Huh, weird, I assumed people would be all over this because I certainly am, if only because I like the movement and the mechs. Super interested in seeing what they do with the body modding stuff as well, because that’s super up my alley.
It definitely was reminiscent of Earth Wars, I found that game by chance and love every janky bit of it.
I’m very new to mech things, and I liked the speed of the combat but it did feel very clunky, especially when trying to do melee combat. All the other characters in cutscenes seem way more acrobatic than my mech and while some of that may be down to gameplay progression, I don’t like feeling slow and clunky in a world where mechs can do cool flips and spins and whatnot.
The aesthetic is great, and I could forgive a threadbare story for it, but if the caricatures aren’t improved on and the gameplay doesn’t have a little more depth I may pass.
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This is as close to a new armored core as we’re getting so I’m probably going to dump 100 hours into this no matter what tbh.
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There’s three Dynasty Warriors Gundam games on X360/PS3, in case that incredibly specific itch needs to be scratched.
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It had the feel of a B-Game to me. Maybe a pretty good B-Game? The best example of that is the boss fight. On one hand, you have this classic 2 phase action boss with weakpoints, nicely telegraphed moves, and the moveset to deal with them. I went in with a rifle, SMG and missiles, and the choice of when to use what felt nice and tactical. On the other hand, the arena has invisible walls that can really mess you up, and scrounging for enough ammo so that you can finish the fight is not really fun. And if your AI ‘friends’ do poorly, it starts to snowball against you. It also seems to commit the classic boss fight sin: take away half the tools you’ve learned up to this point, just because. There’s no buildings to hide behind, no trucks to throw (or heal from), no salvage to collect.
On theme, I agree: the game starts really woodenly, and the npc’s presented are pretty terrible. If this is the games best look, it’s not a good one on the story side. I will say that I like the thematic interplay of permanent changes to your body in exchange for upgrades with the conflict of human vs immortals. I’m a sucker for that sort of thing. The customization options on “arsenals” is nice and chunky, and I dig the idea that there might be a sort of SHOGO: MAD component here, where parts of the mission are done as your pilot/oute. There were some good bits, for sure.
So, I went from pretty excited to willing to wait for reviews on release, maybe wait for a sale?
Interestingly enough, all this talk about going outta your mech and fighting shit yourself?
I didn’t even know it was possible. I never got punked out of my mech, and I thought all the references to “Outers” was for some other mech type outside of the demo, as I forgot that it referenced your own character.
Again, I’m interested in where they go with the body mod stuff (I was only able to afford some chunky boots which I assume are now permanently my calves and feet? What a way to remind me of that Star Fox lore re: boots), but every time I think about finding time to play the demo again, I just…wanna instead check out God Eater 3 (only played Resurrection and didn’t reach the sequel part yet), the Toukiden games, or Earth Wars tbh…
Well, this is neat. Nintendo released a new trailer yesterday detailing all of the changes made to the game as a result of player feedback from the prototype demo!
While I enjoyed a lot of what I played in the demo, the combat had left me skeptical of how good Daemon X Machina would actually end up being. If nothing else, this level of transparency, demonstrating a willingness to take and iterate off of feedback, does a lot to give me more confidence in this game’s final release.
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Wow this is really impressive and cool.
I am still a little skeptical based on my demo experience beyond the gameplay issues—the plotting and characters we saw were not good—but this trailer has me excited to see more footage and to read the reviews when it’s released.
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This is pretty cool. It shows that they were genuinely engaging with players. Which more game studios should do. But:
At least half of these are small tweaks and things they were probably going to do anyway. I don’t want to discount how it’s the little things that can add up to a good game feel, but very little in the way of big changes here. I’m a little salty that they are keeping ammo chasing as a mechanic (if toning it down a little).
Still looking forward to it (pending reviews), since I did like a lot of the elements they were working with, and the combat was fun in a nostalgic sort of way. My personal prediction is that they are going to have some cool sci fi elements in the story that are just going to get buried by terrible execution, making it a bit of a noble failure.
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If you missed it, a new demo for this game released today. It’s…actually kinda good? I haven’t played the original Prototype demo since it released earlier this year, but I remember it never felt all that fun to play with its wonky control setup, dull gameplay, and poor performance. But then I played an hour of so of Prologue (the new demo) tonight, and it just feels like all of those prior issues have been addressed. Maybe it’s the gestalt of all the small improvements the developers made, but for whatever reason I found myself being very into the act of zipping around arenas while shooting at mechs doing the same a la Virtual On. Being able to lock on to enemies definitely makes encounters easier than they were, but I think that also makes them a lot more fun. And it definitely helps that I rarely ever had to worry about running out of ammo this time around.
I don’t know if this is going to be a game I’ll go out and get day one, but I was certainly left wanting to play more once I got to the end of the demo. I’m still pretty lost as to what’s actually going on with the story or where it might go, but at least it does seem like it’s trying to do something there. All I’ll say is that Prologue is definitely worth checking out, even if the last demo left you skeptical.
(Oh, and your base has an ice cream parlor with fully customizable ice cream orders served to you by a cartoon polar bear. I didn’t know how to work that bit into my previous paragraphs, but I felt this needed mentioning.)
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Huh I wasn’t supah hot on the first demo but you make me want to give the new one a chance as well.
Like I said, I haven’t played the last demo in a good minute, so take that all with a grain of salt. But if you see DxM and think “Huh, that could be a neat enough, Armored Core sorta game,” then this is very much that.
The character creator is a freaking treat in this demo. Not to joke on cyberpunk, but this game blows away what they showed. I mean, its pretty generic, but they have a lot of options for tones and decorations and some decent black hair choices, but as always the afro is too dang big. Or at least Japan has never heard of anyone with a small afro.
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That’s good to hear. I seem to remember the devs saying they recognized the old demo wasn’t very good and were working on improving it, so it’s nice there’s been some real qualitative changes. This is one of those games I’d very much like to be good, so I hope it gets there.
I think one of the strongest things this game has going for it is how much they apparently care about feedback from the demos. Watching the creator (?) (one of the main creatives at least) on Nintendo Treehouse at E3, he was really earnest and passionate about the changes they were making. Made me want to get in on it. Also he seemed cool and I wanted him to be my friend.
There’s a log where the developers wrote about all the changes to the game they were making based on feedback from the demo.
Unfortunately they don’t seem to be removing the, uh, racism???
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What happens? I didnt play the original demo I’ve only done the training mission and spent 45 minutes coloring my robot.
