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So Assassins Creed Shadows released this week, and so far the discourse surrounding the game is really all over the place with lots of good and bad reviews across the spectrum. I was a big fan of the Assassins Creed games from 1-3, and then I skipped the PS4 console generation so I didnt play any of the more recent ones. But this new one is about ninjas, which is rad, so Ive been following news about the game.
One thing I noticed, which is the main thing I want to discuss, when seeing clips of the game online is the focus on sword combat, and more specifically open combat. I dont know if this is a thing that became more of a focus in earlier games like Valhala or if its more a response to the success of Ghost of Tsushima. Im wondering if anyone else has thoughts on how the role of combat has evolved as the series has advanced.
In my personal view, a ninja assassin game should have minimal focus on direct combat. The ideal way an assassination should go is something like this:
Do some early missions to gather intel or do prep work
Take on "the approach" to your target, which will involve a combination of parkouring over rooftops and stealth kills to remove guards. Your efforts in step 1 will make this easier or harder.
Get into position and wait for the right moment when the target moves into the right place
Spring your trap, whether that be pouncing on them with a dagger or setting off an explosive or whatever
Drop a smoke bomb, disappear into the shadows, maybe jump off a rooftop into a haystack for good measure
When pulled off correctly, it should be like you were never there. Aside from the dead guy. If you are getting into a direct head on confrontation as a ninja, you have fucked up at ninja. To this end, I feel that in a stealth assassination game open combat should be more of a penalty for when you screw up and get caught, not part of the core strategy.
Looking back at the early games, this concept was applied in AC1. Getting into a fight with a Templar was pretty difficult and tedious. You didnt want to get stuck doing it, and if you did it was often better to just run. The times you were forced to fight head on it felt like you were trapped in a dire situation that was not to your advantage, so it was a good way to apply pressure to the player to make a scene seem tense.
In AC2 the combat was reworked and became significantly easier. I actually really like the way it was implemented. Technically you can get away with just hammering away at most weaker enemies until you break their guard, but the combat really shines when you fight defensively. If you focus in dodging and counter-kills, big fights become a thing of beauty. Ezio dodges and weaves effortlessly through the crowd, doing a slick spin slash every so often to slice a bad guys neck. Its all very stylistic and elegant and graceful in a way that makes Ezio look like a badass but is still very evocative of the idea of a master assassin.
And then AC3 is fine, I don't have a ton to say about that one.
Returning to Shadows, when I look at clips of people playing the game there is a lot of sword combat. The combat seems to often follow a pattern where the enemy will perform a fixed attack pattern with visual indications like a colored aura around their weapon, which the player must mitigate through precision by either dodge rolls or parrys, after which there will be a pause during which the player can whack at the enemy a few times and reduce their health bar. Repeat a couple times until they are killed. I think it is specifically the hacking away at an enemy like you are taking a machete to jungle foliage that I dont like about this. Whittling away at an enemy who just tanks it and soaks up damage feels decidedly un-assassiny to me.
Now, if open combat is intended to be a big part of the game then I can see why this is the case. You cant make every enemy a long drawn out chore like AC1 because if youre going to have to do this like a hundred times that will get old fast. And you cant do glorified quick time events like AC2 because itd be too quick and a major pillar of your gameplay will feel trivial. So I can see why this newer style of combat is being used, I just don't feel its a great fit for the genre.
What are your thoughts? Are you a fan of stealth-action games? Do you enjoy dodge-roll-centric combat? How would you want to see combat handled in an assassins creed type game?
I really love being able to see all sorts of stats -- number of games played, wins/losses, leaderboard rankings, even obscure stats.
I also love word, card, and puzzle games. Games like solitaire, for example, would be PERFECT candidates to lean heavily into the stats, but I just haven't been able to find a good one yet.
What are your favorite games in these categories? Bonus points if they have an emphasis on keeping records and stats.
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!
Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”
Rules:
If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.
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I'm touching up a game with a dev who is getting their code ready for a FOSS build of their game. One of the more persistent bugs is something weird in the settings menu, where an option is focused and checked off, the text label disappears. Color override doesn't seem to affect the behavior, but if I go into the game editor and uncheck Clip Content and Follow Focus, the behavior flips and now it's focused and UNchecked text labels that disappear. I'm putting feelers out for advice on the usual haunts, and I thought I would ask here too.
Godot version is 3.6, the only modification is that it uses Godotsteam.
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
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Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!
Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”
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I've had some ideas for a game simmering for a while now and I've finally committed to learning Godot to see what I can put together. I'm still in need of some inspiration, though, and I know there's a few folks around here who have made games. Complete, polished, sketchy, half-baked - doesn't matter! - I'd love to see what people here have come up with!