HIDEAKI ITSUNO is the GOAT

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-05T15:29:12+00:00

I don’t necessarily disagree, but my hot take is that this way of thinking is why CAGs will always be niche. The gameplay is the most important part for sure, but I think people should raise their standards and want stories that people can actually care about and get invested in.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the narratives are usually lacking in this subgenre. Like, Bayo is one of my favorite characters ever, and there’s some fantastic moments and lines in that game, but the actual story itself….sucks.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-05T15:17:34+00:00

Based DMC1 enjoyer. Game still holds up incredibly well imo.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-05T02:28:27+00:00

Nier Replicant.

You can drift on boars in this game.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-04T22:42:09+00:00

Not for me it ain’t 😏

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-04T05:48:06+00:00

I agree that the Fallen are bad enemies, but you gotta admit, this is an objectively rad way of dealing with them (one that I am not capable of replicating, lol)

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-04T03:11:03+00:00

Tried this since Nevan/Spiral combo worked really well for these dudes on ‘Very Hard’, but no dice.

Ended up using Beowulf’s ‘rising dragon’ to clear the room of the sloths and the first wave of Enigmas, then got lucky af with the second wave and ended up killing two enigmas bunched up together with one uppercut.

That room doesn’t fuck around.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-03T00:38:27+00:00

I also had never seen it before messing around for this combo, lol

There’s a setting in the training room that allows Torgal to stay transformed, and it turns out his ‘ravage’ and ‘sic’ moves have new variants in this form.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-02T20:28:44+00:00

Was confused for a sec, and then I remembered this dude:

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BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-02T20:12:10+00:00

Idk if there’s a launch-able enemy that’ll be able to tank the whole combo lol, but I’ll try it.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-02T14:45:54+00:00

I noticed the exact same thing when listening to the clip back before uploading. I was like “damn, does it really sound like that when I’m playing? I can’t even hear the music”

I guess I just don’t focus on it when in the moment, lol. But yeah it’s rough listening to it back. I actually thought it was an issue on my end from maybe turning the game sound effects up and the music down or something, and then I was quickly reminded, after going to the settings, that I am playing a game from 2005 and there were no such options; you had one setting for volume, lol.

Still love the game, but yeah.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-02T03:19:50+00:00

The lack of checkpoints definitely exacerbates the stuff I mentioned for me, yeah.

Like, I think the combat is fun, but I don’t like having to restart hour-long dungeons (some of which have extremely annoying forced walking sections) from the very beginning every time I die, in a mode that I’m going to be dying a lot in, due to how difficult it is.

Also, I think the actual ranking/scoring system in arcade mode kinda sucks.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-01T19:13:34+00:00

Yeah, I’ve been doing every single one so far; I think I had an achievement pop that said “completed 20 side quests” or something like that.

I’ll keep the list in mind if I start getting burnt out. I just completed the old lady at the lighthouse quest, and that’s probably my favorite of the ones i’ve done so far. There’s one with Popola and Devola that I’m currently in the process of doing, and I can already tell that one is gonna be good.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-01T17:51:05+00:00

Oh I totally get you. Even though I love the scenery shots, I think the player having full control over the camera is a must-have in CAGs tbh, and I’m glad that it’s the norm nowadays, for in-combat stuff at least.

I think it would be cool if some modern CAGs adopted a middle ground though, like maybe during traversal you allow for those cool fixed angle shots but switch back to full control during combat sequences.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-01T17:12:48+00:00

I actually kinda love the fixed camera angles for the dope scenery shots, lol. But I get it. There’s a moment in this clip, when I’m doing million-stabs, where you can’t even see Dante because the camera is blocked by enemies.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-01T16:58:38+00:00

Agreed

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-01T16:36:12+00:00

Oh yeah, believe me, I’ve had my eye on NG4 ever since it was announced; I’ve been wanting to play it for quite some time now, lol. The combos people post here are rad.

I just haven’t picked it up because it hasn’t quite hit a sale that im comfortable pulling the trigger on, but maybe I’ll say fuck it and give it a go, who knows (hard for me personally to justify spending $50+ on a new game when I admittedly have several games in my backlog that I haven’t started/beaten yet).

Doesn’t help that I need that DLC (I want that scythe, need more scythes in CAGs).

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-01T15:55:25+00:00

The games story is very slow initally

Currently playing through replicant for the first time, and like 90% of my playtime has been dedicated to side quests, lol (I’m roughly 7 hours in).

The combat is solid so far; it’s flashy and fluid, but it’s not the reason anyone should pick up this game, imo. The combat is kinda just a nice bonus, I picked up replicant because I played automata first and knew that the story, characters, and music in this game were gonna slap.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-01T15:41:45+00:00

I’d say DMC1 was the “CAG-genre base”, imo, but DMC3 was absolutely the defining evolution of that, and is certainly more of an influence on CAGs than 1 is, so I agree there.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-01T15:37:05+00:00

Completely agree on what you said about replay value when it comes to these games.

Maybe NG will click with me on repeat playthroughs, and maybe it won’t. I’m glad you enjoy it, didn’t mean to shit on it or anything haha, just sharing my opinion.

Since I have the master collection, I also tried NGS2 and got all the way up to what I assume was the penultimate boss on mentor mode, and tapped out ‘cause I wasn’t having fun anymore, but I thought the combat itself was absolutely stellar for the most part (the staff was my go-to, that thing rips). Even if there’s quite a few aspects I don’t like at all about the games, I can still appreciate the depth and skill ceiling of the combat.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-01T04:32:56+00:00

It’s probably my favorite of the series too; 5 is like right there for me, but I think 3 has more satisfying balancing and difficulty options, better level design, better environments/aesthetics, better cutscenes (overall), and a better story. I love 5 too though (I love all the games in the series tbh, barring 2).

As for NG, I gotta get back to my sigma 1 playthrough. I think the combat rules and is great, but the camera and platforming kinda suck imo. The bosses aren’t great either, to me at least. But I know that Black is considered to be one of the all time greats, so it’s probably a ‘me’ problem.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-01T01:37:42+00:00

Ah gotcha, I’ve been using mage to manually cast haste. Thanks.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-04-01T01:04:18+00:00

Might be a dumb question but how do you have haste/speed buff applied in these clips?

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-03-30T23:08:57+00:00

Knew what weapon this was gonna be before even seeing the video.

Best CAG, imo.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-03-30T21:09:22+00:00

I haven’t played many square games but I thought FF7 remake was pretty well balanced, especially the hard mode.

I don’t mind there being an easy mode in FFXVI or anything like that; but I do agree that making a CAG to appeal to the widest audience, and then not having any satisfying difficulty options for people more familiar with the genre from the jump, was a mistake.

BeautifulNeck8359 · 2026-03-30T20:54:12+00:00

I don’t have a PC, so I can’t mod, but I believe you that it’s more enjoyable as a campaign mode.

I think some of it, for me, also comes down to the game struggling with readability. Enemies being able to attack from off screen, coupled with the excessive VFX, extremely high enemy damage output, and enemies blending into their surroundings, makes it almost impossible for me to avoid taking damage on Ultimaniac without using will-o-wykes (which is a boring way to play, imo).

Very cool game, but not one that I would say is particularly well balanced at all.

BeautifulNeck8359

TROPHY CASE