This installment of Clash changes from first person pugilism to third person. It is also now a soulsish mechanics and a father/son story. It keeps the fun world design ACE Team always brings.
Let's just get to the combat, a little button mashy, but can have some depth to it. There is your basic 4 string combo, a hold heavy attack, a dodge, 3 distinct dodge+attacks (forward, left/right, backwards), and a jump forward attack. There are a bunch of different Fighting Stances that change your animations/damage scaling/properties of your attacks. All attacks are loosely the same thing, like the back dodge attack will always dodge back, then lunge forward to attack, but some are multihit or whatever. You have 2 slots to change between equipped stances, and 3 slots for special moves on the Y button. Stuff like Shoryuken or a teleport forward (if you get hit while doing this the game WILL stop recognizing movement inputs unless you die/reset). Once you get used to your stance you pick, it can feel really good just stringing combos together to knock around the shit outta enemies. Or even get long damage strings on bosses without getting it from including dodge attacks, it kind of rules.
There is also a special meter that fills up and once you unleash it you will go into a first person mode. You have to do enough damage in a limited time and you will unleash a canned animation high damage super on the enemy you activated it on. I found this mode to be very annoying on boss enemies because you can get hit out of the super by a bunch of attacks and it is a waste of meter. Just made me mad everytime it happened.
Before most fights against sentient enemies, you can invoke The One Rule. It is a game of Yahtzee where you roll dice onto a mat. Whoever hast he highest can innact the artifact they picked to the fight. Artifacts buff whoever won with numerous things like summoning an extra ally, causing enemy to cramp, a free hit, etc. After you roll, you can use Tchaks to affect yours or the enemies die. You can half them, subtract from the total, or other things in various shapes. The idea is kind of cool, and I like the strategy with the Tchaks, but it is also heavily rng dependent. You could just roll like shit and the enemy could roll great, or all you die could land close to eachother, or in a line, or in 1 quadrant for the enemy's Tchak to just obliterate you. You also don't really need to play the game by the halfway point I think cause you will be able to just beat them up without any help, and they can't have any buffs cause you didnt play it.
The exploration is kind of cool, a little tedious cause there is a daytime/nightime versions of the map. In the night you play as a like a "dream" you and there are "dream" enemies. There are thorned bushes that only the dream form can go through and you need to go through them to open them up for the day mode. Along with Night Time variants of the bosses and armor you can only find at night, there is a lot of exploring the same areas twice over.
There is also a bunch of pickupables everywhere, things like crafting materials. They don't have highlights so its a lot of spamming the pick up button while exploring, not very optimal I think. Some materials are used for trading merchants, no currency, just trade items for them to craft the stuff. The other stuff is used for mixing your estus's so their heals are actually good and maybe have a buff.
The story is a classic father/son adventure thing. Pseudo meets a boy, everyone wants the boy for his powers, Pseudo decides to protect him. I like Pseudo's voice actor, just a good voice. There is some connection to the previous Zeno Clash games, but idk what they are cause I can't remember the first game besides 1 character that shows up; and I didnt play the 2nd game.
Overall, I think it is kind of a messy game, but its definitely cool.
Let's just get to the combat, a little button mashy, but can have some depth to it. There is your basic 4 string combo, a hold heavy attack, a dodge, 3 distinct dodge+attacks (forward, left/right, backwards), and a jump forward attack. There are a bunch of different Fighting Stances that change your animations/damage scaling/properties of your attacks. All attacks are loosely the same thing, like the back dodge attack will always dodge back, then lunge forward to attack, but some are multihit or whatever. You have 2 slots to change between equipped stances, and 3 slots for special moves on the Y button. Stuff like Shoryuken or a teleport forward (if you get hit while doing this the game WILL stop recognizing movement inputs unless you die/reset). Once you get used to your stance you pick, it can feel really good just stringing combos together to knock around the shit outta enemies. Or even get long damage strings on bosses without getting it from including dodge attacks, it kind of rules.
There is also a special meter that fills up and once you unleash it you will go into a first person mode. You have to do enough damage in a limited time and you will unleash a canned animation high damage super on the enemy you activated it on. I found this mode to be very annoying on boss enemies because you can get hit out of the super by a bunch of attacks and it is a waste of meter. Just made me mad everytime it happened.
Before most fights against sentient enemies, you can invoke The One Rule. It is a game of Yahtzee where you roll dice onto a mat. Whoever hast he highest can innact the artifact they picked to the fight. Artifacts buff whoever won with numerous things like summoning an extra ally, causing enemy to cramp, a free hit, etc. After you roll, you can use Tchaks to affect yours or the enemies die. You can half them, subtract from the total, or other things in various shapes. The idea is kind of cool, and I like the strategy with the Tchaks, but it is also heavily rng dependent. You could just roll like shit and the enemy could roll great, or all you die could land close to eachother, or in a line, or in 1 quadrant for the enemy's Tchak to just obliterate you. You also don't really need to play the game by the halfway point I think cause you will be able to just beat them up without any help, and they can't have any buffs cause you didnt play it.
The exploration is kind of cool, a little tedious cause there is a daytime/nightime versions of the map. In the night you play as a like a "dream" you and there are "dream" enemies. There are thorned bushes that only the dream form can go through and you need to go through them to open them up for the day mode. Along with Night Time variants of the bosses and armor you can only find at night, there is a lot of exploring the same areas twice over.
There is also a bunch of pickupables everywhere, things like crafting materials. They don't have highlights so its a lot of spamming the pick up button while exploring, not very optimal I think. Some materials are used for trading merchants, no currency, just trade items for them to craft the stuff. The other stuff is used for mixing your estus's so their heals are actually good and maybe have a buff.
The story is a classic father/son adventure thing. Pseudo meets a boy, everyone wants the boy for his powers, Pseudo decides to protect him. I like Pseudo's voice actor, just a good voice. There is some connection to the previous Zeno Clash games, but idk what they are cause I can't remember the first game besides 1 character that shows up; and I didnt play the 2nd game.
Overall, I think it is kind of a messy game, but its definitely cool.
2 Comments
@cowboyjosh yeah this team generally have unique ideas and shit. I got Hi-Fi rush on mine cause I genuinely think that game is doing impressive ass shit visually (I also dropped it early).
cowboyjosh
4 months ago