There already is a Steam page and the description says co-op action RPG.
I mean, perspective matters, I suppose: you could use isometric/top down and 3rd person to make a distinction between PoE and HZD, but then again I don't play either, or ARPGs in general, so that's as nuanced of a take as I could have on this.
I'm glad Suda51 is still making new IPs, but I'm kinda over his gameplay? It needs to evolve somehow… like, melee here looks a lot like Killer Is Dead, which was serviceable, but not great.
Of course, everything else is captivating, as it always is, but I'll need more from the gameplay to get invested in this.
Tag fighters aren't my thing and ASW are headed in the opposite direction of what I want from a fighting game, but I'm happy for them! They came a long way and more or less stuck to their guns, which's admirable.
I'm happy to go down with Plus R, P4AU, and Under Night though.
This reads like a crutch though and reflects part of the problem: games are being treated like products and not carefully curated, cohesive experiences, which's why its consistent inclusion everywhere is being criticized.
If everyone is using the same crutch, no one should be surprised if people start complaining they're seeing the same crutch everywhere instead of interesting new ideas.
That's not it though. No one complained about parrying in Bayonetta or Ninja Gaiden II because this is where the mechanic belongs. But when you start seeing it in Resident Evil or Doom, or even new IPs like Slitterhead, you have to start questioning if combat designers are being pushed to ride a trend or if they're being lazy and using parrying as a crutch.
I think with parrying specifically, it's frustrating to see it become a crutch for games to add combat depth, or pop up as the central mechanic everywhere at the expense of exploring new combat ideas.
Dishonored is obviously not a bad example of parrying, so I'll give a bad one I just encountered recently: Slitterhead. The game has plenty of cool combat mechanics, but it repeatedly puts you in scenarios where parrying becomes either your only option or your quickest road to victory, which trivializes the rest of its cool combat ideas.
I think games like Ninja Gaiden II or Bayonetta perfectly handled parrying: it's a tool that unlocks combat depth, but not the only one, and combat is still fun without it. Not to say anything is wrong with a game like Sekiro, but to see games blindly copy this design philosophy is disappointing.
I am dual booting Artix and Win 11, and solely gamed on Linux for 2 years before getting into a bunch of games that don't run there, which eventually pushed me to dual boot Win 11.
I'd rather not touch Windows at all though and just hate it any time I have to use it for any reason other than gaming. The flip side is I hated gaming on Linux when I had to use it to play incompatible games.
I'll most likely just wait until my favorite games run on there and move for good. Maybe go for a Steam Deck then too. But RN attempting to go back to gaming on Linux feels like a potential time/money sink for non optimal results, which doesn't make sense when I already have a working setup.
Shows one platinum, one gold, and one silver on my end? Catherine is notorious for being difficult to run on Linux, even the comments on ProtonDB say so… IDK if I can consider that very little tinkering.
Plus, that doesn't include docked performance… I need stable 60FPS docked for fighting games.
Like, I see your point that it's almost there, but going full tilt into gaming on Linux RN still feels like a risky investment for both my time and money when my $400 Windows laptop runs everything OOTB.
You joke, but half of my Steam library is incompatible with Steam Deck. Like, I fucking hate Windows, but I'm stuck there for gaming, and I don't even play these multiplayer games. I'm talking Catherine, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Under Night In-Birth II… etc. Niche games all of them.
On Slitterhead, I'm more of a Gravity Rush Toyama fan than a Silent Hill/Siren one, so I'm hoping what horror fans disliked about the game will appeal to me. Combat was fun in the demo, but I need to experience the bodiless traversal in more open-environment scenarios to decide if I like it or not.
I also hope the tracking thing doesn't get in the way. It was a tad confusing in the demo. Seems like you need to interview NPCs too? I hope that doesn't end up screwing with the game's pace.
Steam been threatening to decline my refund requests because I'm refunding too many games.
Full text:
"It looks like you’ve requested a significant number of refunds recently. If you often have problems with your purchases, please submit another ticket so that we can help you solve these issues. Please note, that the Steam Refund Policy is not intended as a way to try out games for free. If we have reason to believe that the refund system is used in this manner, we may decline future refund requests."
So I'm sailing the high seas with a certain in-shape girl to try Slitterhead this weekend, wish me luck.
Funny part is: game has a demo, but it only covers basic combat, not the actual gameplay loop, which's more than that according to reviews and footage I watched, so I don't have enough information to make a call only based on the demo.
And to Steam: if you figure out a way to tag games properly and push for publishers to add long enough demos, I wouldn't be refunding too many games. Excuse me for not wanting to waste my money on games I'll never finish.
Just hand this IP to the Hi-Fi Rush devs already…