotic I'm not entirely sure what's going on
I really can't not beat the game at this juncture, but I was disappointed by the last level, and wish they'd given a checkpoint or two more.
Just got through that final area myself. It weirdly reflects a vogue in contemporary "hard" game design:
It's a weirdly faddish note to end on, I agree.
It's a "Getting Over It" level - Mario Maker types have taken to using Bennet Foddy's vertical design to punish mistakes and demand player precision.
It's a weirdly faddish note to end on, I agree.
Well, I got to the final boss! It frustrates me that it's three different forms, and that the first is so easy that I usually beat it without damage. When I die on the second or third, I have to do the damn first form again. Also not a fan of the new concepts that the third form introduces — elemental assistance from the other ninjas absorbed in the boss? And then some of the obstacles blend into the background.
Much as I like this game, its last portion is quite the disappointment.
Much as I like this game, its last portion is quite the disappointment.