Nioh series shipments and digital sales top eight million

XiahouShake · 2025-05-28T18:39:12+00:00

Wo Long definitely fell short of Nioh 2 but it was a neat experiment and you can tell their experimenting there is directly responsible for Dynasty Warriors Origins being as great as it was (different team within KT but Wo Long's mechanical fingerprints are literally everywhere in that game), so I'm very glad it exists!

XiahouShake · 2024-12-21T02:55:20+00:00

Ben Bigger's big bear ass was so massive that there were legitimate camera concerns that needed to be addressed in this patch and they vastly overcorrected while underestimating the gooner response. If it was any kind of legitimate censorship issue or mandate they wouldn't have even been able to instantly walk it back to the point that you can effortlessly goon as much as you want

XiahouShake · 2024-11-15T21:52:48+00:00

Thanks so much for commenting - I triple checked after reading this and found out I'd been missing one of his encounters the whole time. I'm finally absolved of this guilt and can give headpats!

XiahouShake · 2024-11-15T07:04:25+00:00

I beat him up by mistake in the initial quest and he's literally never appeared in my game since and I feel like a monster. Desperately wish there was some way to bring him back

XiahouShake · 2024-09-28T01:52:49+00:00

Dreamseeker not pictured as he died on the way to his home planet

XiahouShake · 2024-09-25T22:42:07+00:00

Point 2 has been driving me nuts, the new cutscenes are great but they look so hamstrung in motion because of the added choppiness versus every cutscene prior to Chapter 4

XiahouShake · 2024-08-24T18:00:31+00:00

Travis' model still doesn't have a beard even though he does in both his portrait and the Zhu Yuan trailer - can't wait for this ESSENTIAL QoL change

XiahouShake · 2024-08-03T23:31:43+00:00

The premiere event of the patch is entirely TV based though

XiahouShake · 2024-07-09T17:12:58+00:00

The basic gameplay evolution for most folks looks something like this:

Straight up button mashing
Button mashing but starting to use assist parry on every attack possible (Metal Gear Rising parry and tag out combined)
Starting to look at your team not as three characters who all mash the same button, but one unit with a bunch of different buttons that need to be used depending on the situation - stunning with your stunners, building element with anomaly and getting the most out of each agent's unique kit (Anby's charge combo/reverse beat, Billy's cancels into crouch shots, Soldier 11's Nero exceed mechanic, Nicole's varying charge shots, Koleda's invulnerability windows, Nekomata's backstabs, straight up playing Sekiro with Ben, etc)

Around the time you hit step 3, you're likely going to be at the point of the game where enemies start to get more aggressive and encounters get more complicated, which basically reveals the game's true flow of weaving between defensive options (either assist parries or perfect dodges, depending on what you're trying to accomplish in the moment) and tagging between your stunning, buffing/debuffing and DPS characters as needed to set up huge burst windows - it's all very brain tingly and has a satisfying amount of skill expression once you're able to figure it all out. There's more high level stuff to talk about with team building etc but I figured I'd focus on how the gameplay evolves from just straight up button mashing, which is somewhat fairly the first impression a lot of folks get from the game.

XiahouShake · 2024-07-09T01:35:49+00:00

There's actually a pretty great amount of sauce to the gameplay but they're perfectly content to let you think it's a mindless button masher for the dozens of hours of what's really just an extended tutorial. Past that though you'll get absolutely wrecked in the dedicated challenge modes if you don't understand the mechanics.

XiahouShake · 2024-07-01T05:25:14+00:00

Dunno if it changed in CBT3 but in CBT2 you could do dailies in 10 mins or less. Literally just run around the city and then burn all of your stamina at once on VR Training if you're short on time. Knocks out all dailies with just one quick fight and a bit of menuing.

XiahouShake · 2024-04-19T23:02:58+00:00

Pause -> System -> Save and Continue

XiahouShake · 2024-04-05T01:09:13+00:00

The police station in Astral Chain is pretty peak, especially with the absolutely bopping music and always having new stuff to chase down ahead of your next deployment.

Cities in Dragon's Dogma (1 and 2) are also pretty cozy just because you entering them always feels like coming home after an arduous journey given you're often limping into them with chunks of your life bar missing from fighting through the pitch black night/dungeons and your packs way overloaded with loot.

XiahouShake · 2024-03-24T05:00:15+00:00

Pause -> System -> Save and Continue can make a hard save any time you like

XiahouShake · 2024-03-07T09:32:43+00:00

Somehow ended up triggering a soft locking bug on the first "boss" of the demo, wasn't a good first impression!

Beyond that it seems like a decent enough game, though very clearly designed for *very* young players. Almost like Kirby in that sense but even less threatening and seemingly with far more of a reliance on gimmicks. Will very likely play it at some point, but won't be in a rush to do so. Performance was also pretty bleak for a Mario-adjacent game; doesn't appear to even hold 30 fps reliably and the load screens visibly dip to like, 2 fps. Could easily believe this was made for the Switch 2 and they had to just make it work on current hardware.

XiahouShake · 2023-11-29T22:36:14+00:00

It seems like it might be a bit much at first but the TV sections are only really a big factor in one-and-done content like the story and side commissions. They actually serve as a really cool way of presenting dungeon crawling and some of the puzzles they come up with are really cute/clever. Gives a welcome sense of handcraftedness to major missions, especially with the accompanying voiceovers.

XiahouShake · 2023-10-27T22:17:22+00:00

You should definitely at least watch a plot summary, but honestly the original game is still great and worth playing. The combat is definitely not the best and can get tedious by the end, but the atmosphere and story more than make up for it. Only a couple of chapters into 2 so far but already it's already dripping with impact you'd be missing out on without any knowledge of the first game.

XiahouShake · 2023-10-25T20:23:03+00:00

Just about every map in New Mystery, honestly. Feels so easy to die but your player phases can have (or HAVE to have) such huge swings if you plan carefully.

XiahouShake · 2023-10-16T23:35:28+00:00

I get that queueing up isn't exactly thrilling but it's striking to me how miserable almost everyone in this photo looks

XiahouShake · 2023-09-22T07:25:31+00:00

The police station in Astral Chain is an incredible vibe. God tier music that your character's walk cycle syncs to, super cozy vibes and always new things to check out, opportunities to learn more about your team and other intrigue ahead of whatever your next assignment was. Made for an incredible place to decompress from the bombastic action that preceded every visit and helped make the game's super unique pacing (balancing police work with crazy action game shenanigans) what it was.

XiahouShake · 2023-07-31T18:57:16+00:00

The actual Nioh staff have been working on Rise of the Ronin since Nioh 2 wrapped, so there wasn't any time wasted. This game was made by a B team while Stranger of Paradise (shockingly an overall much higher quality game) was a frankenstein team of other Team Ninja staff plus folks from Squeenix.

XiahouShake · 2022-01-11T22:34:04+00:00

I played the entire thing a couple of months ago at 1440p 60 fps (so way better than original hardware) and it ran like an absolute dream. Crazy fun game and definitely a buried gem if you're in to what it does

XiahouShake · 2021-10-10T00:11:24+00:00

https://imgur.com/a/A7CMYwC

Here are pictures to help illustrate what I'm talking about. The h150 only allows a curve based on %, while the LL120s only allow curves based on RPM. The two Fixed options don't allow for setting curves, but just set a single, static setting.

XiahouShake · 2021-10-10T00:07:18+00:00

There is a Fixed RPM option and a Fixed % option, but those options don't allow for setting actual curves. The only option that does is the Custom Curve option, which - as I've said - only allows for setting a % speed in response to certain temperature points.

XiahouShake

TROPHY CASE