Together Retro May 2021 - The Riddle of Steel

[PartridgeSenpai]

I'm gonna finish my Mega Man marathon-ing first, but I'm gonna play through Maken Shao! I didn't much care for Maken X when I played it a year-ish ago, but I'm pretty sure that the camera going from first to third-person is gonna make this WAY better~

[SpaceBooger]

Playing through Dragon Quest Swords... at first, I hated it... because of the motion controls.

Now that I played it more and am getting used to it it feels like an arcade RPG experience, unlike anything I have played before. It has the RPG and grinding you would expect from a DQ game but an arcade-like on-rails swordplay mechanic that is fun once you get used to it.
I have always been a fan of grinding. I don't mind spending time leveling up a character, or characters, to make the rest of the game easier to play through. This game has me motivated to keep playing it because currently, I suck at the sword motion controls, but I know I can grind to become overpowered and not worry about the Wii Remote doing a diagonal slash when I thought I moved it horizontally.
If you have a Wii and need a game to play this month I recommend giving this game a shot.

Is anyone else playing this game or had already played it?

[MrPopo]

I played through it partway before my Wii died and I lost the save. It's definitely a unique experience; my biggest complaint was the shielding felt really loosey goosey.

[PretentiousHipster]

I'm beginning to unlock more combo moves in Blade of Darkness. It helps keep the gameplay fresh and the combat intense as you constantly have to adjust to new weapons (and new enemies). Not really a blade anymore though, but there's a cool detail. Hitting skeletons with a sword is a waste of time. How would it work on bone? You're much better off crushing the bones with a mace.

[SpaceBooger]

I played through it partway before my Wii died and I lost the save. It's definitely a unique experience; my biggest complaint was the shielding felt really loosey goosey.

Just in the first level (?), there are moles throwing dirt at you at the same time... it seems as if you can only block one. This is not cool. I also have noticed that the shields get destroyed the more you use them. This also seems to fall under the not cool category too. Maybe the shields will pay off and be fun, but based on your comment I'm not holding my breath.
Nevertheless, this does feel like a DQ game so I am still motivated to continue.

[Ack]

I've made it to level 3 in Battlespire. It makes for a good stopping point to continue discussing the sword combat in the game.

Previously I had talked a little about the variance of attacks. Popo has been doing some digging into the combat of early Elder Scrolls games, so I'll let him break down the differences between slashes, chops, and thrust attacks, but I also wanted to note that the weapon-based skills are not the only ones affecting combat.

Battlespire also incorporates a Dodge, Critical Strike, and Backstabbing skill. Backstabbing is, of course, the stealth option for those who want to sneak up and stick your knife in a foe's kidney. Critical Strike impacts sudden damage spikes that are, again, based on hidden dice rolls. For sword combat, it doesn't make authentic, but it does feel like tabletop roleplaying.

The Dodge skill is more interesting, because while it's still a hidden dice roll, executing a dodge both results in your opponent missing an attack and also briefly slows them. This is a short respite you can capitalize on to get in a quick spell, pull back, or go on the offensive. However, your opponent can also dodge, and when it does, your attack animation becomes incredibly slow. This opens you up for more attacks, so I find the best option is to immediately retreat and try to get some distance. Thankfully the stun only impacts your attacks and casting, not your mobility.

This isn't all to consider when engaging in sword combat, but I'll talk more about how to capitalize on movement and level geometry in Battlespire in a later post.

As for the rest of you, keep fighting! You have many opponents left to best!

[Nemoide]

I started playing my pick for the month - Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad for Xbox 360!

It's the fifth game of the Onechanbara (a portmanteau of onechan [big sister] and chanbara [sword fighting movie] series but the first to be released in the US. These games are designed to be simple, low-budget titles that provide you with bit of cheap fun. You play as a woman in a bikini with a cowboy hat and a katana as well as her sister in a skin-tight schoolgirl uniform with a katana (you can switch between them anytime) and you hack and slash your way through tons of zombies.
So far I'd describe the combat as "dumber Dynasty Warriors" where you can really just slam on the X button a bunch to slash with your sword and take care of anything. You can jump and do a secondary attack, but slashing with your sword a lot seems to work fine.
One interesting mechanic is that it matters how much blood is on you and your sword. If you get too much on your sword, it loses its effectiveness and gets stuck in enemies. If you get too much blood on you, you enter a superpowered rampage mode. There's also some sort of "ecstasy meter" that fills as you do combos and lets you do a special attack, but I've yet to fill it or do that attack.

So far, this game is living up to my expectation of being some lightweight trashy fun. We'll see if it changes as I continue! Maybe I'll even have to get slightly strategic about how I handle my sword!

[MrPopo]

So I did some digging, and it turns out in Arena and Daggerfall (and its engine cousins) your attack direction affects your chance to hit and damage. A horizontal slash is baseline. A stab is higher hit, lower damage. A diagonal slash is lower hit, higher damage. A chop is much lower hit, much higher damage. All of these are relative modifiers; it's not like chop does 2x damage. But as a result there is a reason to vary your strikes.

Speaking of, beat Arena tonight. The game gets mean in the latter half with some really sadistic level design; not just in the form of "you must have this key" or "this is a maze" but how the game engine handles level changes and the fact it literally spawns monsters on top of you. If you know what you're doing you can blow through them pretty fast, and frankly you should look it up ahead of time; the game's economy is not well balanced so trying to get through the later levels organically is an exercise in masochism.

Also, Ack, unless they fixed it in Battlespire the critical skill doesn't actually work.

[MrPopo]

My current one-sentence review of Daggerfall: one step forward, two steps backwards, and collapses under the weight of what it tries to do.

[lordb0rb4]

My time with Bushido Blade 2 was well spent and now i'm done with the game.
Beneath the shallow and simple presentation at first glance i was presented with a nerve hacking experience by the end of my 6 hours with it.
The story mode consists of fighting a couple of regular enemies and a mini boss eventually, the custscenes between were not annoying and set the tone very well.
The mechanics of the game is were it shines, literally one stroke can cut you down and end the fight in mere seconds. Generally it wouldn't be a big deal since the game has unlimited continues BUT if you want to unlock the extras fighters you must survive the gauntlet of enemies at certain portion of a character's story and finish the game, man it gets hectic XD
I managed to capture a clip showing somewhat how tense (and unpredictable) it can be:
https://youtu.be/BqoA-21As8I

Onto the next game