This is the last of three podcasts, only tangentially related to Bayonetta 2. Recorded on 31st Jan, 2016 Download (audio only): …
28 thoughts on “Tag Climax: Concerning Action Games”
Can we go back to when Games were hard? I am only a teenager so maybe I am the black sheep of my generation but I grew up on the Nintendo 64 at my home and would visit the arcade every second weekend with my friends and those games were HARD but they were so rewarding when you git gud. However now every game has to have a super guide that lets you press a button and watch the level beat itself. Maybe if we stopped telling everyone that they are perfect at everything just for participating we won't have generations of people who can't handle not being the best at something.
hey about that custom bloody palace room mode thingy: Nier automata Debug mode
quality content 🙂
and i really agree with saurian about the song and beat thingie.. because i always felt in bayo that even in a climatic situation where i couldn`t see where i was i always knew what to do because bayo has no movement limits and in the back of my head there`s always this thing where i`m like" hey i just dodged i have half a sec where i can think on what to do next"..or timing my combo with the extra jump to stay in air longer and be in a safe spot for some time
having a free non-restricted movement plus a million thing to do with bayo really pushes the limit on what a player can do
please do this more would love to see another 2 hr of this quality ^_^
okay I like a lot of these guys and I honestly respect their opinions and their who are look to when I think I want to improve on Bayonetta in some respects but I don't understand what exactly it is that they don't like about being a tattoo that was better anyone what mechanic they altar that's making them say this?
Love is Blue and A Witch With No Memories don't mix
Yoshesque Nier: Automata is an up coming gaming By Square Enix and Platinum
Really interesting discussion! I've heard rumors that kamiya might direct bayonetta 3 if the opportunity presents itself. I know it takes more than one person to make a game like that, but do you think his direction might fix the flaws in bayonetta 2, yoshesque?
Finally got around to listening to this. I do wish games like Bayo had a bigger audience and platform than what it currently has. Also you guys completely forgot about Nier Automata which is being developed by Platinum as well.
Depth is the maximum range of possible non-redundant game states that are relevant to a (high level) player.
It's about combinations, exponentiation. You can make a game with 50 options that don't combine, and have 50 different possibilities, or you can make a game with 10 options, and have them combine with themselves and have 100 different possibilities.
Adding a lot of attacks doesn't make the system deep, they need to be differentiated from one another and recombine. You can get a lot more possibilities through recombining existing options than through just trying to make each individual possibility manually.
This podcast is totally on point. Platinum for some bizarre frustrating reason refuses to tell people how to play their games. It's so weird. There is such a massive rift between the designers and gamers.
1:51:50 That's exactly why gameplay is king in this medium.
Great podcast. Keep up the good work.
+yoshesque what do you think about the addition of bayonetta in super smash brothers, Wii U? I think she feels really weird, and there could have been somethings that the developers could have improved on to make her feel more intuitive (like Ryu, for example).
"hurr durr 4chan is bad because it's not a hugbox"
Really now? I understand it's not the most civil place, but it's the only place where you will ever find brutal honesty and legitimate, unrestricted passion and interest. Fuck overmoderated garbage bins like reddit and the like.
>4chan is bad >it's good to involve people who don't care about your feelings
Saur's ability to dissect the technical aspects of these games is really impressive. More often than not I'm just inclined to agree with whoevers' opinions I respect regarding a game. I just don't have the insight to appreciate what works and what doesn't work purely by playing. Usually I just look around to see what other people are doing, then gauge whether or not a game is worth my time and investment.
Even Bayonetta frustrated me initially – I didn't understand the choices Platinum made or why they made them. There is plenty about Bayo 1 that I think could've been improved to make it more accessible to new players (not necessarily changing the combat – just better introducing and explaining gameplay concepts). But because there were a few skilled players out there posting impressive combos and in-depth instructional guides, I started to understand why the game was worth my time and investment.
Maybe experiencing that initial aggravation is a good thing though. Obviously you don't want a game so frustrating that it turns away customers – but you need to give new players something to aspire to. And as you guys said, promoting skilled players would be a great way of doing that.
This vid came just at the right time as I've just started playing Transformers this past 2-3 days and this game is ACE (once I got passed the initial "this is a cheap budget game" impression plus stopped searching the small city for loot which made fight encounters too rare and started treated the game like a linear brawler) What I love about Transformers is even coming from a 2 month stint of RPGs I was able to immediately have fun with the game due to it's Bayo framework (that I'm familiar with) and it's lack of traditional XXX AXA button combo strings means I'm not having to swot up on them to get to a place where I'm having fun and exploring deeper mechanics in my own pace. Which segways into what you guys were saying about the lack of information about CAGs in general, the biggest unfun part of this past 2-3 days of playing T:D is the lack of information on the game. No manual and I couldn't find one online, and no FAQ and having to trawl through multiple casual threads for gameplay info (I've just found the GameFAQ's mechanics thread) same goes for YT mechanics tutorial vids which were a pain to find and buried under walkthrough vids, If I wasn't subbed to Saur I'd have never have found his content through searching. It would be great if CAG's had it's own Shmups Forum gathering spot. 1st for Mechanics/Strategy Guides and 2nd as a place for ppl to talk about the genre and better enjoy the genre (Discovering the Shmups Forum was what got me into playing them and arcade games in general). It is my impression (especially in the case of NeoGAF) is that the older more knowledgeable gamers who would talk in depth about games (the ones who best inform general gamers on which games are good) just either aren't on general games forums or atleast talking about games especially CAGs in depth like they were in the past. Imo the average games forum poster seems to be either casual or seemingly lacking in gaming know how and often more interested in talking about politics, drama than games.
On the topic of depth in games, I hear the words Possibility Space used sometimes by developers. Possibility Space means the total number of states a game's system allows. And the various rules, implied or explicit, can affect the size of the Possibility Space. I think it's a useful term when it comes to discussing depth in gameplay because it gives us a way of quantifying how deep a game is.
Two people have covered the topic of depth through the lens of Possibility Space is a unique way and I would highly recommend watching/reading their content.
Turbobutton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxRxh8Ka5H8 This video gives an interesting definition for depth and discusses how the rules of a game can expand and constrict depth in a clear manner.
Awesome stuff to listen while doing my homework uvu listening you guys kind of geek out and channel all that passion was fun, hope that community project ends up going well, and I also hope you (Yoshesque) find more games to branch out off Bayo, because I really enjoy your content and how deep you ended up going with this channel ~ Also that nervous/uncomfortable laugh when they said " you became a godlike bayonetta player " was priceless .
Keep hating on us that think your voice is delicious o;
Listened thorugh the whole thing and I gotta it's amazing how passionate you guys are about this genre. I only played W101 Bayo 1/2 so far and just you guys talking about these games got me so hyped about all the stuff I missed like MGR and Transormers. I'll definitely pick up those game in hopes that I'll be enjoying them as much as I enjoyed W101.
Thank you, yoshesque, for sharing such great content. I really appreciate the help and quality that you produce in your videos. The commentary and guests you feature also bring forth some very intelligent views and excellent points. I only wish Platinum would put you on their radar!
I could really listen to you talking all day, it's gr8 (Frosted Fl8kes)
Nier Automata
OMG how many videos do we need bashing Bayonetta 2? I was exited to see the content and then BAM 2 minutes and already complaining. We get it, you are to cool for Bayonetta 2. Move on!
Having completed Transformers Devastation a couple times, I'm really curious to read a write-up on the game. Like Saur said, it's absolutely designed around a "fight hard" mentality, and the mechanics are brilliantly tuned to ensure that you can and should fight hard all the time. There are some wrinkles there, especially with the messy random drop system, but assuming the player can do a reasonable amount of damage the combat is basically non-stop high intensity action. But they create those intense scenarios by limiting the players options to the "best" and "most-exciting" ones. That's where a lot of people within this weird sub-community take issue: it's all strangely limiting. The design of the enemy types and boss mechanics, among other things, can force a certain playstyle (dodge > vehicle attack), leaving little room for creativity. There are lots of little things too: sure dodge offset is a good thing, but what if I didn't want to offset this particular combo? Bayonetta gave you the choice, Transformers is a lot more limiting. It's that lack of freedom that makes a lot of people quit and go back to DMC or God Hand or whatever they prefer.
1. "Need better marketing"
You seem under impression that mass audience WANTS depth in their games. This is a faulty premise. What people want is a good time in all varieties of ways provided nowadays, including easy rewards and easily digestible systems (and it is FINE, and they should NOT be faulted for that).
You can spend hours explaining intricacies of combat design in DMC3/NGB/Bayo and in overwhelming majority of cases you will only get an indifferent shrug. Becoming better at getting your message through is not gonna help if people are not interested.
You mention God of War as leader in sales in the genre. That is not completely true, because the most popular beat'em up nowadays would probably be Batman Arkham series. What is common among both of these series? Primitive combat, pandering to teenage-minded mass audience, art style that doesn't turn off half of the audience right away (kewl muscled protagonist! sexy ladies! yeah! so much better than that witch sarah palin that makes me unconformable watching! dem japanese games am i rite? i'd rather split elephant monster's skull and beat his brain rather than risk my mom walking up when i am playing this weaboo trash with big boobed lady!).
It's not the messaging. It's games themselves. That's how THEY made them. Nobody forced them to make it hard to pierce for mass audience. They did with their own sensibilities in mind and HOW they want. They themselves voluntarily spent years designing sophisticated combat systems fully knowing that 99% of the audience is both unable and indifferent to appreciate that effort.
Majority of people don't even finish games nowadays — IF they're even playing single-player games at all. (which again it is OKAY too, people are free to spend their money and time how they like, you have no right to scream at people for liking "wrong" things).
When you're saying that these games needs significant time investment to "bloom" and "click" and get gud at, you're gonna get weird looks: "how can you play the same game for such a long time? it's nothing but fighting all the time, with all the same enemies in the same locations? and locations are all gated! i want open world!"
Only some niche part of the audience is ready to ask for more from game design and commit time to play and replay and replay the games to hone their skills and get satisfaction of a well designed combat encounter.
Majority of players are only going to play for several hours, and are only in it for content tourism. If it doesn't hold their interest for multitude of myriads of reasons (game is too cartoony! game is not serious enough! too much colour! not enough colour! it's too chaotic! it's too hard! i died during QTE even if death literally means nothing — such a shitty game!) they're gonna drop it.
In fact one of the component of stylish action games — ranking system was specifically invented to cater to both types of players.
The most immediately accessible layer with visually arresting video and audio is meant to cater to mass audience who see bright fast moving images and good audio tracks.
And ranking (or other type of SELF-imposed challenge, like Kick Me Sign runs) provides extra layer for niche where the game is supposed to really shine. Ranking builds up from simplest "don't die, don't use items" type of challenge adding more limits to your gameplay, demanding your proficiency, knowledge of game systems and adherence to ranking rules.
Only niche will go for that OPTIONAL challenge. This is why i think people who say that Bayo 2 is "casualized" simply because items now don't tank your ranking are hypocrites. DON'T USE items then, yes, you will still get the same ranking but that ranking ultimately only matter to YOU anyway, nobody robs you of satisfaction of completing a game the way you want. Print screenshots of level completion screen with proud "No items" text and put it on your wall if it matters to you that much, or just go on with your life KNOWING that you did it.
Consent with the fact that majority of people do not share our definition and appreciation of satisfying combat and there is absolutely NOTHING you can do to change that. People are fine playing Monster Hunter, * Souls and even janky Witcher and are legitimately praising them.
Even among Platinum games the most popular of them all is MGR, and that game is disastrously designed compared to other more fully featured PG games. But they put great visuals and great audio right in the beginning when 90% was still with them and it paid off. That and a license that attracted a new type of audience that otherwise would never give it a chance.
2. "What happenned to W101?
Nothing. It was released. The way it was designed: the most brilliant and the most offputting Kamiya game.
It's just there are so many traps of misunderstanding with this one:
They think the game is supposed to only be played on a touch screen. Not noticing that R-stick is depicted right there on a tutorial screen.
They think they have to "draw" each time to attack, not realizing that they can just press A to instantly conjure weapon.
I've seen people having a hard time mashing buttons — for this or that reason they just can't mash button that fast. A guy has dropped the game because he couldn't progress past Red vs Blue mashing QTE (you only need to mash four-five times per second for this one but he can't do it).
Another big hurdle is visual style. They just can't train their eyes to that LEADER mark and can't properly parse visuals of the game where you need to ignore most of the crowd and only concentrate on leader and 2-3 enemies.
Platforming is also give them a trouble because they don't realize you can use both shadow and the same LEADER mark to orient yourself.
Mission 007-A where you only have 15 people in your crowd is also a major showstopper. You are supposed to replenish your forces with enemy recruits (up to 40-50 people and mission even have generous platinum time limit allowing you to do just that) but they compeltely forget about recruiting mechanic and try to proceed with skeleton team which is extremely hard.
And so on and on and on.
Haven't watched the whole video but my two cents As a more casual player Transformers Devastation was really really awesome and fun, but is sort of mired in elements of progression that you have to 'get through' in order to really dig into things. It's tricky because higher difficulty levels presume you have loot leveled to a particular degree and that your stats are leveled to a particular value. However, if you can get past that, it's an incredibly fun game and you're able to just flow from thing to thing in bursts of slowdown and combo finishers and special attacks, and it feels so good.
Can we go back to when Games were hard? I am only a teenager so maybe I am the black sheep of my generation but I grew up on the Nintendo 64 at my home and would visit the arcade every second weekend with my friends and those games were HARD but they were so rewarding when you git gud. However now every game has to have a super guide that lets you press a button and watch the level beat itself. Maybe if we stopped telling everyone that they are perfect at everything just for participating we won't have generations of people who can't handle not being the best at something.
hey about that custom bloody palace room mode thingy: Nier automata Debug mode
quality content 🙂
and i really agree with saurian about the song and beat thingie.. because i always felt in bayo that even in a climatic situation where i couldn`t see where i was i always knew what to do because bayo has no movement limits and in the back of my head there`s always this thing where i`m like" hey i just dodged i have half a sec where i can think on what to do next"..or timing my combo with the extra jump to stay in air longer and be in a safe spot for some time
having a free non-restricted movement plus a million thing to do with bayo really pushes the limit on what a player can do
please do this more would love to see another 2 hr of this quality ^_^
okay I like a lot of these guys and I honestly respect their opinions and their who are look to when I think I want to improve on Bayonetta in some respects but I don't understand what exactly it is that they don't like about being a tattoo that was better anyone what mechanic they altar that's making them say this?
Love is Blue and A Witch With No Memories don't mix
Yoshesque Nier: Automata is an up coming gaming By Square Enix and Platinum
Really interesting discussion! I've heard rumors that kamiya might direct bayonetta 3 if the opportunity presents itself. I know it takes more than one person to make a game like that, but do you think his direction might fix the flaws in bayonetta 2, yoshesque?
The changes Platinum made to their website mean the links to it in the description don't work anymore, here are the new ones for anyone that needs them:
PlatinumGames' Interview with Saurian Dash
https://www.platinumgames.com/official-blog/article/6421
https://www.platinumgames.com/official-blog/article/6443
Bayo without effects
https://www.platinumgames.com/official-blog/article/1981
Finally got around to listening to this. I do wish games like Bayo had a bigger audience and platform than what it currently has. Also you guys completely forgot about Nier Automata which is being developed by Platinum as well.
Depth is the maximum range of possible non-redundant game states that are relevant to a (high level) player.
It's about combinations, exponentiation. You can make a game with 50 options that don't combine, and have 50 different possibilities, or you can make a game with 10 options, and have them combine with themselves and have 100 different possibilities.
Adding a lot of attacks doesn't make the system deep, they need to be differentiated from one another and recombine. You can get a lot more possibilities through recombining existing options than through just trying to make each individual possibility manually.
This podcast is totally on point. Platinum for some bizarre frustrating reason refuses to tell people how to play their games. It's so weird. There is such a massive rift between the designers and gamers.
1:51:50 That's exactly why gameplay is king in this medium.
Great podcast. Keep up the good work.
+yoshesque what do you think about the addition of bayonetta in super smash brothers, Wii U? I think she feels really weird, and there could have been somethings that the developers could have improved on to make her feel more intuitive (like Ryu, for example).
"hurr durr 4chan is bad because it's not a hugbox"
Really now? I understand it's not the most civil place, but it's the only place where you will ever find brutal honesty and legitimate, unrestricted passion and interest. Fuck overmoderated garbage bins like reddit and the like.
>4chan is bad
>it's good to involve people who don't care about your feelings
Saur's ability to dissect the technical aspects of these games is really impressive. More often than not I'm just inclined to agree with whoevers' opinions I respect regarding a game. I just don't have the insight to appreciate what works and what doesn't work purely by playing. Usually I just look around to see what other people are doing, then gauge whether or not a game is worth my time and investment.
Even Bayonetta frustrated me initially – I didn't understand the choices Platinum made or why they made them. There is plenty about Bayo 1 that I think could've been improved to make it more accessible to new players (not necessarily changing the combat – just better introducing and explaining gameplay concepts). But because there were a few skilled players out there posting impressive combos and in-depth instructional guides, I started to understand why the game was worth my time and investment.
Maybe experiencing that initial aggravation is a good thing though. Obviously you don't want a game so frustrating that it turns away customers – but you need to give new players something to aspire to. And as you guys said, promoting skilled players would be a great way of doing that.
This vid came just at the right time as I've just started playing Transformers this past 2-3 days and this game is ACE (once I got passed the initial "this is a cheap budget game" impression plus stopped searching the small city for loot which made fight encounters too rare and started treated the game like a linear brawler) What I love about Transformers is even coming from a 2 month stint of RPGs I was able to immediately have fun with the game due to it's Bayo framework (that I'm familiar with) and it's lack of traditional XXX AXA button combo strings means I'm not having to swot up on them to get to a place where I'm having fun and exploring deeper mechanics in my own pace.
Which segways into what you guys were saying about the lack of information about CAGs in general, the biggest unfun part of this past 2-3 days of playing T:D is the lack of information on the game. No manual and I couldn't find one online, and no FAQ and having to trawl through multiple casual threads for gameplay info (I've just found the GameFAQ's mechanics thread) same goes for YT mechanics tutorial vids which were a pain to find and buried under walkthrough vids, If I wasn't subbed to Saur I'd have never have found his content through searching. It would be great if CAG's had it's own Shmups Forum gathering spot. 1st for Mechanics/Strategy Guides and 2nd as a place for ppl to talk about the genre and better enjoy the genre (Discovering the Shmups Forum was what got me into playing them and arcade games in general). It is my impression (especially in the case of NeoGAF) is that the older more knowledgeable gamers who would talk in depth about games (the ones who best inform general gamers on which games are good) just either aren't on general games forums or atleast talking about games especially CAGs in depth like they were in the past. Imo the average games forum poster seems to be either casual or seemingly lacking in gaming know how and often more interested in talking about politics, drama than games.
On the topic of depth in games, I hear the words Possibility Space used sometimes by developers. Possibility Space means the total number of states a game's system allows. And the various rules, implied or explicit, can affect the size of the Possibility Space.
I think it's a useful term when it comes to discussing depth in gameplay because it gives us a way of quantifying how deep a game is.
Two people have covered the topic of depth through the lens of Possibility Space is a unique way and I would highly recommend watching/reading their content.
Turbobutton:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxRxh8Ka5H8
This video gives an interesting definition for depth and discusses how the rules of a game can expand and constrict depth in a clear manner.
Critpoints (Blog by Evilagram):
https://critpoints.wordpress.com/2015/03/21/thoughts-on-depth-and-a-basic-introduction/
This post came out before the above video and explores some different ways depth can be found through speedruns. You should definitely read the rest of his blog too.
I really wish more people discuss games like these two, as well as you three, do.
wow~
1:18:44
Yosh I'm so happy you asked. Check this video out bu Turbo Button
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxRxh8Ka5H8
Awesome stuff to listen while doing my homework uvu listening you guys kind of geek out and channel all that passion was fun, hope that community project ends up going well, and I also hope you (Yoshesque) find more games to branch out off Bayo, because I really enjoy your content and how deep you ended up going with this channel ~ Also that nervous/uncomfortable laugh when they said " you became a godlike bayonetta player " was priceless .
Keep hating on us that think your voice is delicious o;
Listened thorugh the whole thing and I gotta it's amazing how passionate you guys are about this genre. I only played W101 Bayo 1/2 so far and just you guys talking about these games got me so hyped about all the stuff I missed like MGR and Transormers. I'll definitely pick up those game in hopes that I'll be enjoying them as much as I enjoyed W101.
Thank you, yoshesque, for sharing such great content. I really appreciate the help and quality that you produce in your videos. The commentary and guests you feature also bring forth some very intelligent views and excellent points. I only wish Platinum would put you on their radar!
I could really listen to you talking all day, it's gr8 (Frosted Fl8kes)
Nier Automata
OMG how many videos do we need bashing Bayonetta 2? I was exited to see the content and then BAM 2 minutes and already complaining. We get it, you are to cool for Bayonetta 2. Move on!
Having completed Transformers Devastation a couple times, I'm really curious to read a write-up on the game. Like Saur said, it's absolutely designed around a "fight hard" mentality, and the mechanics are brilliantly tuned to ensure that you can and should fight hard all the time. There are some wrinkles there, especially with the messy random drop system, but assuming the player can do a reasonable amount of damage the combat is basically non-stop high intensity action.
But they create those intense scenarios by limiting the players options to the "best" and "most-exciting" ones. That's where a lot of people within this weird sub-community take issue: it's all strangely limiting. The design of the enemy types and boss mechanics, among other things, can force a certain playstyle (dodge > vehicle attack), leaving little room for creativity. There are lots of little things too: sure dodge offset is a good thing, but what if I didn't want to offset this particular combo? Bayonetta gave you the choice, Transformers is a lot more limiting.
It's that lack of freedom that makes a lot of people quit and go back to DMC or God Hand or whatever they prefer.
1. "Need better marketing"
You seem under impression that mass audience WANTS depth in their games. This is a faulty premise. What people want is a good time in all varieties of ways provided nowadays, including easy rewards and easily digestible systems (and it is FINE, and they should NOT be faulted for that).
You can spend hours explaining intricacies of combat design in DMC3/NGB/Bayo and in overwhelming majority of cases you will only get an indifferent shrug. Becoming better at getting your message through is not gonna help if people are not interested.
You mention God of War as leader in sales in the genre. That is not completely true, because the most popular beat'em up nowadays would probably be Batman Arkham series. What is common among both of these series? Primitive combat, pandering to teenage-minded mass audience, art style that doesn't turn off half of the audience right away (kewl muscled protagonist! sexy ladies! yeah! so much better than that witch sarah palin that makes me unconformable watching! dem japanese games am i rite? i'd rather split elephant monster's skull and beat his brain rather than risk my mom walking up when i am playing this weaboo trash with big boobed lady!).
It's not the messaging. It's games themselves. That's how THEY made them. Nobody forced them to make it hard to pierce for mass audience. They did with their own sensibilities in mind and HOW they want. They themselves voluntarily spent years designing sophisticated combat systems fully knowing that 99% of the audience is both unable and indifferent to appreciate that effort.
Majority of people don't even finish games nowadays — IF they're even playing single-player games at all. (which again it is OKAY too, people are free to spend their money and time how they like, you have no right to scream at people for liking "wrong" things).
When you're saying that these games needs significant time investment to "bloom" and "click" and get gud at, you're gonna get weird looks: "how can you play the same game for such a long time? it's nothing but fighting all the time, with all the same enemies in the same locations? and locations are all gated! i want open world!"
Only some niche part of the audience is ready to ask for more from game design and commit time to play and replay and replay the games to hone their skills and get satisfaction of a well designed combat encounter.
Majority of players are only going to play for several hours, and are only in it for content tourism. If it doesn't hold their interest for multitude of myriads of reasons (game is too cartoony! game is not serious enough! too much colour! not enough colour! it's too chaotic! it's too hard! i died during QTE even if death literally means nothing — such a shitty game!) they're gonna drop it.
In fact one of the component of stylish action games — ranking system was specifically invented to cater to both types of players.
The most immediately accessible layer with visually arresting video and audio is meant to cater to mass audience who see bright fast moving images and good audio tracks.
And ranking (or other type of SELF-imposed challenge, like Kick Me Sign runs) provides extra layer for niche where the game is supposed to really shine. Ranking builds up from simplest "don't die, don't use items" type of challenge adding more limits to your gameplay, demanding your proficiency, knowledge of game systems and adherence to ranking rules.
Only niche will go for that OPTIONAL challenge. This is why i think people who say that Bayo 2 is "casualized" simply because items now don't tank your ranking are hypocrites. DON'T USE items then, yes, you will still get the same ranking but that ranking ultimately only matter to YOU anyway, nobody robs you of satisfaction of completing a game the way you want. Print screenshots of level completion screen with proud "No items" text and put it on your wall if it matters to you that much, or just go on with your life KNOWING that you did it.
Consent with the fact that majority of people do not share our definition and appreciation of satisfying combat and there is absolutely NOTHING you can do to change that. People are fine playing Monster Hunter, * Souls and even janky Witcher and are legitimately praising them.
Even among Platinum games the most popular of them all is MGR, and that game is disastrously designed compared to other more fully featured PG games. But they put great visuals and great audio right in the beginning when 90% was still with them and it paid off. That and a license that attracted a new type of audience that otherwise would never give it a chance.
2. "What happenned to W101?
Nothing. It was released. The way it was designed: the most brilliant and the most offputting Kamiya game.
It's just there are so many traps of misunderstanding with this one:
They think the game is supposed to only be played on a touch screen. Not noticing that R-stick is depicted right there on a tutorial screen.
They think they have to "draw" each time to attack, not realizing that they can just press A to instantly conjure weapon.
I've seen people having a hard time mashing buttons — for this or that reason they just can't mash button that fast. A guy has dropped the game because he couldn't progress past Red vs Blue mashing QTE (you only need to mash four-five times per second for this one but he can't do it).
Another big hurdle is visual style. They just can't train their eyes to that LEADER mark and can't properly parse visuals of the game where you need to ignore most of the crowd and only concentrate on leader and 2-3 enemies.
Platforming is also give them a trouble because they don't realize you can use both shadow and the same LEADER mark to orient yourself.
Mission 007-A where you only have 15 people in your crowd is also a major showstopper. You are supposed to replenish your forces with enemy recruits (up to 40-50 people and mission even have generous platinum time limit allowing you to do just that) but they compeltely forget about recruiting mechanic and try to proceed with skeleton team which is extremely hard.
And so on and on and on.
Haven't watched the whole video but my two cents
As a more casual player Transformers Devastation was really really awesome and fun, but is sort of mired in elements of progression that you have to 'get through' in order to really dig into things. It's tricky because higher difficulty levels presume you have loot leveled to a particular degree and that your stats are leveled to a particular value. However, if you can get past that, it's an incredibly fun game and you're able to just flow from thing to thing in bursts of slowdown and combo finishers and special attacks, and it feels so good.