>>1867512 Yeah, that makes sense. I'm still enjoying it for what it is.

>>1870497 It gets better: For 15/19 chapters you play as yakumo and then for the last 4 you finally are able to play as Ryu. Only for Ryu to have one weapon, so you can only get multiple weapons with DLC. You are just going through the stages already completed with yakumo, and Ryu's story is just a giant flashback of him NOT killing the bosses yakumo kills. It genuinely feels like Ryu's section was tacked on and that they were either making him DLC or weren't planning on putting him in the game entirely. It's like DMC4 but infinitely worse. I don't see any of these franchises surviving when they could have done what people came for before and survived. Platinum is so fucking dead. What a pathetic fall from grace.

>>1874183 >>1874183 >NG4 >It's like DMC4 but infinitely worse. Is the number 4 curse actually real or do japs deliberately make the 4th iterations shittier?

>>1870497 >more yellow paint >in fucking Ninja Gaiden I don't understand why devs would smear yellow paint of all things to highlight objects and points of interest. Just make them a brighter natural color to stand out from the environment, not one that destroys immersion. >>1870677 At least when RE7 started this trend, it fit the setting of a dilapidated house in the middle of a swamp that was reworked into a death trap by a bunch of rednecks. I don't know why it keeps popping up now. >>1874183 >Ryu only gets 1/5th of the stages, like the women in NGS1&2, rest go to Yakumo >reused bosses >only one weapon, excluding DLC I got a feeling Ryu will only get new stages and maybe new bosses to replace the old ones in the upcoming NG4 Black/Sigma/Razor's Edge that KT will expect you to buy at full price again in a year or two's time, and that's only to quell the diehard fans who were there for the first Itagaki game. Was this even planned as NG4 or was it renamed that mid-way into production for a Yakumo-solo game and they shoe-horned Ryu in there to justify the name? I only started getting into the reboot series sometime last year and that was only with NGB, never played the later games, so I'm not as attached to Ryu as others are, but this is still pretty terrible.

Thoughts on this Seori chick? I kinda like the rope bondage design, but the sound of her voice is putting me off.

>>1870497 I'm not terribly surprised. Wo Long had the yellow paint stuff too. Although I don't recall it ever being that bad. >>1870677 >>1874343 Or just use shinnies to pick up like what Souls games do.

>>1874343 >>1874411 IIRC, the "excuse" developers are giving for why they use the "yellow paint" is because video games now look "too good" to the point that players can no longer actually naviagate environments anymore because everything looks "the same". Where prevosuly, the tech limits of systems required developers to only include "enough" to give the players a challenge in navigating environments, now games are so overloaded with visual spectacle that you cannot quite tell what exactly it is that you're looking at unless they literally paint a path of where you're suppose to go.

>>1875464 What is even funnier about NG4 is the fact you have a button dedicated to showing you where to go on top of the yellow paint. Platinum thinks you are that retarded.

>>1874183 >It's like DMC4 but infinitely worse. And this is driven home more when you get Yakhomo's final weapon which is just a shitter Pandora from DMC4.

>>1875464 >The new "dark souls difficult" for normalfags will be the lack of any navigation markers and having to rely on memory and/or making notes

>>1513497 There isn't a single hack and slash in that picture.

>>1513497 The term "character action" is so fucking retarded. They are hack n' slash games as that is what you are primarily doing. Also >God Hand >not beat 'em up Where did you dredge this absolute retarded image from?

>>1876495 calling hack and slash any game that has a sword in it is infinitely more retarded than character action. That's MOBA levels of retard.

>>1875791 >actual bravery from a modern developer I'm shocked.

>>1875791 The game is alright, shame it didn't do so well, though this end of the year is packed due to GTA6 delay.

>>1875464 >now games are so overloaded with visual spectacle that you cannot quite tell what exactly it is that you're looking at unless they literally paint a path of where you're suppose to go. Maybe they should stop doing that then. Speaking of what I said about Souls, I've been playing BB recently and I'm still impressed how they use light accents to help you navigate. And of course in Sekiro it very handily uses the grappling hook to help you navigate where to go in the world without treating you like retarded baby. There's ways of doing this shit without sending an Inkling ahead of the player.

>>1876573 It is kinda annoying isn't it? Still, how're you enjoying the game?

Did anyone here play NG4? It's on sale right now and all discussion of the game I've seen online is just /v/eddit being autistic over e-celebs. I'm guessing it's like a 3RE situation.

Not exactly a ninja game per se but tangential enough I'll mention it here. Has anyone else played Brave Fencer Musashi? I tried it out a few years back and really enjoyed it but never got back into finishing it at the time. Really fun voice acting and RPG exploration/platforming, and also nails the 90's vibe. Didn't even now there was a sequel, is it any good?

>>1969677 Heard the sequel was mediocre

>>1969650 I don't think people even like Platinum games beyond Kamiya's marketing, maybe MGR and Bayonetta to an certain extent.

>>1977747 Oh, that's disappointing to hear. >>1978238 That is quite a bold claim.

>>1978298 It's a bold claim since it's my shiity opinion and I can't take much from marketing spam, sorry.

>>1969650 More or less, yeah. It’s a fun game, but it’s not crazy good like 1 and 2.

>>1978238 >>1978298 >>1978315 I don't think it's that bold of an opinion you might be on the money. Sure Platinum has it's fans, but when we look at the bigger picture Platinum is kind of just a "so-so" developer, and that's typically just because they hardly get the resorces they need, and when they do there is a real chance nobody buys the fucking game. They hit the ground running with Bayonetta, There are fans of Vanquish but it tends to get overlooked, nobody bought Anarchy Reigns, MGR is good but at this point it's known more for the memes it created rather then it's gameplay. Wonderful 101 is fantastic but nobody bought it since it was a Wii U game, and it took a kickstarter years later to get it ported to other platforms. After Wonderful 101 it seemed like Platinum dropped off, in terms of them making unique stuff. "Although I haven't played Astral Chain so I can't speak for that" Bayonetta 2 to me just felt like more of the first game, and Korra was Bayonetta lite, Transformers Devastation was the same but a better quality Bayo Clone then Korra. TMNT was handled by the B team, and that game pretty much sucks when you play it solo, and nobody bought it so there was never a co-op life for it. Nier Automata isn't really popular because of it's combat, it's everything else about it, The combat isn't bad, but it's not particularly impressive either, compared Bayo 1. Babylon's Fall was a complete flop, because people could just tell it was gonna be GAS crap. I haven't played Bayonetta 3, but I never hear people talk about it's gameplay. NG4 i still need more spare time before I can really sink my teeth into it. What little i've played so far I think it's good, probably the best game Platinum has made in a while, but that just because Platinum hasn't made anything that great in a while, and this time they had a decent budget. There is a reason Kamiya left Platinum. As a developer they never really reached their full potential, probably because they never got the support they needed from sales to keep pushing them greater heights. They were typically struggling to stay alive.

>>1875464 >should we remove some of this useless shit and clutter? >no, we should splatter the important bits with yellow paint

>>1978238 I fucking love Vanquish and MGR, most of that team is gone now and NG4 isn't 3D Ninja Gaiden. Neither is 3

>>1978972 Any idea which are the books on the bottom right corner

So, now we know why the development of Ninja Gaiden 4 was outsourced to Platinum, and why DoA was turned into a dating sim Team Ninja was wasting all their time on Nioh 3. What a fucking disappointment. The one franchise that rebuilt the studio during it's rough years and the other that turned them into a global renowned name is given second fiddle status, developed by a washed-up studio, if not just existing as a fucking crash grab, meanwhile they're wasting their time on perhaps one of the most oversatured game genres in the past decade. And why shouldn't people be fucking angry?

>>2011660 I dropped Nioh 1 midway and I have no intention of ever playing the franchise ever again. It's just a mediocre Souls clone with better combat and worse art design and loot.

>>1969650 Okay, I finally got around to beating NG4. and while it's easy to list gripes about it not being made by Team Ninja, at the end of the day we got what we got, and there are depictions of tentacle sex on the walls of this one level, so It's got that going for it. One steam review put things pretty well >"This is more of a love letter to Ninja Gaiden than it is an actual Ninja Gaiden game. More than anything, its a Platinum game" It didn't take me too long to start getting past my hesitant criticisms, and start enjoying the game for what it is. I'd rather not spoil anything because I think there is enough really cool stuff in this game that it's worth seeing it for yourself. It's not perfect, but by the end I was fairly won over by the job Platinum had done. It's certainly a good thing that Yakumo is Platinum's character to do with what they wanted rather than them trying to make a Ryu game, since while Ryu is still fun to play as in this game, the game is not even trying to hold the same design principles of prior Ryu lead games. It's very much Platinum using prior NG games as inspiration, but still putting their own spin on things. Yakumo as a protagonist might seems Edgelordy at first glance, but despite his whole aesthetic being Black Red and Blood. The game has it balanced enough where her pulls off it off. I'd say the part of it that make it work is that the game doesn't try and pretend Yakumo is "Edgy but actually secretly a badass hero good guy" or whatever. The Raven Clan ninja are what you actually expect Ninja's to be more so then any that we've seen in this universe. They're assassins who handle the dirty work nobody else wants to do. Yakumo is killing people because that's the mission, and it's not treated as heroic, but a means to an end. It reminds me of how NG1 Ryu's actions were actually not heroically motivated in the slightest at the start, because he was out for blood, but more so killing is what a Ninja does, and that's a just a fact. The game is quite comparable to DMC4 in the Dante Nero, Ryu Yakumo way, but I'd say it handles justifying Yakumo better, as in DMC4 it was basically Dante fully being able to handle the events of the game himself, but just let Nero do it because "sure why not?" NG4 actually gives Yakumo a reason to be there as Ryu has fought and defeated the Dark Dragon multiple times canonically already, but the Dragon Ninja bloodline is incapable of killing the Dark Dragon for good, so it's simply a problem that's not for Ryu to solve. A Raven Ninja needs to be the one to step up to the task.

>>2011668 I can understand you not liking the loot, although it doesn't particularly bother me, but what's wrong with the art design? I loved it. >I dropped Nioh 1 midway and I have no intention of ever playing the franchise ever again. Well if you didn't like 1 then that's probably a good choice for you, because they started out at the pinnacle and it's all been down hill afterwards. >>2011660 Probably because Nioh 3, unnecessarily, has an open world and OW games seem to just EAT development time and money. See Elden Ring compared to previous Souls and spinoffs.

There are some decisions for NG4's default controls I just find kind of baffling. For one thing, they put Block on the "Right Trigger", where serious tradition always put it on the Left, that really highlights how much of their own thing Platinum was doing. Aside from that you have a lock on in this game, which has it's uses at points, but there is an option to have auto lock on, and lock on when hitting an enemy, and Ninja Gaiden, and Platinum's own games, most action games were you fight mutiple enemies at once play like shit with this much hard lock on. So why even give the option to make the game feel worse? There is an option for to have hit lag, which I played the whole game once with it on, and then I turned it off, and the game just feels better with it off. While there is plenty the game gets right, there is also stuff that just odd, like there are still those Segments MGR had where you're forced to walk for a bit, despite the fact they implented an option to auto skip cutscenes, you'd think it would auto skip that stuff too.

The end result of NG4 really does vindicate everyone who knew Platinum was an ill-fitted choice for making a Ninja Gaiden game. Ninja Gaiden is a game where every action you preform is one that should be done with deliberate intent. When you preform attacks, you have to commit to them. Platinums style since Bayonetta is one where you are very much encouraged to be non-committal to your actions, and the perfect dodge reflects this. As you are rewarded for disengaging and reacting to on coming attacks with a dodge instead. Due to dodge offset, you can still finish your combo after that dodge, nothing is exactly lost from this non committal combat style, but that simple isn't what Ninja Gaiden's Gameplay Philosophy is. NG4 gives you every tool possible to continuously apply offensive pressure in a fight, the only thing holding your actions back is how fast you can react. Prior NG games wanted you to have good reaction timing as well, but they more so encouraged methodical and efficient decisions. The most obvious thing present in NG4 that highlights it being a Platinum game, rather than a typical NG game is that the Perfect Block is essentially the intercept technique from NG 2004's DLC. They're both a mechanic that reward blocking with good timing, but it was recognized that the Intercept was too overpowered, and there was no reason not to just mash the block button and get rewards from it. NG4 has not just the perfect block, but the perfect dodge, and parrying when performing attacks against an emeries attack. I found simply mashing light attack with the Rapier would reward fairly consistent and easy parries. The way NG4 does things isn't necessarily bad, but this all just isn't part of the design philosophy of NG. The enemies in NG4 so long as you can manage your meter for breaking their super armor, can be rendered incapable of doing anything. The aggression of NG2's enemies were made so that even if Ryu was hyper lethal when played correctly, the constant aggression and sheer amount of enemies still kept you on your toes, and necessitated that lethality. NG4 only gives you one type of essence, it can heal you, but barely at all. There is basically no reason not to charge a UT with it. Where in NG1 and NG2 if you used a UT then essence was only ever yellow, killing enemies without a UT could have them drop Blue essence to heal you, or Red Essence for Ninpo. Absorbing Red or Blue essence gave you a Level 2 UT, but at the cost of not gaing health or Ninpo, and it made Yellow essence worth much less currency. Ryu in NG4 can just use his meter for Ninpo. So this decision-making on how to kill enemies, and how to make use of essence is gone. NG3RE may have got rid of essence, but the rest of the game was designed to accommodate the removal of essence. We are still at the point where NG1/Black is the only NG game that's truly a masterpiece. Each other NG game tries to take the combat into another direction to commendable and interesting results, but NG1/Black it's still the most well-rounded overall game, and it has far more going for it then just it's combat.

>>2018613 It goes from great to dogshit, from cool battle scarred/destroyed downright apocalyptic Japanese architecture to magical nonsense with random fantasy stuff everywhere. Worse level is that docks one with the Umibozo boss though, it looks great but plays like absolute ass.

I went through all of NG4 without realizing when in Blood Raven mode, throwing a shuriken changes to a unique ranged attack for every weapon. That certainly explains why I felt the default move list lacked an answer for flying enemies, I overlooked an entire mechanic.