I could probably beat it twice more today on very hard and whatever comes after but I'm not sure if having an identical experience with slightly
I don't know why you're assuming it would be "slightly increased difficulty". Very Hard mode is significantly more difficult than Hard mode and from what I've heard Revengenace mode is an even bigger step up. Even using rations, which you really shouldn't be doing, I doubt you could beat either of these modes in one sitting.
after having played normal and hard why wouldn't I assume that the difficulty increase would be as relatively small as between normal and hard? I've since heard in this thread that its quite steeper than that, so I'm willing to retract what I said about that. I hope you aren't reacting to my last post about being an extreme mgr pro because that was tongue-in-cheek. I was actually making fun of myself for acting like I'm anyone to being giving gameplay tips as if bearing hard with all hose upgrades means anything (it was easier than my vanilla normal play)
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 1:12 am
So I touched the options for the first time and it turns out you can turn the BGM all the way down.
This has improved my experience of the game immensely. I want these lyrics out of my MGR. I know why they're there, presentation-wise, and both the underlying idea and the execution are repellant. _________________
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 2:59 am
108 wrote:
that music is pretty bad!
Amen.
The VR Missions have some bewildering contradictions in them score-wise.
Take the first one. I'm working on getting first place in under 40 seconds. The hardest thing to figure out what to do with is the Gekko since there are a handful of actions that will stun it for a quick zandatsu kill. These moves, however, require the Gekko's engagement, in particular the bull charge and the foot stomp that gets its foot stuck in the ground.
I suppose that part of the "time trial" element is calculated to accommodate for watching QTE moves. Unfortunately, when the priority for getting first place is time -- and when the timer is running on an absolute real-time counter rather than coordinating with the time slow-down that happens in sword mode -- these come off as aggravating more than anything else.
My take away from this is that I'm supposed to take down the Gekko without the QTE triggers, which is fine, and which I'm enjoying figuring out. I'm not sure that this is something forgiveable in the time element of the game's design in the VR Missions, though.
In order to get that timer under 40 seconds, you have to actively avoid hitting the box while in Blade Mode. When you hit the box, you have two choices: grab the nanopaste or let it go so you can move on with the time trial.
I haven't timed the differences yet, but there's a time penalty either way you go. The score timer still runs if you activate the zandatsu animation and, worse still, you're forced to run up the timer while the game patiently waits for you to do what you don't want to do.
As nerdling technical and the VR missions are supposed to be, this is a frustrating element of control taken away from the player. If you hit the red box, you're stuck in a time commitment one way or another.
The tack I'm taking right now is to run straight into the first set of three guards, slide forward, and use blade mode on then as I'm sliding past. I'll grab one nanopaste spine. Then, I'll flank the Gekko and additional soldiers who appear in order to do the same thing to them. However, when I'm attacking them, I make sure to hit their legs and then run to the other side of the level to make them disappear. I usually have just the Gekko left with, at most, 15 seconds left to spare.
There's some trick to a quicker KO on the Gekko that I haven't figured out. Currently, my idea is to rail on the Gekko with a lot of 1 Hard Hit then 1 Normal Hit attacks since that trigger's Raiden's sword pinwheel with multiple hits. This is pretty useful for staggering other enemy types, so I'm trying to see if it will work here.
I'm not clear on the respective differences between attacking the Gekko's legs or head. The head is difficult to maintain a steady bead on without the Sai, which I prefer not to use here so I can have access to hard sword attacks. I'm also trying to time my parries right so that Raiden doesn't get knocked back.
Going along the line of thought that this is a game that's easy to beat but hard to beat well, there are different rewards for parry timing. If you get the parry just right, Raiden will counter attack and stand his ground. Otherwise, he gets knocked back, and you've got to re-close that distance. Of course, some enemies also jump back after a parry, so there's a second consequence to pay attention to.
Right now, my best time is 47 seconds on the first VR Mission. I can hit that consistently, which means that my best time against one Gekko is ~17 to 27 seconds. I need to halve this. _________________
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 2:59 am
Judge Ito wrote:
Muting the cheesy music is doing an extreme disservice to this game and swiftly puts you in the "don't get it" category.
This is incorrect. I get it, and I do not like it. There's a difference!
Part of the problem for me involves multitasking. I can play while chatting with friends over Skype, but I play considerably worse than when I'm not talking. Having language there in the background is overly distracting.
I think that the overall package would be stronger without it. It smacks of trying too hard. _________________
Muting the cheesy music is doing an extreme disservice to this game and swiftly puts you in the "don't get it" category.
This is incorrect. I get it, and I do not like it. There's a difference!
Part of the problem for me involves multitasking. I can play while chatting with friends over Skype, but I play considerably worse than when I'm not talking. Having language there in the background is overly distracting.
I think that the overall package would be stronger without it. It smacks of trying too hard.
I'm happy you're able to appreciate an incomplete package.
i mean, he apparently beat the entire game with the music on on his first play-through, right?
i figure he got The Pure Experience once. might as well play how you want after that!
i mean, i plan to leave the music on AND watch all the cut-scenes AND listen to all the codec stuff the first time i play, and then i'll play it again in turbo mode _________________
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 3:25 am
Judge Ito wrote:
Adilegian wrote:
Judge Ito wrote:
Muting the cheesy music is doing an extreme disservice to this game and swiftly puts you in the "don't get it" category.
This is incorrect. I get it, and I do not like it. There's a difference!
Part of the problem for me involves multitasking. I can play while chatting with friends over Skype, but I play considerably worse than when I'm not talking. Having language there in the background is overly distracting.
I think that the overall package would be stronger without it. It smacks of trying too hard.
I'm happy you're able to appreciate an incomplete package.
You'll need to explain what, if anything, you think the music adds before I take your snark as anything other than blanks fired across my internet.
EDIT: Also, what 108 said. I got the first experience-as-intended. It is decidedly worse than subsequent playthroughs without it. _________________
Last edited by Adilegian on Tue Feb 26, 2013 3:26 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Location: Spacecraft, Juanelia Country
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 3:26 am
there's still a lot of package left over from previous MGS games. I think Adilegian can afford to be picky.
Are there remixes of MGS2/4 music in this game? The only remix I know of is the arrangement of that one Goemon FC tune (in the Japanese gardens), and that one is so stingy it might as well have been from an Otomedius Excellent DLC pack.
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 3:56 am
DAIS wrote:
Are there remixes of MGS2/4 music in this game? The only remix I know of is the arrangement of that one Goemon FC tune (in the Japanese gardens), and that one is so stingy it might as well have been from an Otomedius Excellent DLC pack.
I didn't even notice the Goemon music. I'll pay better attention on my Wooden Sword playthrough.
Most of the music is fine. The only part that makes me turn it off is when some dude in his early 20s starts singing about the soulful power of ninja angst. _________________
The VR Missions have some bewildering contradictions in them score-wise.
Take the first one. I'm working on getting first place in under 40 seconds. The hardest thing to figure out what to do with is the Gekko since there are a handful of actions that will stun it for a quick zandatsu kill. These moves, however, require the Gekko's engagement, in particular the bull charge and the foot stomp that gets its foot stuck in the ground.
I suppose that part of the "time trial" element is calculated to accommodate for watching QTE moves. Unfortunately, when the priority for getting first place is time -- and when the timer is running on an absolute real-time counter rather than coordinating with the time slow-down that happens in sword mode -- these come off as aggravating more than anything else.
My take away from this is that I'm supposed to take down the Gekko without the QTE triggers, which is fine, and which I'm enjoying figuring out. I'm not sure that this is something forgiveable in the time element of the game's design in the VR Missions, though.
In order to get that timer under 40 seconds, you have to actively avoid hitting the box while in Blade Mode. When you hit the box, you have two choices: grab the nanopaste or let it go so you can move on with the time trial.
I haven't timed the differences yet, but there's a time penalty either way you go. The score timer still runs if you activate the zandatsu animation and, worse still, you're forced to run up the timer while the game patiently waits for you to do what you don't want to do.
As nerdling technical and the VR missions are supposed to be, this is a frustrating element of control taken away from the player. If you hit the red box, you're stuck in a time commitment one way or another.
b-but if speed is your chief concern then the only thing keeping you in blade mode is the fact that you're holding the button. after the stun attack sequence you can simply apply a single slash to its body (red box is completely irrelevant) and release, putting you back in neutral.
Adilegian wrote:
The tack I'm taking right now is to run straight into the first set of three guards, slide forward, and use blade mode on then as I'm sliding past. I'll grab one nanopaste spine. Then, I'll flank the Gekko and additional soldiers who appear in order to do the same thing to them. However, when I'm attacking them, I make sure to hit their legs and then run to the other side of the level to make them disappear. I usually have just the Gekko left with, at most, 15 seconds left to spare.
this partly follows from the previous thing. there's no reason bother with legs or running around waiting for them to disappear. any enemy that doesn't have armor is one slash and a few seconds away from the death of your choosing. send a quick slice through their torso (alternatively just briefly go nuts in blade mode) and be done with it.
Quote:
The head is difficult to maintain a steady bead on without the Sai, which I prefer not to use here so I can have access to hard sword attacks.
i'm going to assume you haven't realized that the charged (purple) sai attack acts like an emp grenade on your opponent giving you a generous offensive opportunity or that the pincer blades do two billion damage and turn armor into butter or
that clicky drum sound is actually a thing now with tons of newer metal bands.
or metalcore or whatever the hell it is.
i'm unfortunately abreast of these things. :-(
i don't (want to) understand how that limp drum sound is edgier, tougher, or more dudely than hard, slamming, thumping, nearly blown-out distorted drums. noobs need to be putting the heavy back into heavy music. _________________
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 4:55 am
analogos wrote:
help i
WELL NOW YER JUST BEING NASTY
analogos wrote:
b-but if speed is your chief concern then the only thing keeping you in blade mode is the fact that you're holding the button. after the stun attack sequence you can simply apply a single slash to its body (red box is completely irrelevant) and release, putting you back in neutral.
This is true, but, if you accidentally hit the red box, it keeps you in Blade Mode for about 2+ seconds to give you All The Time In The World to zandatsu.
There are a few weird things like this in other missions. It's actually my problem with how wide the windows for zandatsu actions are. If you're going for time attacks on the Ninja Kills, you need to hold down L1 as soon as you impale your target in order to enter Blade Mode. You can't hit the box or else you'll get saddled with that 2+ second window of opportunity for pressing circle (actually a time penalty, which is what's weird to me). However, if you just let the body fall, then you have to wait through the even longer time chunk while Raiden pushes the body off his sword, flings blood off the blade, and bathes in his roboawesome.
So the quickest way to do these things is to Ninja Kill, hold down L1, and then immediately let go as soon as Blade Mode starts so that the body falls and Raiden's cooldown animation is canceled. I'm a little torn on this because, on the one hand, I appreciate the byzantine controller coordination needed to speed up the game play. It makes me nostalgic for some of the tricks needed for MGS2's VR Missions. On the other hand, it seems like a consequence of dev condescension to give you so much time to be awesome and behold awesomeness.
I am interested that it creates an either-or decision on the player's part. You can either go for zandatsu points OR you can go for time attack. I'm not confident that this is an intentional design decision, so it strikes me as a weird and interesting accident.
Quote:
i'm going to assume you haven't realized that the charged (purple) sai attack acts like an emp grenade on your opponent giving you a generous offensive opportunity or that the pincer blades do two billion damage and turn armor into butter or
I haven't messed with the pincer blades yet. I started using the sai even charged up, but I decided to go back to assigning the triangle button to hard attacks in order to play with the Hard + Normal pinwheel attack to see if the multiple hits would stagger. I'd like to do it as spartan as possible, meaning without sub-weapons.
There have been times when I've been able to knock the Gekko into stun mode for Quick N Easy Killin by hitting it enough for dizzy. I'm working to figure out what I did during those times that was different and reliably replicable. I figure that paying that kind of attention to it will provide knowledge to behoove a later spartan run through of the story. _________________
What're your guy's records for zandatsuing? I spent the whole game trying to do as many at once as possible, but I only managed to do 5 at a time once in the escape from Denver level.
This is true, but, if you accidentally hit the red box, it keeps you in Blade Mode for about 2+ seconds to give you All The Time In The World to zandatsu.
I feel fairly confident in saying that, when it comes to a Gekko, if you trigger the QTE kill, go into Blade Mode when prompted, and don't move the left stick and just hit the square button (a horizontal slice) once, it'll never be an accidental killing/Zandatsu-enabling blow. The QTE kill lines Raiden up with the target-square in such a way that only the triangle button (a vertical slice) might get you a one-slice Zandatsu without either aiming or mashing. And to confirm the kill, I'm fairly sure that all you need is one slice in Blade Mode, so you just need to hold L1 for as long as it takes to hit the square button once.
I've been having trouble with acing VR Mission 1 too, but my troubles have just been luck (like you said, your chances seem to depend largely on what the Gekko decides to do for its first attack, since only a couple of its attacks put you in an optimal position to trigger the QTE kill) and managing the four little guys after (I can generally kill individual and clustered enemies very quickly, but I'm not sure yet how to take less than 20 seconds or so dashing or even Sai-ing around in order to take out four different guys in four different spots in a room, and 20 seconds is just more time than will get me the top score).
EDIT: To clarify further, you don't actually have to wait for the prompt to hold down L1. Just press triangle+circle to begin the QTE kill and hold down L1 immediately after, and the game will just put you in Blade Mode as soon as it wants to. That makes it even quicker, and that's the condition under which I mean that Raiden generally just isn't lined up right for Zandatsu to be accidentally made possible with one press of the square button. It's possible that if you wait to press L1 only when the game prompts you to, that slight difference in the timing, the split-second already lost, might be enough to put Raiden in a deadlier square-button position in Blade Mode.
we already ended up speaking about this directly so i'll just hit a few of these back briefly for the thread's sake
Adilegian wrote:
This is true, but, if you accidentally hit the red box, it keeps you in Blade Mode for about 2+ seconds to give you All The Time In The World to zandatsu.
this is about as much of a problem as you let it be as a result of allowing the game to do your cuts for you. precision cutting has its uses! even putting that aside i don't think it's much of a problem. if those two seconds are the difference between success or failure on a vr mission then your difficulties most likely lie elsewhere.
Quote:
On the other hand, it seems like a consequence of dev condescension to give you so much time to be awesome and behold awesomeness.
i don't think providing the player with feedback that they Did The Cool Thing is particularly condescending when it's actually pretty important to be able to identify this in a combat situation. it's doubly important considering that the fuel needed for blade mode is a limited resource and as a result when you use it is just as important as that you are able to. the two seconds it gives you to act on this in the moment is welcome for this reason. also, for a game where the combat can be this idiosyncratically loose in so many other ways, it deserves some credit for how good it is at making the more intentioned, precise actions feel as satisfying as they do. little touches like this seem like they were designed with both mechanics and aesthetics in mind. and again, as has been established, they can be avoided entirely anyway. seems decently well-considered to me!
Quote:
I am interested that it creates an either-or decision on the player's part. You can either go for zandatsu points OR you can go for time attack. I'm not confident that this is an intentional design decision, so it strikes me as a weird and interesting accident.
well. what? i mean the whole game has this general attitude. you're never forced to rely on one particular method in order to be rewarded in some way--hell, there are means of achieving S rank in story sections that are mutually exclusive from each other. this seems like a pretty consistent, deliberate decision across the board. the difference in this case is that vr missions provide bp in the same way the rest of the game does, but achieving "1st place" is judged strictly on speed, making it pretty clear what the game is asking of you. just, you know, not forcing it on you if you want to pursue other strategies or cultivate bp.
Quote:
I haven't messed with the pincer blades yet. I started using the sai even charged up, but I decided to go back to assigning the triangle button to hard attacks in order to play with the Hard + Normal pinwheel attack to see if the multiple hits would stagger. I'd like to do it as spartan as possible, meaning without sub-weapons.
this is fair enough, but it's a little unfair in this instance to hold it against the game that your self-imposed challenge is, well, more challenging.
Last edited by analogos on Tue Feb 26, 2013 7:58 am; edited 1 time in total
So Raiden's got a few different things going on. He uses the meme set {tool of justice + protect the weak + they made me this way} as a guiding force to determine his targets. Once those targets are identified, however, the moral decisions can be considered "completed," allowing him to slaughter with abandon. The turning point in the whole "listen to their voices" segment near the start of World Marshal HQ involves breaking down that barrier past which Raiden could feel comfortable that action is unambiguously moral.
The fact that Raiden had not considered this as of that moment in Rising is an example of bad writing, I think. He's been killing forever, and all it takes is for him to meet someone with a set of ideals to direct his introspection inward forever. I think it's utterly implausible that he would not have considered this by now.
not as a defense for the writing in this scene, but aren't self-deception and projection just about raiden's most fundamental character traits? he's been killing forever, but he's also the guy who managed to more or less actively [pretend to] "forget" he spent the first 12 years of his life chopping people up. i don't think it's a matter of whether or not he ever considered anything, it's more that he took up the "tool of justice" thing out of self-soothing psychological convenience, and when that stopped doing him any favors he took up someone else's uglier definition of himself out of just as much convenience. he didn't "not think about that ambiguity until now", he's just a cipher and a trainwreck who probably never thinks about anything.
i.e. "lol whoa where does the character begin and the player end?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!" is probably just as true of this game as every other mgs.
It's also worth saying (whether in apology for the scene or not) that exposure to an alternative perspective isn't what causes Raiden's change (certainly not in itself) anyway. Sam and Monsoon aren't even the first characters to confront Raiden about his rationalization; most notably there's a whole cutscene more or less dedicated to Kevin's being put off by it (as the game's way of communicating to us that we should expect to be uncomfortable with it too, both because it's probably disingenuous on Raiden's part already and because it is an obviously heartless worldview). If I remember well enough, I think Raiden gets a similar response again, at least at first, when he elaborates a bit on that ethical philosophy of his in one of the optional CODEC dialogues.
It's the raw experience Sam crafts for Raiden—forcing him to hear his enemies' "inner voices" so that their narratives and situations are made empirical facts that he can't avoid—that puts Raiden over the edge into Ripper Mode (literally), not just Monsoon's speech about memes or Sam's mumbling that Raiden's just like the bad guys. I mean, like analogos just said, Raiden's ethics isn't psychologically incidental or objective to begin with; it's a means by which Raiden very wilfully disallows his enemies' having narratives of their own that deserve to be fairly evaluated. It's an ethics predicated on the convenience of ignorance. What Sam does is plunge Raiden into a state of cognitive dissonance not mainly with words, but with a concrete experience that finally just exceeds the limit of what Raiden can wilfully forget.
It's one thing to say, "Hey, maybe your enemies deserve some ethical consideration too." You can still very easily say, "Eh, nah. Everything I do is fair. Leave me alone"; conversation over. It's another thing to carry on while your enemies are literally screaming things like, "I don't want to be here!" and, "They're practically holding my family hostage!" and, "This isn't fair; you're too strong!" at you even as you're swinging your sword through them. I mean, just imagine how different the experience of the game might've been for you as a player if from that point on the enemies' "inner voices" were always in place of their trash talk. Concrete experience can make psychological differences that conversation about experience in the abstract can't.
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 12:32 pm
A few things before I go to worrrrrrrrk.
Quote:
this is about as much of a problem as you let it be as a result of allowing the game to do your cuts for you. precision cutting has its uses! even putting that aside i don't think it's much of a problem. if those two seconds are the difference between success or failure on a vr mission then your difficulties most likely lie elsewhere.
I agree with this. My point is that this rock in my shoe isn't costing me the marathon, but goddamn I'm annoyed by this rock in my shoe.
Quote:
this is fair enough, but it's a little unfair in this instance to hold it against the game that your self-imposed challenge is, well, more challenging.
It would be, yes. I'm not necessarily holding it against the game, just this one bump I'm re-encountering as I try and try again.
With any self-imposed challenge, there are the two main options of learning how to circumvent the obstacles in your path or just giving up on the challenge. This is an obstacle that can be circumvented by not hitting the red box, and the question I'm undecided on is if it should even be an obstacle in the first place.
As we tentatively agreed when chatting about this before, I think we might be talking about two slightly different things. I don't see anything on its face in what you're writing that I disagree with, but I keep thinking "but damn that delay is obnoxious -- and to what end?" Most of the game is quite balanced, but the game does make certain concessions to lesser skilled/beginner players that I'm willing to consider as overindulgent in some, not all, contexts.
Quote:
It's one thing to say, "Hey, maybe your enemies deserve some ethical consideration too." You can still very easily say, "Eh, nah. Everything I do is fair. Leave me alone"; conversation over. It's another thing to carry on while your enemies are literally screaming things like, "I don't want to be here!" and, "They're practically holding my family hostage!" and, "This isn't fair; you're too strong!" at you even as you're swinging your sword through them. I mean, just imagine how different the experience of the game might've been for you as a player if from that point on the enemies' "inner voices" were always in place of their trash talk. Concrete experience can make psychological differences that conversation about experience in the abstract can't.
I'm enough of a virtual jerk that I'll roll over a quadriplegic enemy's squirming body with a drum can, cackling all the while. I think I might have nano-filters against this level of empathizing with the enemies!
Quote:
he's been killing forever, but he's also the guy who managed to more or less actively [pretend to] "forget" he spent the first 12 years of his life chopping people up. i don't think it's a matter of whether or not he ever considered anything, it's more that he took up the "tool of justice" thing out of self-soothing psychological convenience, and when that stopped doing him any favors he took up someone else's uglier definition of himself out of just as much convenience.
Gotta run to work super-now but I think that the additional memory suppression/brainwashing that the Patriots performed on Raiden made the first "oops lol forgot 12 years of human tragedy" more acceptable since there was an outside "enabler" of that tendency. IIRC, he explicitly covered the grounds on which he experiences cognitive dissonance during some of his revelations in MGS2 -- subjective revulsion at killing human beings -- so that it feels like lazy writing to have him just up and forget that major turning point. (Not that that kind of abandonment of game-end realizations is at all contrary to the flow of Metal Gear from game to game, mind.)
The idea that he'd encountered that problem of "whoa they're people too" and then decided "gotta break some eggs to make an homme-lette" interested me more than "but they don't have real feelings and unambiguously made their decisions. Somehow I am able to believe this after MGS2." That was part of his character anyway -- how he was able to excuse people's actions that even they found inexcusible, such as Olga's betrayal of her extended "family." _________________
I completely tune out the content of the vocals in the boss fight music, so all I'm left with is a pretty neat effect when they come in dynamically as the fight escalates. The soundtrack's not as good as an Anarchy Reigns or something, though, not by a long shot. _________________ http://www.mdgeist.com/
The idea that he'd encountered that problem of "whoa they're people too" and then decided "gotta break some eggs to make an homme-lette" interested me more than "but they don't have real feelings and unambiguously made their decisions. Somehow I am able to believe this after MGS2." That was part of his character anyway -- how he was able to excuse people's actions that even they found inexcusible, such as Olga's betrayal of her extended "family."
But there are nine years between the two games' narratives, and Raiden's suffered (at least) one more major trauma in that time (the loss of his original body, prior to the start of MGS4).
He's also found himself generally incapable of staying off the battlefield; both his MGS2 and his MGS4 happy endings fail, and primarily just because he can't bring himself to actually like them. Whatever ethics/rationalization he's to try to live by/with after MGS2 has to be one that makes fighting-for-fighting's-sake itself justifiable, which is to say one that doesn't depend on the particulars of political causes to make possible the excusability of killing. He needs an Omar Little-esque "anyone in the game is a fair target for being in the game" principle.
It's easy, in contrast, for Raiden to try deliberately to cultivate (even perhaps to the point of dishonesty) his capacity for near-universal sympathy in the last bits of MGS2. In one sense, he can simply afford to then in a way that he can't in MGS4 and MGR. In another sense, in context it's just another self-serving, defensive response anyway, as much as it's any sort of awakening to ethical objectivity: to do anything other than actively construct himself as "a sympathetic human being healthily appalled by death and destruction" would be to surrender to the two parties (Solidus and the Patriots) actively trying to define him as something he's yet hopeful he doesn't have to be (a soldier/killer "by nature"). Either way, things change for him as, over the course of nine subsequent years, it becomes only more and more apparent that he can't prove Solidus and the Patriots wrong about him. He rejects every happy ending that would be his proof.
Add to this the fact that the new body he receives in the start of MGR is one that literally requires him to kill for sustenance in the most immediate sense. His situation is finally made such that he's a being for whom bloodlust isn't just a disposition he can't seem to purge despite his efforts, but a condition of living. (We can blame the possibly ethically oblivious Doktor for that straw on the camel's back.) He's got to devise a way to be okay with himself as such a being.
This is all amounting to more of an apology for MGR's writing than I know if I really care to make. All I'm trying to say is that I think picking out the best quality Raiden grows to exhibit in MGS2 and taking it as a central principle of his character, or even one that should necessarily have been maintained as a major pivot in his development, seems less to make for an honest assessment of what's gone on with him since MGS2, and more to stem from an optimism about psychological growth that's about as wilful in spite of the case as Raiden's own "forgetting" which makes possible his flat, universal "They made their choice" narrative. People do harden in bad ways, and Raiden's had just about every reason you can think of to do so, on top of an underlying inclination to do so regardless of reason.
EDIT: Also that I think "Raiden just up and forgets" really shouldn't be the way we put it.
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 11:23 pm
end of the world wrote:
Oh yeah!
Analogos showed that to me last night. I don't understand the difference between what happens in that video and what happens on my TV because they're demonstrably different.
Analogos mentioned via IM that he saw what I was talking about later in the evening. There could well be some kind of cancel that I'm overlooking, in which case there's not really a problem.
EDIT: Still haven't figured out what's up with the delayed un-zandatsu time, but I figured out how to gain greater control over the Gekko in that VR mission. As with other enemies, you counter attack with a chance of stunning if you parry near the exact moment of impact. The challenge with the Gekko is that it hops away when you block, so it escapes the range of your counter. It also appears to have some invincibility frames when it's hopping back, as well, meaning that you still won't hit it even if you've got it backed into a corner where it can't go anywhere else.
The solution is the stay tight and bait it into one of its three attacks without a jump-back. The longest one (and there might be a way around this that I don't know yet) is parrying its bull rush. The other two are its one-leg stomp and its two-leg jump stomp. It won't jump back after you parry, and it seems to consistently stun when you hit it with Raiden's counter, giving you an easy quick KO. _________________
Last edited by Adilegian on Wed Feb 27, 2013 12:13 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 11:51 pm
BotageL wrote:
I completely tune out the content of the vocals in the boss fight music, so all I'm left with is a pretty neat effect when they come in dynamically as the fight escalates. The soundtrack's not as good as an Anarchy Reigns or something, though, not by a long shot.
Oh, right, one part where I dislike the music in addition to the lyrics: the final boss fight. The chord progression is overly sentimental in a way that I don't see combining either to augment or subvert what's happening in the fight.
Put another way, it's an instance where the game wants to prompt an emotion that's very different from what I'm actually feeling as I'm playing the sequence. When I'm playing that sequence, I'm thinking, "OK, you have a pattern and there are a variety of ways to react to certain cues, and I am going to pay attention to that now." The emotion that attends this action is an amalgam of subdued responses to tension and attentiveness -- none of which are assisted by the emotions prompted by the chord progressions that go along with that fight.
Beyond an opinion of the quality of the music, it becomes emotional noise that I resent when it competes for my attention when I'm trying to do something. Before I found out that I could turn it off, I kept thinking, "OK game, either stop expecting me to play while you're 'talking' through this music or please just shut up so I can concentrate."
It fits the RAD DUDE spirit of the game, yep, but it oversteps its bounds and interferes with my play experience.
It also occurred to me today that the option to turn off the music is embedded in the game itself and is therefore an authentic customization of the complete package. I'm not sure what investment Judge Ito has in the necessity of the music to the game, and that might be interesting to know.
EDIT: Might be worth mentioning that I have the same eye-rolling response to background music in movies as well. The Hobbit was a recent offender in this regard. My passive-aggressive critical response was "Okay thanks for holding my hand on the emotion of wonderment and grandeur I was supposed to feel Jackson, god, I would have been lost otherwise." Same goes for a lot of the music here, particularly since the emotions themselves are pretty uninteresting in this context. _________________
Well, I aced VR Mission 1. Or would have. If the last guy hadn't decided to take exactly four full seconds to die. The mission closed at 41 seconds, and all I was doing after 37 was standing there waiting for it to.
Anyway, Bloodlust. It's really good. If you don't have it or want to use it, I can't really offer anything. But if you're okay with using Bloodlust to ace this mission, I recommend standing where the Gekko's going to spawn and preparing Heat Burst so that you can unleash it as soon as the Gekko appears. It should be enough to prep the Gekko for an immediate QTE kill, and if you're lucky, since Heat Burst is kind of an area attack, you might even take out a cyborg or two in the process. Then you've just got to mop up the remaining guys in about 15 seconds.
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 2:25 am
Got it.
The strategy I wound up with didn't involve baiting out the Gekko or razing the four second-wave dudes right off. I ran in close, started attacking until on of them blocked enough time to orange-telegraph attack, and then by parrying THAT move at the right time, I was able to stun the Gekko when the parry happened to nick it.
This took out the main problem of needing the Gekko to initiate a parryable attack. Given that, I was able to grab the nanopaste from the Gekko and take down three of the remaining cyborgs quickly since they had all clustered together. I could have shaved an extra 3 or 4 seconds off it I'd done enough damage to the final remaining cyborg to make him explode instantly.
Another thing that improved time: cutting up an enemy enough will make the smaller pieces explode pretty soon after they hit the ground. Slicing the torso to leave even two limbs attacked gets a delaying death animation while the body slumps and explodes.
Also, I think I was able to cut the zandatsu opportunity lag by letting go of R1 just before the killing slice hits. I'll need to test this more. _________________
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 2:36 am
Grant wrote:
Well, I aced VR Mission 1. Or would have. If the last guy hadn't decided to take exactly four full seconds to die. The mission closed at 41 seconds, and all I was doing after 37 was standing there waiting for it to.
Ha! Funny that you posted this right before my description of a strategy. This exact same lag happened to me, too. I think you can snip it out by cutting the body into three pieces, with at least two of those pieces containing torso.
Grant wrote:
Anyway, Bloodlust. It's really good. If you don't have it or want to use it, I can't really offer anything. But if you're okay with using Bloodlust to ace this mission, I recommend standing where the Gekko's going to spawn and preparing Heat Burst so that you can unleash it as soon as the Gekko appears. It should be enough to prep the Gekko for an immediate QTE kill, and if you're lucky, since Heat Burst is kind of an area attack, you might even take out a cyborg or two in the process. Then you've just got to mop up the remaining guys in about 15 seconds.
I'm looking forward to trying it! I was mentioning this to analogos last night, but my approach to the mechanics of a game like this (also with standard MGS titles, actually) is to embed myself in basic weapons before diversifying into subweapons and the like. There's still the leftover mystery of what's going on with the zandatsu-communique lag, but I learned that large enemies can be downed by counters to smaller enemies' attacks. That's refreshing and rejuvenating. _________________
I'm thinking it may not be a reliable strategy now. The problem is that Heat Burst takes a few seconds to prep, because what it is, is a charged-up third attack. You have to get Raiden through two swings first, and Bloodlust swings are very slow. It worked out well for me on a few occasions, but I believe it's because I managed to use death-lag to my advantage with respect to the first wave of enemies, so I had a few seconds before the second wave (including the Gekko) appeared. Without that death-lag, the Gekko appears too soon.
I'm out of VR Mission 1 now, but I'm thinking that when I go back to it, I'll see if I can make this strategy reliable by standing to one side of the room a moderate distance away from the second wave's spawn space so that the Gekko will have to move to me before it can interrupt the Heat Burst prep, rather than standing right where the Gekko will spawn. On the bright side, if I find just the right spot in which to stand, I might be able to more reliably catch two cyborgs in Heat Burst too. Any charged Bloodlust attack will kill a cyborg in one swing, so as long as Heat Burst catches them with one of its hits, you've got 'em covered. That could potentially mean taking out two of the cyborgs and the Gekko in just a small handful of seconds, counting in time for the Gekko's QTE, maybe leaving a nice 15 or so for the two remaining cyborgs.
so i beat VH mode today and unlocked revengeance mode. It's a little gimmicky but still kind of neat.
Basically everything kills you in one or two hits, but if you land a perfect parry then you can also kill the enemies in one hit The enemies are also insanely aggressive. Perfect parry on the wolf boss did 70~% damage and I...it feels good, but I think it's going to be a different kind of challenge than VH mode.
I don't know if this is already common knowledge and I've just been dumb 'til now, but I just figured out that attacking while in Ninja Run chops down missiles the same way Blade Mode does (but with the advantage of not having to stop moving to do it).
I don't know if this is already common knowledge and I've just been dumb 'til now, but I just figured out that attacking while in Ninja Run chops down missiles the same way Blade Mode does (but with the advantage of not having to stop moving to do it).
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