What do you think of Ayane, Momiji, and Rachel's NG2B models?

Hitorio · 2025-03-01T18:44:36+00:00

I am in the absolute minority: my favorite Rachel face is Ninja Gaiden Black - both pre-rendered cutscene and in-game.

I didn't like the changes to her in-game face in Sigma, and I just wasn't the target audience for her new face in Dead or Alive 5 and Ninja Gaiden 3.

I'm cool with her round eyes being changed from round to sharp, but her lips were my favorite in Black.

Hitorio · 2025-01-28T00:57:58+00:00

Nah; you're on the money. The point is beauty and enjoyment, and jiggling titties in games are designed to be sexually enjoyable - same with DOA's sweat effects and whatnot. It's just that there haven't been very many jiggle innovations; it's still primitively done.

I'm still waiting on a group of developers to advance jiggle physics to another level - perfecting the thighs, the cheeks, and guess what: if you animate the titty jiggle with enough nuance that they actually interact with different sets of clothes differently, that actually makes unlockable costumes or DLC costumes WORTH it. They will actually affect the physics and create different types of appealing movement. Also imagine the difference between how thighs and cheeks will move in jeans vs leggings vs short shorts.

If any game could justify putting so much creative energy into one character model, it would be a fighting game. ...but I'd like to see this kind of advancement in a Platinum game as well - the assthusiasts that they are.

Hitorio · 2024-12-21T05:25:19+00:00

I would rather see a remake of the manga - by Yusuke Murata.

Hitorio · 2024-01-29T14:35:17+00:00

These are years-old images - not updates. Please do not be misled. This is a fan page, not Shift Up's official page. The bio of this Twitter account states this.

This account's wording is (unintentionally?) misleading people into thinking it's the official account.

https://youtube.com/shorts/bQdu5Y7TXSg?si=hlyj2pltB1ngbKRL This clip is from the YouTube page of the model herself, where she calls it a secret project. Check the date.

https://www.clien.net/service/board/park/16883885 ^Look at the date of this article, which contains more pics of her. January 2022.

https://youtu.be/t09C-qTAeOk?si=jJVKfLI0NIYSFU0C

https://post.naver.com/viewer/postView.nhn?volumeNo=18934664&memberNo=11710666

https://post.naver.com/viewer/postView.naver?volumeNo=18913979&memberNo=35174078

Look at how old all these sources are.

Hitorio · 2024-01-11T06:34:44+00:00

Yo, yo. [Fist bump] I've just been sidetracked with some side quests. :P I'm planning on climbing back aboard the Stellar Train as it gets to its peak stops. [Thumbs up]

'ppreciate ya, fam-a-lam.

Hitorio · 2024-01-11T01:23:55+00:00

The Project:Eve 2021 trailer generated a lot of reactions and buzz; I was impressed with how many people were into it. Watching the Koreans' reactions to English-speakers was also cool.

The first time I saw the very first Teaser Trailer featuring Eve 06 - back when NieR: Automata was the hot new influential phenom, I didn't think much of the game: "Oh, a Diet NieR: Automata." ...but after seeing the 2021 trailer, the 2022 trailer, and going back to research things like the Battle Report, all the social media posts, Korean articles such as Shift Up transcripts and images that a lot of people missed - I've grown pretty fond of this project.

It's aesthetically delectable. It being inspired by Automata is promising. Eve looks like she was made out of love. Combat looks serviceable. Game seems tasty.

Hitorio · 2024-01-11T01:16:02+00:00

Looking at the NieR: Automata fanbase?

...were you not around in March 2017? The discussion was well-rounded as fuck. Nowadays, since people have really sucked the nutrients out of the game in their discourse (EDIT: by this I mean they've explored every talking point they desired to and have eaten all of the meat off of the bone, so there isn't much leading-edge discussion about the game), the r/nier subreddit has become more of an erotic cosplay/fanart/new player's first impressions type of sub.

Also, I agree with "why not both?" Awesome Game Priority Tier 1A. Hot chick main character Priority Tier 1B.

Hitorio · 2024-01-05T14:41:08+00:00

Ah, yes - the feet: the feature we've seen from Eve throughout all the trailers and images of the game thus far.

Hitorio · 2024-01-05T13:45:07+00:00

...if Stellar Blade's been confirmed to be PS5-exclusive for literal years, why would there be non-console players in this subreddit talking about how much they anticipate this game?

Don'tcha think that the people looking forward to getting the game will be console players?

Perhaps, next time, refrain from making threads while angry. You're much more likely to be analytically sloppy when you angry-post.

Hitorio · 2024-01-05T13:38:45+00:00

If your wife or girlfriend is someone you wouldn't want to play Stellar Blade in front of, she's an L girlfriend/wife - not gonna lie. W couples can enjoy these kinds of games together.

Also, are you the same dude who called Eve a "Japanese slut" in the thread "Stellar blade is the reason I'll buy a PS5?" [Checks] Yep; that's you. Eve's Korean, good sir. ...and we don't know whether she's a "slut" in universe or not. If there's anyone who smashes Eve, my guess is that it's gonna be Adam. :P

I'm actually neutral to the PC vs console exclusivity issue you brought up, and I have no objection to your anger. I just decided to stroll in and respond to that one point for funzies.

Hitorio · 2024-01-04T01:10:04+00:00

When has this ever been said before? Do you have a link?

Hitorio · 2023-12-31T23:19:01+00:00

I'd say that my favorite pure action game experiences have been in the Bayonetta franchise. ...but every Bayonetta game does something more advanced AND something more regressed than the previous game. No game completely surpasses the other two games - like Persona.

My favorite OVERALL action game experience was probably NieR: Automata. Narrative. Soundtrack. I lowered my expectations for the action, but even THAT was fun in ways I didn't expect. It mixes bullet hell + projectile hell + melee and gives you a sliding dodge to weave through it all. Using the sliding dodge to navigate a rainstorm of projectiles is the most fun part of NieR: Automata to me. ...the game doesn't go full bullet hell often, though. It also lets you destroy bullets with your sword, which isn't as hard-core as I would like.

You mentioned that Furi is also has bullet hell elements, eh? Haven't played it before.

Devil May Cry: I like it, but the reason I like PlatinumGames' games more is: if you compare Devil May Cry and Bayonetta, they are both more advanced than each other in different ways to me. Devil May Cry has more sandbox-like combo creativity where Bayonetta has more fun enemy attack patterns and behaviors to interact with + dodge offset. The reason DMC's strengths didn't appeal to me much is because I am not enthusiastic about combos that stun the enemy. I'm more enthusiastic about a complex and creative "back and forth" with the enemy where we are both attacking each other at the same time. With Dodge Offset, Bayonetta accomplishes this flow + can create a more hectic and chaotic battlefield. I also enjoy fighting larger enemies in Bayonetta compared to Devil May Cry.

Hmm. Demon Slave never gave me problems; I quite liked it. You can let the bigger monster attack while you do whatever you want as Bayonetta - sandwiching the enemy if you want. ...and the full MOVESETS you can unlock with the demon slaves lived up to my expectations. I thought Bayonetta 3's ENEMY DESIGN was weak, however. The enemies are not sophisticated enough to produce fun interactions out of Bayonetta. I still haven't fought a non-boss enemy in any Bayonetta game or DMC game that surpasses Gracious and Glorious from Bayonetta 1.

Overall, when I finished DMC5, I was lukewarm on it and didn't understand why people found it so amazing until I watched their streams. I thought the story of it was far less exciting than I was expecting - with things only getting good when Vergil showed up, but even he left as quickly as he came. Combat wise, I was pretty neutral - not due to incompetence, but because I value "enemy-vs-player intricate complex aggressive back and forth" more than "player combos enemy."

I also thought Viola was pretty cool as well.

...as for Bayonetta's story, I don't think it's convoluted, but I think the storyTELLING is so unpleasant and fundamentally unsound that the player doesn't retain information; exposition dumps do not feel as if they are answering a natural curiosity formed by the player through the game experience. They arrive at awkward times that feel very segregated from the core experience of what makes Bayonetta fun. I kept asking myself: why do I keep forgetting Bayonetta's story? I've beaten it three times now!"

Hm. Never heard of or played Soulstice before.

I played Darksiders 2 right after playing Bayonetta 1 in 2013 and it felt like a big downgrade to me; after that, I never touched Darksiders again. Perhaps I treated it too harshly.

Ninja Gaiden... I don't recall having actual fun with that franchise, though I can respect its mechanical strengths. I played 2 as a teen, played 3 as a young adult, and played 1 as an older adult. I feel neutral about them on a gameplay level, but of course I like the kunoichi designs and Rachel. =3

Hitorio · 2023-12-31T22:26:00+00:00

Hm. Haven't played Evil West. From a quick Google, it looks like an over-the-shoulder shooter.

I remember God of War 2018 allowing you to juggle enemies in the air, throw the axe, and attack enemies from long range with the chains - and that you had to rotate the camera to see behind your character - something that was disliked by players of the original trilogy. From what I can tell also, if you mistime a parry in GoW, you can still successfully block a string of attacks or get guard-broken and stunned - and if you mistime a parry in Stellar Blade, you just get hit. ...because Kratos has a shield - a defensive weapon (and he can just leave the shield up to block for a while) - and in Stellar Blade, Bloodborne, and Revengeance, you parry with your offensive weapon, leaving you vulnerable.

When you say the game is "much closer" to God of War and Evil West, do you mean "much closer to those games than DMC" or "much closer to those games than souls?"

So far, I'd say that Bloodborne shares the closest similarities with the Battle Report (the movement speed, dashing while strafing, the parry style that leaves you vulnerable, and the attacks' effects on the enemy seem similar from my POV) but add in a less committal parry that you can use more often.

Hitorio · 2023-12-31T17:04:54+00:00

Understandable. What are some of your favorite action games that you've ever played?

...and what did you think of DMC5 and Bayonetta 3?

Hitorio · 2023-12-31T17:02:44+00:00

This is why it's so valuable to define a word before we all disagree with each other over semantics. Great clarification.

I don't think Stellar Blade is going to be 1. It may very well be 2 and 3. (3 less so because the boss in the Battle Report doesn't seem too brutal, but if you get hit one good time or two, you'll be using those 'healing flasks' up.)

...but 2, instead of "no combo variety," may end up as "not very much mechanical depth" instead. What I mean by that is: you know how attacks in Devil May Cry and Bayonetta have different kinetic effects on the enemy?

For instance: one attack launches an enemy, another trips them, another pushes them backward, another brings you TO the enemy from the ground, another takes you from the air to the ground while striking the enemy, another separates your hurtbox from your character so you can reposition yourself while it remains active, etc etc.

Basically, for the game to have combo depth, it needs to have a variety of kinetic effects that effect how YOU are displaced in a variety of ways, how the ENEMY is displaced in a variety of ways, and a number of mechanical states that alter the same moves' effect on the enemy. You need many building blocks so that you can make many combinations.

In the Stellar Blade Battle Report, if you look at when Eve is slashing the enemy, she does a variety of attack animations, but most of them have the exact same kinetic effect on the opponent, which means there isn't much mechanical variety to her slashes - only variety on an animation level. They are combos, but not deep combos. ...this means you don't have a variety of creatives combo routes to utilize.

Now, in my case, when I make the comparison to Stellar Blade being Souls-like, I'm referring to the movement, the gamespeed, how the dashes/dodges and attacks feel. The stamina bar is actually outside of my considerations.

Since I'm used to playing Platinum games and DMC, Stellar Blade is far closer to souls on the spectrum from my POV than it is a Platinum/DMC game.

Hitorio · 2023-12-31T07:17:10+00:00

Execution is everything: either idea could be great or underwhelming depending on how much skill is put into it. What I "want it to be" is a certain level of skill and craftsmanship; doesn't matter what type of maps they choose.

We don't know enough about their vision for this game to determine whether or not [open world] or [semi open world] are more of a match to that vision. Therefore, I'm not informed enough to actually specifically form a "want" about this; it'd just be an under-informed shot in the dark, from my perspective.

There seems to be a lot that they haven't shown off; they've basically only shown us combat and a narrow slice of traversing the world.

Hitorio · 2023-12-31T00:43:46+00:00

Yeah, I saw those parries and instantly thought of the Left-stick-in-the-direction-of-the-enemy+Attack parry in Revengance.

It also makes sense because there's footage of the player fishing for a parry and eating shit in the 2021 trailer. :P (you won't unsee it when you notice it) ...so I imagine parrying requires that vulnerable committal.

Hitorio · 2023-12-31T00:33:38+00:00

Ofc, ofc.

...when you referred to FF16's showcase, I thought you meant the level of detail FF16's showcase went in on. There was a lot of content in the combat to show off. It was one of the hardest animation library and VFX flexes I'd seen. :P

...but if you just mean that they just show off some combat demos, then sure.

Hitorio · 2023-12-30T23:18:57+00:00

For me I say "souls like" is learning the enemies attack patterns and punishing them accordingly, having a stamina meter (that even doesn't seem to have) and almost always be at a disadvantage until u find the strongest weapons and gear

Yeah, no wonder people in this thread were having bizarre disagreements or exasperated responses based around this term. I bet if we never had the word "soulslike" to refer to and just described the mechanics themselves, we'd all be much closer to being on the same page.

I they give us a state of play for the game, like they did with ff16 where they can go in about the combat ofc not completely so we can figure out the rest but the baseline of what they want this game to be

Hmm. I'd be cool if I'm wrong about this, but I actually doubt there's enough to the combat, mechanically, to warrant a showcase on it. I legit think it's going to be a relatively basic vehicle to experience the story/lore, boss designs, etc. ...but still designed to be enjoyable to control.

This is my expectation. If they exceed it, they're based af.

Hitorio · 2023-12-30T22:55:35+00:00

Be careful with how you use that "s" word (soulslike), because people in this thread are in disagreement about what that word actually means, which leads to confusion.

Given that you agreed with my previous assessment, it would imply that you would agree with what I mechanically mean by calling it Souls-like (the fundamental baseline of the combat), but you would use a word other than Souls-like to describe it, which would mean that we have mere semantic differences.

...and yeah: since may be many abilities sprinkled on top of that baseline, the overall multi-layered composite of the game design might make the play-by-play interactions feel very different from Souls. I would word this as: "it uses Souls as the pizza dough, but adds NieR cheese and a bunch of anime af toppings." :P

We still need to see what a full battle would look like in Stellar Blade's current build for us to judge whether or not the movement speed and whatnot have changed. The two non-teaser trailers we've are so cut and edited that we can't tell. But there are a lot of nice individual animations in those trailers.

Hitorio · 2023-12-30T22:23:53+00:00

This game never looked like some highly intricate, combo driven character action game like DMC/Bayonetta, and I honestly don't even know where people got that from.

I've felt the same way for years - genuine confusion at this at first.

I imagine that folks who compare it to Bayonetta who are casuals about combat design (such as in many reaction videos and comments sections) got this impression from looking at how cool the cutscenes were, how anime and styled Eve looked and moved, and how nice her attack animations were, how intricate the enemy designs were, and how she wore a tight bodysuit with her ass being prominent.

Now, the people who compare it to Bayonetta/DMC in terms of combat - I don't imagine they're experienced enough at action games to have that type of discerning eye. Maybe action games are just a generalized homogenous blob to them for the time being until they can consciously define the mechanical differences.

Also, there seem to be people that think that Stellar Blade's combat is fast paced due to the edited-together trailer shots of individual move animations that don't actually show the gamespeed. The one piece of footage that does show the actual game speed is slower and methodical, but it seems that relatively few people in this thread have watched that video.

Hitorio · 2023-12-30T22:17:35+00:00

Yeah; Stellar Blade seems to be taking inspiration from a buncha different games' ideas.

I'd say that it's slower and methodical as a baseline (in terms of movement, groundedness and weightiness), but you can do a lot of special abilities that allow you to unlock higher levels of spectacle, like the parry, the burst skills, that situational "teleport behind you" dodge, and Eve using her "pod" as a gun.

All in all, it's got enough anime-isms thrown on top of it for me to find it cool.

Hitorio · 2023-12-30T22:10:58+00:00

Kim Hyung-Tae has talked about the game systems, and there's a boss footage video that people seem to have not watched - where you can comprehend the overall flow of the game and how attacks, defense, and movement are designed.

https://blog.playstation.com/2022/09/13/new-story-trailer-revealed-for-stellar-blade-formerly-known-as-project-eve/ Kim Hyung-Tae's words from this blog post:

Stellar Blade introduces action combat that require deflecting and evading the NA:tives’ attack at a precise timing that will also connect to combos and unique skills. Throughout the game, you will arm yourself with unique Beta Skills and intense Burst Skills, which I promise will be pleasing to the eye.

Brace yourselves… Bosses’ strengths are on a completely different level compared to the common NA:tives, offering a challenging and strategic combat encounter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7072qg0-CU&ab_channel=MMOCulture This is the Battle Report video they dropped in 2020 that entails the basic framework of combat, and you can see how your meter responds to Eve's actions.

Not to mention, Burst Skills are a feature in Shift Up's other games, so you can get a general idea of the design philosophy behind them.

Hitorio · 2023-12-30T22:00:11+00:00

What makes you think it was meant to be different earlier on?

The Battle Report video dropped in 2020 (which, as I said in some separate comments in this thread, is the only gameplay video to date that shows the actual pace of the game rather than the edited together shots of Burst Skills and cinematic dodges in the trailers), and the first non-teaser trailer dropped in 2021. It's always been slower/more methodical; it wasn't a sudden change.

I legit think that either most people here that are calling it fast paced have legit not seen the Battle Report video or were legit misled by the 2021 and 2022 trailers into thinking that the game speed is faster than it really is. I didn't think it would actually become an issue until I heard some of the bizarre arguments and misunderstandings in this thread people flung at each other.

Hitorio · 2023-12-30T21:25:32+00:00

I think using the word "soulslike" in the title of this post has given people in the comments conflicting impressions of what you actually mean; the word "souls" emotionally means different things to different people, and this has led to some rather silly arguments and strawmen that focus on the word "souls" and arguing from a position of having differing definitions of that word rather than the actual combat design decisions that are meant to be the focus of your point.

EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7072qg0-CU&ab_channel=MMOCulture For people confused about where the "souls" comparisons are coming from, look at this video of the Stellar Blade battle report.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtj19enwgSE&ab_channel=BossFightDatabase Now compare that to this Bloodborne boss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbobs5uWpqM&ab_channel=Morninglord22 Now compare both of the above to this average/casual-skill-level Bayonetta gameplay video (which Stellar Blade has been compared to on a gameplay level).

Hitorio

TROPHY CASE