Oh. My. God.
Of all the developers in the world who could have ripped off one of my favourite videogame play mechanics ever, it's Koei?
It's Dynasty Warriors crossed with Monster Hunter crossed with a hyperspeed version of the staggeringly awesome, hugely under-rated flying combat from Otogi. This game is going to consume my life. I want it noooooooowwww...
Seriously, though, this is basically what we're looking at. No friendly army, just you and one or more mates over local or ad-hoc (I don't know if that's in the demo, though) running around small, enclosed locations linked by gates, taking out swarms of faceless cannon fodder before some officer, general or monster dude makes an appearance whereupon you whale on him, he dies, you beat the mission, you go home. It's got quests. It's got collecting to craft. Koei are gunning for the Monster Hunter crowd so hard it hurts. I mean, they've got a license to print money as is: they could weld the DW combat engine to a basic busywork knockoff of Phantasy Star or MonHun and they'd be sleeping on giant piles of cash.
Only it has what could possibly be the most awesome ARPG combat engine I've ever goddamned played. It works like this: you've got your standard DW approach, light and heavy attacks, making endless chains out of them a la Dynasty Warriors 6. Two weapons, switchable on the fly. You run around, you center the camera behind you if you need to, so far, so expected.
Then you notice you've got a dash move.
Then you notice you've got a double-jump.
Then you notice you've got a lock-on.
Hold down the left shoulder button, circle a target, dash around them or towards them. Knock them up into the air, juggle them, smash them down again with a heavy attack. Dash backwards and forwards through them, in the air or on the ground. Right shoulder is the dash normally, but holding both shoulder buttons to lock on seems to change up your attack options somewhat. Lock-on switches automatically when you're done with one target, or you can manually let go and re-assign - flashing through the little groups of enemies, toying with them, bowling them all over the place... dear God this demo shows up Too Human's combat system as the poor, pathetic, wounded broken mess it really is. Pardon my language but it's absolutely ****ing amazing. I had to rave about it here - I haven't had so much fun with a DW game in ages.
I haven't figured out everything to do with the demo - it doesn't have that many quests but there are quite a few characters to play with. Still, if the difficulty holds up this could be one of my favourite hack-and-slashers for a long, long time. Instant purchase come the US release, I'm thinking. Well done, Koei. Just when I think you've run out of ways to violate me, here comes another one. Well done.
Of all the developers in the world who could have ripped off one of my favourite videogame play mechanics ever, it's Koei?
It's Dynasty Warriors crossed with Monster Hunter crossed with a hyperspeed version of the staggeringly awesome, hugely under-rated flying combat from Otogi. This game is going to consume my life. I want it noooooooowwww...
Seriously, though, this is basically what we're looking at. No friendly army, just you and one or more mates over local or ad-hoc (I don't know if that's in the demo, though) running around small, enclosed locations linked by gates, taking out swarms of faceless cannon fodder before some officer, general or monster dude makes an appearance whereupon you whale on him, he dies, you beat the mission, you go home. It's got quests. It's got collecting to craft. Koei are gunning for the Monster Hunter crowd so hard it hurts. I mean, they've got a license to print money as is: they could weld the DW combat engine to a basic busywork knockoff of Phantasy Star or MonHun and they'd be sleeping on giant piles of cash.
Only it has what could possibly be the most awesome ARPG combat engine I've ever goddamned played. It works like this: you've got your standard DW approach, light and heavy attacks, making endless chains out of them a la Dynasty Warriors 6. Two weapons, switchable on the fly. You run around, you center the camera behind you if you need to, so far, so expected.
Then you notice you've got a dash move.
Then you notice you've got a double-jump.
Then you notice you've got a lock-on.
Hold down the left shoulder button, circle a target, dash around them or towards them. Knock them up into the air, juggle them, smash them down again with a heavy attack. Dash backwards and forwards through them, in the air or on the ground. Right shoulder is the dash normally, but holding both shoulder buttons to lock on seems to change up your attack options somewhat. Lock-on switches automatically when you're done with one target, or you can manually let go and re-assign - flashing through the little groups of enemies, toying with them, bowling them all over the place... dear God this demo shows up Too Human's combat system as the poor, pathetic, wounded broken mess it really is. Pardon my language but it's absolutely ****ing amazing. I had to rave about it here - I haven't had so much fun with a DW game in ages.
I haven't figured out everything to do with the demo - it doesn't have that many quests but there are quite a few characters to play with. Still, if the difficulty holds up this could be one of my favourite hack-and-slashers for a long, long time. Instant purchase come the US release, I'm thinking. Well done, Koei. Just when I think you've run out of ways to violate me, here comes another one. Well done.
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