[luvcraft]

[SplashBeats]

[luvcraft]

[boojiboy7]

[Baines]

Once you learn how to dodge, you can do okay with most move sets. (Warning: A few moves are restrictive on being able to cancel into a dodge. Some are still good. Others can be a bit too much of a gamble.)

Different people find different things they like. For most enemies, you can get away with a lot. Even if your moveset is weak against something, you can cover with God Hand activations, Roulettes, and weapons.

For example, if something blocks a lot: You can use a guard break. You can keep pressuring in the hope that they stop blocking and get caught (or at least keep him pinned while you catch his allies in the same flurry). You can stop to bait something you can counter, either with a dodge or with an attack that ducks high attacks. You can activate the God Hand. You can use a Roulette (if you are in a position to connect one before the opponent counters.) You can run and chuck an object at them.

You get people with different strategies. If you look at movesets of different players, you'll find different combinations that all worked. Heck, some people rearranged their movesets for different situations. Some swear by guard breaks, and others swear at them. While everyone agrees on juggles being good, it is extremely easy to make juggle combos (and to keep them going with skillful cancelling between your Square combo and other attacks.)

[kthorjensen]

And the funny thing there is I almost never juggle (preferring instead to use knockback against walls - running slide to knocked-away enemy - stomp - get out of the way/focus on somebody else) and still do very well indeed. What a great fucking game.
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Go to this website, you (person who is loved)

[Predator Goose]

I suppose since I've used this thread to hate on God of War I should probably actually address the topic at hand, meaning God Hand.

The reason I like God Hand, but not God of War or Ninja Gaiden is because I approach it differently. To me God Hand is primarily a humorous game. It's combat engine is there to provide enough variety to enjoy the game, but the highlights for me are the comedy bits in between. And, for that matter, the comedy elements of the action itself. The combat system is interesting enough, but I don't think it would carry the game on it's own. I think it's flaw is that it is not very customizable on the fly, meaning that combat can get repetitive if you've found a good combo (which I didn't find too hard).

A more serious game either has to rely on it's story or it's gameplay mechanics. God of War sounded to me like it was pitched at 14 year olds, and so it's story was repugnant to me. It's gameplay was very repetitive due to the aforementioned QTEs, the fact that you could spam the basic combo and do well for 95% of the game, and the fact that the game was one giant fetch quest. In fact, getting fancy with the combos seemed to be penalized since it was so easy for the enemies to knock you out of the animations of those attacks. So neither aspect appealed to me.

As for Ninja Gaiden, I haven't played too much of it (I do plan to at some point), but from what I've seen the story is not the reason that you'd be playing it. Which leaves the gameplay. Now, I'm not saying what I played of it was bad, but it did seemed to be lifted straight from the DMC series. And being a die hard fan of those games, it's hard not to compare the combat of the two. And since DMC seemed more fun to play, more fun to watch, with more intuitive and tighter controls, NG lost out in spades in my mind. So while NG's combat wasn't as simplistic as God Hand's, it still lost out, by far, to DMC. So in my, admittedly limited, opinion, NG didn't really measure up to either DMC or God Hand.

So basically I judge God Hand mainly on it's merits as a humorous game, not as an action game. It knows what it is and it does what it does well. Provided you like that type of humor of course.
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I can no longer shop happily.

[luvcraft]

[Baines]

How would you address the lack of need to customize though?

If you make enemies vary so much in attack and defense styles that you need to alter your moveset when you reach them, you introduce the hassle of constantly having to rewrite your moveset. That would in turn kill the near pure action pacing of the game.

You could let the player create two or three style sets that they can quickly switch between. That avoids the problem of constantly rewriting a single move set. But to encourage use, you'd still need an enemy variety that pretty much required a player have a couple of different styles. As well, where would you put a quick switch on the controls? If you have to go to the menu, you are back to interrupting the pacing.

A key thing to remember was also one of the goals of the game design, to make a fun 3D version of the old (often mindless) 2D side-scrolling beat-em-ups. Add too many complications and you start to drift away from that goal into something else.

[Predator Goose]

I'm not trying to rag on what God Hand is, it is a great successor to the old beat 'em ups of yesteryear. Like I said, I think it knows what it is. But by the same token I think that it realizes that the fighting mechanics of those old games can't carry God Hand by themselves. This is due in part to the fact that it's a longer game (I think, can't remember how long it too to beat SoR) and there is no co-op support.

If I had to say how I would fix God Hand's combo system, I'd probably draw a blank. It's difficult for me to change the mechanics behind the combo system without also changing the philosophy behind it. If you could switch between styles that were just different movesets you had set up before hand then the limiting nature of the create-your-own combo system would be broken. You wouldn't really have to spend time making a decent combo. And the overall structure of the game wouldn't change, you'd just have to switch which combo you'd be using, even though it would still consist of smashing the square button over and over again.
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I can no longer shop happily.

[FortNinety]

[dmauro]

I think it would be cool if the game would throw me a bone and give me hidden items that are selectable presets for the combos with a quick description of that preset's strengths and weaknesses. I know, man up and such, but it would have been cool.
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[luvcraft]

[Baines]

[Baines]

[Predator Goose]

[100Proof]

[boojiboy7]

[Baines]

[boojiboy7]

[Baines]

The Gamecube version pretty much felt like a concept test of a real game, that Sega would only bother to finish for another console if it proved successful.

For example, it was missing so many "obvious" things, like any form of team edit.

The success rate of the special shots was flat out broken. It only took a couple of games to notice that the real success rate was in no way related to what the developers had presumably planned. From what I recall, this was even more noticeable in that the game gave "fake" stats for simulated CPU vs CPU matches? The stats didn't even come close to what the CPU did in a real match, much less being proportional to a human player.

Etc...

I wasn't the only one with such an opinion. It seemed a pretty common online sentiment amongst people that *did* like the game.

[boojiboy7]

See, i didn't want a team edit, so that feature never bothered me, as the teams seemed to be relatively well done at the time.

Yes, power shots were broken if you thought they were going to be super shots that took the ball into the goal every time. They weren't really meant to be that. If you look, goalies have pads on. As those pads get knocked off by hard shots, the goalie gets easier and easier to score on. A power shot will knock all or most of those pads right off, thus making the next shot easy to score with. Or, conversely, knock the pads off first with normal shots then take the power shot.

Eh, i never care about the CPU matches, as almost every sports game I have ever palyed has that problem about matches.

[Predator Goose]

[Baines]

I know about knocking the padding off the goalie. And it takes less than an hour of play to learn how to completely abuse the CPU.

Neither of those change that the super shots are no where near what the development team was aiming for, described as, or even presented in stats. And it only takes a couple of games to notice.

As for any form of team edit, the game kind of needed it. Overall, it is about as barebones as a barebones Sega arcade game conversion (like 18-Wheeler.) Sega can do better than that. Heck, they did much better with Super Monkey Ball.

They put a nod towards editing, but didn't do anything with it.

What do you get for editing? You only buy equipment for your team. You don't have to think or anything though, because all the equipment can be worn simultaneously. You're basically just picking what stat you want to level up first, knowing that all will be leveled by the end.

As I said though, it isn't just the above, but rather an accumulation of various things. Though being completely off on the shots is bad, when it was so readily apparant. (At the time, I suspected the power shots were rebalanced without anyone bothering to retest them. Last minute tweak or just thinking they had it right or something.)

[Mr Mustache]

How does the game compare to Mario Strikers?
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The people are like wool to me

[Predator Goose]

For me it's head and shoulders above Mario Strikers. It also has the added distinction of only being a three player game, so if you ever have only two friends over it's a great co-op experience.

As for the super shots, I don't really care what the developers intended or advertised. They work fine for me when I realize that they suck for getting the ball in the goal. It's a gameplay mechanic that I'm not dissapointed in because I can still use it to my advantage.

If you want to go the route of what the developers intended or what was advertised then you'd probably have to remove what I love most about a lot of games. The Megaman games for example. They were clearly structured in such a way where each boss had a weapon they were weak to that you had to get by defeating another boss. Did I care that in Megaman 2 some of those weapons sucked balls and Metal Man's weapon could take down nearly every boss with ease? Hell no, I had a blast using the shit out of Metal Man's weapon.

I'll agree that the customization would have been nice, but I don't think that the lack thereof means that it's a rushed game. Overall Soccer Slam was a great experience for me, and lasted my friends and I a long time. And man, comparing it to 18 Wheeler is just low.
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I can no longer shop happily.

[Baines]

Megaman might not be the best example.

Yes, each boss had a weakness against a particular weapon, but you could also beat any of them with the regular gun. Some were easier to beat that way than others, but the game didn't force a particular choice. (Some of the later games vary in different ways in this regard.)

Metal Blade is a special case admittedly, because it was a broken design. It was effective the regular gun with the addition of 8-way fire. At three shots per sliver of gauge, you really could replace the regular gun. Capcom never again made another weapon that was as all-around good as the Metal Blade.

Also, from what I recall the Metal Blade isn't quite as all-powerful if you play on hard mode. Wasn't US "hard mode" the only mode in the Japanese game, with US "normal" an easier mode added that mostly (only?) changed the damage/health levels? And the more favorable damage is what cemented Metal Blade's status.

[BotageL]

paging boojiboy (i think it was booji) to repost his essay on metal man which I never remember to save
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http://www.mdgeist.com/

[Predator Goose]

[boojiboy7]

Hey Bogatel, I will post the Metal Man Essay in the axe. Let me pull it up. I'll even leave in all typos and such. YAY!

[100Proof]

[Baines]

[boojiboy7]

Dude, MEtal Blade was the only weapon in Mega Man 2.

[Predator Goose]

Well Baines, I think it's safe to say that we agree to disagree. Soccer Slam really didn't seem like an unfinished game to me but I will say that it didn't seem like a normal sports game, and I think you might have approached it expecting that it would be. You could say the end product is more a combination of the sports and beat 'em up genres than solely a sports title. If you think about it in this way then a lot of things are easier to take.

For example, the teams for example consist of your classic beat 'em up threesome: The bruiser, the all around guy, and the quick but easily punished guy. And the half-assed team edit that you were talking about? Buying stuff for your team? Don't think of it as a team edit, but rather as buying level ups for your characters.

Well, that's how I thought of it, so the game was a lot of fun. It's great playing with two other guys as they settle into their character's role.
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I can no longer shop happily.

[Predator Goose]

[boojiboy7]

Dude, just say you are the spirit of the goose striking back at yourself for felling that goose on the beach.

Besides, the actual story behind the name is so sweet that all sins are forgotten.

[Predator Goose]

[boojiboy7]

Oh, come on, it isn't that serious.

First, you never intended to kill that goose.

Secondly, it was a long fucking time ago.

And thirdly, the name is totally awesome.

Now, if the name was reverse, that would be wrong, as it would mean you were a predator of geese. As it is now, it means the goose is a predator, which is sweet.

[luvcraft]

Goose Predator could also mean someone who preys on weaker individuals specifically to goose them.

Thanks for changing your avatar to one of the cards. Your old avatar upset me greatly but I didn't want to be a dick and whine about it.

[Predator Goose]

[luvcraft]