Rebel FM
Rebel FM Game Club - Heavenly Sword - Episode 1
Greetings and welcome to our first episode of our Game Club series on Heavenly Sword! This week we talk about our initial thoughts about the storytelling and mechanics, how the game does things differently than its peers, and then things get a little heated on the topic of motion control. This is a two episode Game Club, so be sure to finish the game by next Monday evening. Heavenly Balls!
(upbeat music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) - Hello. - Hello and welcome to the Rebel FM Game Club. It's quiet, Game Club 4, Heavenly Sword. No, no, no, fuck that, we're keeping going. Heavenly Sword, Game Club. - That's what your voice training got you to? - Hello, and welcome to the Rebel FM Game Club, episode one for Heavenly Sword. - That's better, that sounded good. Actually, that sounded kind of douchey, but that's okay. - Yeah, exactly, I think a lot of the voiceovers, like the way that they want you to read, it makes you sound like a douche. - Yep. - So we're here to talk through chapter one and two. - All right. - Yes. - Which you were right, it is kind of cool the way that, just to launch right into it, the way that it takes you to the hub world in between chapters, that it bridges it into a storyline straight into like, now you're in chapter select. - Yeah, it's basically just a glorified menu screen, but at the same time, I like the story blending of it because people usually don't carry their stories over into any kind of menu system or hub world. Even when you're in a GTA, when you're going in between missions, the story doesn't happen in between missions, except for the story you make for yourself. - Mm-hmm, one thing when we're in the hub world, and so Matt, you've played through this already, so you might know the answer to this. - Yeah, this is my second time playing. - But the impression that I get when she's talking to the camera, it seems like it's not her talking, it seems like that's the sword talking to her. - Or the god. - I don't know. - Or the god. - I thought she was talking to the sword, yeah. - I thought she was telling. - Yeah, I think she's talking. - Yeah, it feels to me like she's talking to the god entity that's in the sword, and I love how she's looking right at the screen, and sometimes it's like she's focused in on it, and other times it's like she's lost it, and she's trying to find it, and while she's talking, it's cool. - And just stuff like that. - There are so many things in Heavenly Sword that I feel they're very forward thinking with the way they present narrative in games. - Absolutely. - That's, yeah. - Well, even when the game first starts off, like we can start right at the beginning in that regard. Well, we should probably also say that we have people here that-- - Yeah, I was gonna ask you. We'll have introductions. - We'll have introductions. - Yeah, good point. I'm at Shenanay, or if I do TV people know me already. - I'm Jose Otero from Game Helper.com. - Yeah, and then there's Anthony, Tyler, and Arthur from-- - It's a game. - And you also do a record game spy. - Yeah. - Jose has actually been on Rebelathon before. He was on about 10 episodes or so ago when we had Sterling on before his farewell tour. - Sterling? - Garvey. - Yes. - Thank you for having me back. - Yes, sir. So, uh-- - So, what do you mean, I'm confused as to what you mean by forward thinking, because in a lot of ways, I feel like instead of sort of trying to do things that are experimental as far as narrative, it actually hems pretty closely to what movies do cinematically. I'm not saying it doesn't do that well because it does do that well. It actually, it uses conventions from filmic storytelling a lot better than pretty much any other game this console generation. Like, there are things that Heavenly Sword does characterization that Metal Gear has been trying to do for four games. - And that's a sad game I'm talking about. - And hasn't been able to do? - Yes. - I mean, in Metal Gear, when they introduce a character to give you an idea of who they are, they take a 20-minute cutscene. Like, in Heavenly Sword, when it's telling you that Fleet Fox is weird and-- - Flying Fox. - Flying Fox, I'm sorry, when it tells you flying Fox is weird and Whiptale doesn't like him. It just does that over the course of a conversation that pertains to the way that the game's story is going. - Or kind of like how even you and I were talking yesterday, the way that the cat's rubbing against art. There's Mike standing and bumping it into him. (laughing) The way that they introduce Nureko and her father and immediately you understand this tension and they don't have to sit there and show you flashbacks to her growing up to make you care about the relationship. It's just like the way that their conversations seem so real. - Well, and it helps that the every aspect of the storytelling in this game is done so well. When you're talking about the writing and the voice acting. And it comes, for me, when I first saw this game, I was absolutely floored by the character animations. It's the best I had ever seen in a game up until that point. And even now, I would be hard pressed to compare it to some others. Even though the lip syncing is off sometimes. - It's not the lip syncing. It's the audio completely is out of time. Because as I was editing the video together, I was able to re-sync a lot of the audio with the video, correct. - But didn't that bug you at first? Like how it made me think cinematically? - My setup was fucked up because I haven't run through splitters for capture. - No, it's just the game. - But how many games get that right? I mean, I think most of them, and I was talking to a friend about this, but how they kinda, the camera is never that close up. So you're not really paying attention to the lips that much in most games. But in this one, they did a lot of close-ups. And you just kinda noticed, man, that's a little off, like even though, again, maybe from a film perspective, the shots are great, but that just kinda once in a while broke the experience a little bit for me. - Oh, I agree. It is a pretty glaring flaw when they're trying to bring you into these characters so much to have. I mean, imagine watching the Lord of the Rings, and I bring that up on purpose because of the hand that those people had in this game. But imagine watching Gollum and his voice syncing is off, or the audio for the whole scene is off by half of a second. It's gonna ruin it for you. It's gonna totally take you out of the experience. - Well, and I feel that a lot of that might have to do with the schedule that the game was on and when it came out, and that if they had had a couple more months, that not only that, but a lot of aspects of the game would be a lot tighter, and not just in the, well, yeah, every game could use tumor months, but in a-- No, this one is very obvious. - I mean, it was a couple more months. - Yeah, it was super expensive. Sony was betting a lot on Heavenly Sword doing well because it was a big 10-pole release of the PS3. Was it the first big 10-pole release for the PS3? - It was a launch title, or-- - No, it was supposed to be shortly thereafter launch title. - No, I think it was-- - It was a fall 2007 title. I think it got pushed back, but everyone was expecting it as a launch title. - Oh, that's what happened. - Yeah, 'cause they were pushing it really hard at PAX in 2007. But I'm not to say the lip-syncing issues aside, just the articulation of their face, and what the characterations of their faces are just, they're amazing. And so, this is sort of my ignorance about the game development, so I don't know if I would attribute that to whoever's doing the motion capture, or if it's their technology, but it's fantastic. Like the way, I mean, it's almost like Arthur, what you're talking about. They don't have to do with these long cutscenes, and they also don't have to do this long exposition. Like, they just communicate so much through their face. - Especially the character that does that the most, like the other characters do it for sure, but the King Bohan character. - Yeah, he is, he is boggling. - Yeah, because he gives those little quips, and just maybe a little, it makes perfect sense because that is Andy Serkis, you know, so. - Yeah. - But to go back to what you were talking about, Tyler, the facial animation, at least I'm positive that back when this game was made, they could do things like, you know, they could put a tracker on the chin so that you could do a motion tracker of when the mouth is going up and down, but the eyebrows and everything else on the face would have had to have been hand-animated. - I actually, I think that they got help from Weta to do this. - That's what I'm saying. - Yeah, yeah. - And so, Weta actually had facial animation stuff in place from Gollum. - Right. - So I don't think that they hand-animated all the facial animation. - They were face capturing or something. - Like they did actual face capture. - Well, then they at least did it like they did with Gollum, though, where they had the computer animated to start with, and then they pushed it with hand animation so that you could go past the uncanny valley. - Something I noticed here more than any other game I played though is like even during some of the performances, you noticed them, like even their eye, down to the eye movements, you know, there's that-- - My thoughts are great. - Yeah, they just, it's like they're searching like through your eyes for an answer sometimes. Like right before that part where you're operating, what is that? Is that like a catapult or a cannon? - The cannon, right. - You have to shoot the catapults. - Right. - When Shen is talking to you, you just kind of notice he's like, his eyes are darting back and forth. And it's like, wow, I haven't really noticed that in another game before. - Because like it's eye darts are really hard to get right. 'Cause you do them too much, you hold them too long in one direction or the other, and like, they just don't look right. It's one of the hardest things for an animator to do. And I don't care how good your facial recognition tracking stuff is, the eye darts would have had to have been hand-in. - Oh, totally. And I mean, Andy Serkis wasn't just voice acting, in a lot of ways he was consulting with the storytelling and the cutscenes. - Yeah, he was dramatic director. I think they gave him his title for that game. - I mean, can we try to think of other games that have come out this generation that we think kind of match it in terms of, I mean, that's sort of in-engine, too. - In terms of like facial. - Yeah, just performance. - Straight, straight, straight. - I'm charted, I thought. - It's really good. - Yeah, really good. - Mass effect does it, sometimes not always. - They're okay, yeah. - But the mass effect, since you're- - I was just laughing 'cause, I don't know if you guys ever saw it, but she used to look it up, like, one up had this awesome video because, you know, a mass effect, they had really good facial expressions, but the eyes were the things that would fuck it up a lot of times, 'cause their eyes were just like tracking you. So if you could start a conversation with someone facing the other way, the camera would turn and their eyes would be like bending inside their face. (all laughing) - Was that in the retail or the PC? - Yeah, that's the 360, yeah. (all laughing) You had to trick it, you know, you had to- - Right, you had to break it, essentially. - Yes, but it just made for hilarious looking people. (all laughing) - The problem with mass effect is, since you were guiding the conversation, there was the stitching that, for me, disrupt the feeling, like I was actually having a conversation, like I felt the timing, like the way they would pick up their lines was just off, but, you know, and here, since the dialogue is all directed in a cutscene, they can, all the stitching posts. - Yeah, that booked me out 'cause of the early stuff they showed, it looked so polished, and there was that conversation he has in, like, the early preview stuff, and, you know, you saw the good facial expressions, you saw a good performance, and it's not that the final performances weren't on point, but it definitely didn't meet, you know, the expectation that that first video set. - I mean, this is the last thing I'm gonna say about Mass Effect's conversation system, since it's obviously not what we're talking about, but, and I found that if you queued up a response in Mass Effect, then the conversation would be seamless. - Right, you could almost like play the system. - Yeah, as opposed to- - And there was even an interrupt. - Yeah, if you wanted to sit there and wait for the other person to finish talking before you read your possible responses, then yeah, there would be a delay. But the STFU button, like that. (laughing) - Right. - But I, so, I mean, narratively, it is doing, it's doing things that are traditionally the realm, in the realm of film really well, but it's not, I don't think it's bringing anything unique to the table as far as doing something experimental. Like, half-life's narrative techniques are considered extremely experimental. - Yeah, I see what you're saying there. I guess they clarify just, they do it really well. - Oh yeah, and I think the, I think there is, maybe it's not so much experimental, and maybe it is just that they do it really well, but they blend the two, they blend the moments from gameplay into cinematic and back into gameplay. And at the time, that was something that they were touting as a feature, because people didn't really do that then. And so, and I, and looking at it, and going back and looking at the game, like you can see it's like, oh, here's the scene, oh, there's the hard cut back into the action, it's not totally seamless, you know? Metal Gear Solid 4 did that kind of stuff better since then. But-- - Sorry, sorry. Like, are we talking specifically about like moments, like when you do like the quick-time events, and then she'd like drop like onto a platform, you start fighting type thing, like those are like what's doing there. That would happen sometimes, but I'm talking more about like cut scenes. Like the cut scenes really felt like they, they went into, into the scene, and they set up the scene really well. I felt like one really led into the other. - Like, for example, when you first mount your turret, and they're like, defend this, you know, destroy these catapults, and then when you see more catapults leave, and so it's like when you, and then the other catapults roll up, and he jumps back down, like, okay. - That felt like a silly excuse to leave, 'cause I was owning those catapults. - Well, I was saying, no, I was like, I gotta leave. - I thought the same way, I was like, what do you mean? - I can hold this down, something. - I got this. - What do you mean after they make you kill 700 people? - Right, exactly 700. - Yeah. - In some ways, that actually is sort of, that in the beginning part, obviously, where you're going up against a literal army of people by yourself, it made me feel like, oh well, so this is sort of like a more competent, westernized, dynasty warriors kind of thing. We've got going on here already. - Well, at that moment, yeah. - Yeah, and the first time I played this game back when it came out and saw those massive armies and saw that like, those are actual AI characters, they're not just a bunch of 2D images sliding along the screen. Like, I hadn't before since, well, I shouldn't say we're since, I hadn't before that seen a game where I really felt like, that is an army, and that is an army coming at me. - I mean, it was my first time to play in a gloomy way. I was like, holy shit. - Did anyone try that catapole scene, oh, a can of scene without motion control? Anybody try that? - I love the motion control. - Why, okay, flat out. - I turned the motion control off as soon as I started the game. - But like, and you should do not use it in motion control. - Did you even try it? - Yes. - Okay. - And I mean, no, like, I think I've repeatedly talked about how I dislike the PS3's motion control. - I usually don't use the motion control myself too, but this was the first game that I figured, okay, I'm gonna try it and I'm gonna see as I get better. And I actually did improve, and it felt more fun. I tried it without it afterwards. And I just, I felt better controlling those cannons. - I mean, I'm having, well, I'm not having a bad time controlling it, controlling after touch moments with the sticks. I just, the input lag that's involved in both most Wii motion controls and with the PS3 motion controls. - You are just wrong. You are wrong. You are flat out wrong about the PS3 motion controls. - I'm not flat out wrong about the PS3. - I'm flat out wrong. - There is a distinct-- - There, there is no way that you could play wipe out the way that Brian and I have played wipe out. If there was lag in those motion controls. - Yeah, I'm scared to try it. - I haven't played wipe out. I've just played, you know, Uncharted. I've played Killzone. I've played this. I've played several other PS3 games where motion control was in there and it did not feel good. Just like-- - Then you must have like a giant, like, electromagnetic interference cloud in your room. - Or, you know, I could be like the people who hated layer for its motion controls or the people-- - Well, the motion controls on layer were just-- - Or the people who said they really didn't like the motion controls in Warhawk. I mean, it's not like I'm by myself here in saying that they don't like motion controls in PS3. - Well, it's okay if you don't like them, but it's not 'cause of input lag. - And it is a take it or leave it thing. I mean, let's be honest. Like for some people, I was pretty convinced up until Heavenly Sword, I never wanted to play motion control on a PS3 game. Now that I've done it through Heavenly Sword, I'm more open to try it, but I'm not gonna sing praises for it or anything either. Like, it feels awkward, you know? And there, maybe there is some slight input lag but it just feels strange at first, especially. - Yeah, my experience is very similar to Jose's where the first time I had to use motion controls, you know, is when you're defeating the catapults and you're sort of aiming the balls and like my first round, I didn't destroy them all in the first go around. But then I was just like, well, it's just a skill that I don't have. You know, I need to make these connections in my synapsees and my brains. So, you know, I just focused it. And then when I got the skill down, it's like, I felt good, like, like I learned a circle strafe or something, you know what I mean? (laughing) But the thing is, I think, Arthur, maybe what you might not like is also what I kind of don't like is do you guys feel this way? Do you feel like the bowling ball, the hat, and the arrows all kind of controlled differently? - They did, the arrows don't go up or down. They only go left or right, the bowling ball, you can do some wanted shit with that thing like out of the movie. - The arrows go up and down only specifically in that part where you're on the bridge. They can go up and down, where you're like, defending your dad as he's stumbling. - It just seems like, you know-- - Oh yeah, yeah, when Kai shoots the arrows. - But like, when Arthur was throwing out, like, for the bowling ball's small movements, we'll kind of do big changes over time. - I guess maybe 'cause it has more mass or something. - Yeah, whereas the arrows, it's like more-- - Feels more, a little, not quite one to one, but it's more, it definitely reacts quicker. - Yeah, yeah, so, you know, I don't know if that would be-- - Well, you know, I almost joined Arthur on this 'cause the mission before that was the night attack one where you play as Kai, and it's the first time you play Twing Twang, which I'd love to know where that name came from for her. I'm pretty sure it's the sound of the bow, but it just sounds really like a weird thing to call it's shooting people with an arrow. - Yeah, that mission's almost, I almost stopped using motion control because of that mission 'cause I kept coming really close to hitting him and then, oh, it's over his shoulder. - I mean, I will say that that's not motion control so much as just that part seems kind of broken. - That's what you can't-- - But that whole part is that you're obviously supposed to miss targets because those are the ones that then Noriko fights. - Man, I fought so many more guys or I did not miss nearly as many guys as Noriko had to fight, right? (laughing) I didn't say you missed 37 dudes after I finished that part. - See, I like-- - No, go ahead, tell me. - I was just gonna say, I tried this part without the motion controls. Like, it didn't click to me. Like, oh, if you want to kill people, like, you really need to do the after touch. I was just trying to literally-- - Well, 'cause it basically slows everything down. - Yeah, exactly. And I was like, how the fuck do you kill these guys? You gotta get them twice to knock them down. - It's so disappointing, too, when you have it lined up, you're like, oh, oh, oh, no! It sales right over his shoulder and he doesn't-- - I hate after touch 'cause it doesn't just, like, slow time down, it does more damage because I definitely hit them in the same spot without after touch. - And you hit two to like twice. - Yeah. - Mm. - But I like how they clearly use that as a way to also differentiate, you know, Noriko from Kai and how even the dialogue, she says, "Oh, you've had your turn, it's my turn now." And she jumps in and then, I mean, it took some getting used to, but the canon part totally redeemed it for me. I just wanted to now get better at the motion controls and I eventually did. - So, the Noriko is also, it's really difficult for me to choose between her and Kai as my favorite characters in this game. Just from a pure character standpoint, not talking about controls or anything, like just the two characters are so well done and their interactions together will just get better as the game goes on, too. - So, I guess we've kind of glossed over some mechanic stuff, so I guess for narrative purposes, we should kind of talk about story a little bit just for people that aren't playing along with us. - Yeah, so it's the normal Tarantino thing now where you start at the end (laughing) and then it sucks you up into the sky and it says, "Five days earlier." - Yeah, it starts with you apparently getting killed for using the heavenly sword. - Where is she during those menu select screen? I mean, those characters-- - Some sort of, some alternate dimension or whatever. - Pergatory, perhaps. - I don't know if these are unlocked from the beginning, but there's two animated shorts that you can go to in the special features. - Oh yeah, those are really good. - They are really good. - I like those. - Yeah, they give you the history of the heavenly sword and where it comes from. And basically what it is is there's this giant battle in ye olden times where mankind is bloodthirsty and killing each other and everything like that and then, well no, it's before that, it's mankind versus this darkness. - The Ravenlord. - The Ravenlord, that's right. And then which is of course important. And then this being comes down from the heavens wielding the heavenly sword and then he leaves the sword behind when he defeats the Ravenlord. And then the humans pick it up and the humans start fighting all over it and it creates all this blood and everything. And then the story is that the sword lives off the humans bloodlust and but it eventually starts draining the wielder so whoever's wielding the heavenly sword, even though they're all fighting for it, they end up dying. And so the main character, Noriko, her clan, they say, we will take the sword and guard it and never use it. And we will hold on to it until this being of light returns to reclaim his sword. And so that's like the story behind their whole clan and the sword. And Noriko was supposed to be, it was prophesied that somebody would be born that would bring about the return of this light being but Noriko was born and because she's a girl and a couple other reasons, I guess they see her as an abomination. - Oh, her mother's. - And her brother died. - And she's the cursed birth that will bring about their demise. - And she's red-haired. I mean, in a lot of cultures, a red-haired child is considered a bad omen, so that's probably even two. I feel like you'd saying that Ravenlord thing just spoiled a major plot point for me doing one. - Well, seeing that, you see the foreshadowing that they're doing at the early part of the game. And I guess maybe that's why they didn't throw it in. - But it's in the animated parts that you go into special features. So I guess I didn't feel like-- - Well, they released those on PSN too. - They always tell you to watch the movie before you watch the special features. (laughing) - When you start describing it, I had seen it. I saw it, you know, they released these around the time the game released. - I can't remember who did it, but it seems like they've done a lot of, it was the same guys who did the Metal Gear Flash comics for the PSP. Maybe not. - I didn't check. - I actually looked up some stuff, but I didn't check on that, now I regret it. But yeah, I had no idea. - But man, the story, I like the story. Man, I like that idea, you know, a cursed child. - Yeah. - You know, I mean, I love that concept. - I'm sure if we were to get out that book by, I can't think of his last name, it's Joseph something, you know, like-- - Joseph Campbell. Like, you know, the, the, the talks about the five stories, human status. - Yeah, it is. - It's very much one of those. - It's the hero's journey and the hero's sacrifice. - I mean, it might as well, in a way, be Moses or something, right? She's like the child that no one wanted, and now she's gonna, like, lead her people to redemption or something. - I didn't think of the red-headed stuff child though, that's fucked up. (laughing) - So, I mean-- - But yeah, the-- - Maybe they were scared of her hair. (laughing) Like, it's the way it snakes around things. - Yeah, really. - It's a really disturbing, flippy way. - It's just a little abnormal. (laughing) - So, like, this whole, this whole beginning mission, it's all, you know, just basic training stuff. But then, you go to that, you go to that cut scene where he gives her the sword to take care of, and you're like, oh man, she's gonna use that shit, and you know that's gonna happen. And I thought it was really compelling when, she's running away from the fort, and then she runs into Fleet Fox who captured her father, and they're, like, holding there and playing around with him and whatever, and she's like, yeah, now this is what's gonna happen, and, like, yeah, she picks up the sword, and like-- - I like that I made that mistake, and it's now gonna continue through the rest of the podcast. - What? - Fleet Fox. - Fleet Fox. - Fleet Fox. - Oh, Fleet Fox. - Oh, Fleet Fox, oh my god. - And it wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't Flying Fox, it was Bohan himself, right, that had-- - That had her dead in the beginning. - Yeah, that held her on the chain, and then-- - You're right, you're right. - Kept smashing his axe handle into him, and that whole scene is so well-active, and there's so much emotion in that that goes beyond so many shitty action movies that come out in theaters all the time, and it's just amazing to me that this company that-- - No, we just be quiet for that. - Why can you hear purring over the mic? - Yeah, I have a purring, you can tell over here. - Have you been strangely sued by the podcast? - I just couldn't believe how fucking loud her purring was. (laughing) - This company that's best known, what was the game that they did before? Have you seen "Conquer Chaos"? - Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's known for a so-so second party game on Xbox could pull off this sort of cinematic thing that outdoes almost everything that's come before since as far as game cinematics go. - Leading up to that moment, I really appreciated, so they do that picture-in-picture stuff when they tell the story. - Oh, yeah, I love that. - I like that a lot, but the thing that also kinda caught me off guard is, so there's a picture-in-picture moment where some guy says, "You guys go get her," and then he leaves, and you fight him in the next scene. Second time I played through, I took one of the hats that's in that box and threw it at him and killed him, or a sword, actually, the hat didn't kill him. And he wasn't in the next part. Like, he never left. Yeah, and I didn't, I just thought, "Let me try it." Like, you gotta be able to kill him early instead of face him later, 'cause he's wearing that weird, odd, helmet that makes his head look really big. But yeah, I just picked up a sword, so it's done. Didn't have to face him later. - Cool. (laughing) - I had no idea. - In that game, I definitely always carry a sword on me to take out the first guy with a thrown weapon, especially if they're like the dudes in the red with the big old axe. Those are the guys I seek out specifically with thrown weapons, 'cause they still die in one shot. - Okay, so that's a good jumping off point to talk about the combat, I suppose. - Sure. - So, I'm curious to- - Oh wait, sorry, let me go back to the part where she first picks up the heavenly sword just for a second, 'cause if I don't say this, I'm gonna forget it. I love that when she decides to use the sword, there's no glow, there's no flash of light, there's just kind of this ominous sound and the music and everything that's like, and like the stance of her body and everything, like you know she's made the decision to use the sword, 'cause her father was holding it earlier when he stabbed it in the ground next to her and said, "You take care of it." So it's like there's something in her like making this decision that like binds the sword to her and like she decides to get up for life. - And her father can tell too. - Yeah, and it would have been- - She's doomed from this point. - Exactly, and it would have been so tempting and I could see this, anybody else saying like, "Oh, there has to be a flash of light," or the sword has to glow or something and there was nothing like that. - Yeah, 'cause otherwise it's like Luke pulling out his lightsaber, nothing happening. - Right. (laughing) - So anyway, sorry, I just didn't say it. - No, I mean, that just underscores that subtlety is something that they use quite a bit in this game, which is A, surprising for video games and B, surprising for what is sort of a 3D action beat 'em up in the vein of God of War and that kind of game game. - Are you talking about subtlety with like their facial emotions, like where you'll just see them give like an eyebrow thing that like the little suggestions they give like this guy's fucking weird. - I mean, to be fair at that part, then he says, "There's something about me that doesn't quite trust that one." - Yeah. (laughing) - My favorite part during that exchange is where he like appears right next to me. - How do you do that? - Oh, wasn't that like the butler and Mr. D, so it was like sneaky, sneaky. - Yeah. (laughing) - I like behind you. - And I mean, that whole part, you're learning so much about all of those characters in such a short amount of time. Because of little things that they drop here and there and that's how good authors build worlds for their characters, as opposed to 20 minutes about how fucked up someone is and why in their history and all this, it's just a nice thing about Western storytelling as opposed to the sort of anime over exposition that we see in a lot of games that purport to be narrative heavy experiences. And I'm sure that someone is gonna complain about me saying that. Moving on. - I think it was excellent. - What about not having a block button? How did that affect how you guys played? 'Cause it took some getting used to how you love it. - Totally okay with not having a block button, it's not having a jump button that drives me up a fucking wall. - Not really? - But even in God of War, I never used the jump button. - I used the jump button unless it was for flat formings. - All the time in God of War and in Bayonetta when I was playing it and in Dante's Inferno and Ninja Guide. - What did you use it for in God of War? Was it scary on the combos? - God of War is, the jump button in God of War is good to manage large groups of enemies, to be mobile and to juggle people, to like corral them together. - Along with dodging, but yeah. - And also to close the gap between where you are and where the enemy is. - I kind of feel like in Heavenly Sword though the role kind of makes up for that 'cause the role, it doesn't even matter if there's guys that you roll right through them. It's not like you get blocked by their physical body. So it's like, I feel like from my experience I just fly right through everyone all the way. - So I feel you can't attack when you're in the role and also you can't attack 'til you're out of it. - No, if you hit the button right when you come out of it there's like several attacks in this game that just aren't listed anywhere. And like coming out of role attacks there's a couple of those and you can also start, you can start some minor combos coming out of a role too and you can knock guys in the air. - It's like a real badass leap attack out of one, out of a role I did. I think maybe it's when you do the strong. I don't know. - If she's far enough away from somebody and you roll and you're pressing towards the direction then she'll roll leap out of it and then like jump at them. - Yeah, that's what I mean. - To come in contact with things. - I just wanted to try doing that because one of the big failings I feel of the combat in this and I'm not saying it's all bad, but most other games like this give you away and this is something they take from fighting games which is that characters need a way to close the gap quickly to start combat. And I didn't feel like that was something that I had a lot in this game. - But I'm surprised that you don't like it compared to God of War because in God of War, your role is your main ally as well. I mean, for dodging and getting out of combat roles. - So dodging is like avoiding a blow is one thing but getting into combat. I don't feel like the role is what I ever use. It's always like an ninja guy and it's the flying sparrow where you hit, where you jump and hit Y and he'll do the flying move where he like chops off heads and God of War you jump and hit and hit the combat button and it's longer than his normal attack which gets you into combat quicker. Dante's Inferno, it's the same thing. Bayonetta is some more to ninja guy and these are all games that take a fighting game trope of giving you a way to get quickly into combat and I didn't feel like I had that option in Heavenly Sword. - I think that the game just doesn't teach you how to do it effectively. And like for somebody like me who's already played through the whole game, I know how to do it. And like, 'cause I got used to rolling around the map and going towards the people that I wanna go in. I met the, you know, going back and starting over again, it was really startling to me how quickly I got back into it. I got back into the combat in this game faster than I got back into the second time I went to play through God of War II. And I was starting to do things right away, like, you know, send several guys flying and you know how though, if they're not dead, they'll roll around on the ground for a little while. And I would, yeah, I would send several guys flying and then I'd like, then I'd like roll towards one, stab him on the ground, roll towards the next stab him on the ground, roll towards the next stab him on the ground and then roll towards another guy and knock him up in the air and then do shake the six axes to do the aerial combo on him and like, it was so incredibly fluid and felt so natural to me. And I'm like, wow, I haven't felt this good at fighting in a combat game and have it feel this motion from one guy to the next, have it be so clean since when I got quite good at the first Ninja Gaiden, I felt like I was getting that kind of fluid. - Man, this is my turn to say you're wrong. This game is nowhere near either of the Ninja Gaiden's on the next gen consoles as far as combat fluidity. - The combat is totally, I'm not saying it's the same kind of combat, it's totally different, but like, I feel like the combat fluidity, it, this game doesn't stop for me. Like, it's one motion into the next and like, she blends from one motion into the next and the problem with the controls and the problem with the combos and the list is it doesn't show you everything that you can do because you can do things like start a basic combo in like your, what is it the? - Range to text. - In like, speed stance and you can finish it in like a heavy stance. So it's like, you know, you do square, square and then hold R1 and triangle and then that can start like something else. And like, there's all these like undocumented combos that you just have to play enough and figure out on your own and I wish they were documented. - But I needed something to know who I was looking at because I, they have, so when I said earlier I was describing that the arrows don't move up and down. I was actually referring to when Noriko throws something. It doesn't go up or down. It only goes left or right. And I felt like because I didn't know who I was looking at, it was hard to be able to sometimes throw things at people because sometimes they're off screen. I can't see them. I mean, I can use the shoulders to look over there, but it's still, how do I know I'm focused on him? So when I let this thing go, I can then, if I have to steer it, I'll steer it, but I wanna, sometimes I'll throw it and he's so far to the right, there's no way that thing is gonna get to him. So that just bugged me a lot. - That would totally happen. Like there's, the way that this game like auto locks on to guys that you're facing happens if they're close enough, but if they're far off the screen, like it's really difficult to get Noriko facing the right direction to throw something. - Very. - Because, especially because if there's anybody close to you, she's gonna automatically face the guys that are closest to you. And if you, if you're in your melee combat, that becomes really, really useful. But if you're trying to throw things, it can be a pain in the ass. - Yeah, like go ahead, go ahead. - No, I like, like those guys with the really big axes, like when you pick up that axe and she kinda spins and lets it go. I was just like, wow, that looks great, but I'm really having a hard time aiming it. And that was such a, that was one of the fun weapons to pick up and just, I kinda wish she can do more with those weapons too. - Right, like five little bit. - Yeah, I basically, I just, I never even try and bother to aim throwing weapons. I don't, and I don't throw them with after touch, either unless it's for like hitting a target to get past a door. But in combat, I'm just like, I'll just like, roll over something, hit X and hit X again, and then just keep fighting. I don't even aim it half the time. I just like, roll in and roll it right out. - She will throw it at, if you're facing in the general direction of somebody, she will throw it out. - Yeah, I just do it as like, something to add into combat in between combos. - I like when you can after touch a body when you pick up. (laughing) - That looks really funny when you're throwing them like across the bridge at the archers. Like there's this one there, yeah. You know, when I was like throwing this one at all. - And it's like everything is in slow motion and like, including the sound and they're like. (growling) Not to go back to the cannon sequence, but you actually hear the catapult's better when the cannonball is closer. I like that effect too, just to toss that out there, but not to go back. - Again, this is focusing on some parts of the combat that I don't like. Although overall, I think that they were very ambitious and there's some things they pulled off. But animation wise, I frequently felt like there were points where they were more interested in me seeing the cool animation they did coming out of a move and they were interested in me going into my next combo where I'd sort of be stuck in this horse stance for like an eighth of a second, which doesn't seem like much, but in the kind of combat that it feels like they're going for, that eighth of a second is enough to either get me knocked around or have me pound a button three or four times and have nothing happen. And that's sort of something I feel happens a lot in this game in general, not just in combat, but presentationally and game mechanic wise and all the tricks and things that they fit into it. They're like, we spent so much time on this. We really want you guys to see all of it, which also translates into I am throwing hats at targets when there's no enemies in the room and this is a totally pointless puzzle room. - And the gong to open the door seem kind of ridiculous. I mean, why do I have to open three, why do I have to throw like 14 hats to get this one door open? - I just think it's for there for people who enjoy doing the after touch part, pure and simple, that want the challenge of balancing it and rebounding it and doing all that. - Yeah, I didn't really enjoy those. - I didn't either, but I'm just saying, I think that was the idea of whoever designed that. It was like, it'll be fun to do the after touch puzzles. - Yeah, I mean, for me, those parts may have been a little bit better if what we were talking about earlier, if it was easier to position Nariko, like when you're first throwing it. - The puzzle ones, sometimes at least, they at least like change the camera angle where it's like now you're facing straight at it. - And that's how you'll know you're in the right space to throw something is when the camera angle changes to where you can actually kind of see what you're supposed to be throwing at. - Right, I'm happy they did that compared to not doing it 'cause they're like, okay, how do I open this door again? - Yeah, totally. - But I mean, but as far as the combat, like I don't play a lot of, like I've never played a God of War and I've only played a little bit of Ninja Guidance. - God, we're gonna have to do a God of War game club at some point. - Right, but I do get what you're saying, Arthur. Like I did think it was weird that there wasn't a jump button, but the reason why I thought it was weird because I kind of assumed that there would be because she seemed so acrobatic. - Yeah. - It seemed like it would be just the extra bit of flair. But it's like what Anthony was talking about, but I just sort of crutched onto the role and found my own style of play in that, you know? - Well, and this brings me back to the other thing I was gonna say, which is that in a lot of ways, something we were talking about on the last Rebel is how one of our pet peeves about games is when they take an established genre and change everything, like because they think that they can do it better. There were a lot of things in this game that it seemed like they thought, well, we're just gonna ignore all these, these sort of pre-established guidelines to the way that people do character-based action titles and do our own thing. Like holding down bumpers to do different stances, touching no buttons at all to block, no jump, only a roll. All of that stuff is different than every other character action game out there. - The bumpers for stances though is good. - Yeah, I think it usually is, but there are points where it wants you to block like 18 different attacks of different-- - Oh yeah, and it'll change the color on you and you'll be expecting blue and it's orange and you'll-- - It's like, okay, blue, all right, I got it orange, I got it blue, orange, orange, red, shit. - But you don't block holding the difference stance? - Yeah, yeah, that's where I was gonna ask. - I thought that you had to hold the-- - No, if it's a heavy screen, you have to hold-- - Yeah, I thought you had to hold the heavy button, otherwise she gets knocked back in like days, which in that case-- - Oh, she still blocks it. - She does, she's got like slam buttons down after that to just get her to recover quicker. - I mean, it specifically tells you that you need to match the color of your block to the color of your attack. - Really, I don't remember that. - See, and how to do range, this only heavier-- - I'm just saying, I'm just saying that those things are annoying, but the ability to, the actual use of the shoulders to the switch dances real quick in combat itself, not for blocking, but for the combat itself, makes it really easy to like swoop between all three, like within like one-- - It's a really bold design decision, and there was a lot of ambition to a lot of the things they tried to do, and in a lot of places, like in combat, where you're, say, due to range attacks, throwing a quick and then close out with a huge, heavy swing, that works and it feels really good, but there are also parts where it doesn't come together as well as stuff that's come before, because they go in a different direction. - Right, I just think if they had just made it to where there was an all-purpose block button, and you didn't have to think about blocking stances, I have a better ability to switch between all the stances as red, instead of having to think about like, not only am I thinking about like switching between my light heavy and normal fast dance to do a badass combo, but now I gotta fucking put like the Ikaruga trigger in my mind to think colors of what is blocking what-- - I just think that gamers are used to pressing buttons to do things as opposed to doing nothing to do something. - What's the established vocabulary for that genre, for action, adventure, for God of War, for, you know, games of that caliber, you're pressing a button, and it felt like a real chance having you not press them, and when you were blocking the right color, it did get a bit frustrating. - Let's see, the counters are really, really key to-- - The counters are badass. - They're totally key to fighting well in this game, and since I don't have to think about blocking, I mean, I don't even block like the heavy attacks, like I don't hold the strong, I just let her get days, and then I, or like, they'll hit her, and she'll like, move back, but then I'll just roll out of the way, you know, like the, because all I'm thinking about is counter, you know, and if I can't counter, then I go into some other kind of combo, and like, since I don't have to think about pressing a button, it makes my counters a lot more effective, I'm doing counters like all the time in this game, and I can't ever, I never got that good at counters in God of War, or in Ninja Gaiden. - I just kept wishing there was collision detection after I did a perfectly timed counter, like when she does that thing, when she breaks his leg and then kicks him away, he doesn't hit a single person, and I just wish that-- - I've seen him knock down like one person, but it needs to knock down like a whole group. - I would feel badass if they are, 'cause they are really badass. - Those are really cool, but those are cool, but the circle of tap ones where you instantly kill someone, those are even way cooler, like if he takes them up the air, and like, just crushes their head into the ground while stepping on their balls. - Yeah. - Like he's like, come on. - That's bad. - And I think a thing about this, about the comment in this game is it's not, you're not supposed to button mesh, you're supposed to like tap square, square, triangle. - Yeah. - Triangle, square. - Triangle. - Triangle. - I like trying to move other combos. They're slow for me. - Yeah, and you're supposed to do it in the exact right time because there's one combo that later on is pretty much the best way to take out this one kind of enemy. And it's, you hit, I think it's like square triangle, triangle, triangle, and she ends that particular combo like up in the air, like spinning around like a fair-- - I have one once. - And that's a really great combo, but you'll never do it right unless you press square, triangle, triangle, and then like wait until she launches in the air and then hit triangle again because there's several other combos that happen. Like if you press it like right as she comes out, right as she's falling. Yeah. - Yeah. - But if you do it while she's in the air, she does a really cool move. And like the, I think that's a little bit of what you're talking about Arthur, about like these, these animations that need to end. - It's usually, you're not vulnerable by those animations are ending. And usually while those animations are ending, it's because you can, they're giving you a chance to lead into something else. - Well, I'm more concerned about being stuck in those animations and having 17 guys that are flashing blue about to hit me at the same time. - But that's why you auto block blue. I mean, like if you're not pressing a button while you're waiting for that animation to end, then she'll just block automatically. But that's also your opportunity if they're not attacking you to continue the combo with another move. - I think I just like to feel active in what I'm doing as opposed to just stopping everything and waiting for that to happen. And that's something that I feel like I'm able to do in other games that are similar sort of stylistically that have come before and after. - So do those other games that Arthur's taught me that comes just like similar stylistically? Like I agree, some of them have some better combat, but this one gets the top notch for storytelling. - Yeah, no, I mean-- - Kind of wears a close second, but most of those other games, well. - Kick the mic, say. - I feel like it's not fair to criticize God of War in that respect 'cause God of War does exactly what it intends to do, which is create this totally over the top spectacle in these totally ridiculous characters in a God setting. - I know, I'm just saying that just in general, I don't think that the characters are even like, you know, it's just maybe if God of War had the same facial animations and everything. - I mean, it embarrasses the shit out of anything that Tecmo has done with "Ninja Guide" and narratively speaking. (laughing) - What game has it-- - Or Devil May Cry. - Or Devil May Cry, or what I've seen in Bayonetta, I mean Dante's Inferno looks different, but I haven't seen enough of storytelling in that game to get a really good feel for how it's gonna go. But in that respect, yes, but if I have to pick between the game that has the amazing storytelling and the amazing cinemas and the five hour campaign versus the game with a really horrible laughable story and probably the best 3D action combat I've ever played in a 12 hour campaign, then it's not that hard decision for me. - Yeah, I mean, the thing with Heavenly Sword is I was telling Arthur, it's like, you play the combat parts, but it's like really, they're just like a bridge in between another badass story part. - Yeah. - It's like-- - And I feel like the combat is underrated unless you're very much so an insistent action game aficionado, because for me the action-- - We're trying to say that. - I'm saying you're an insistent, in fact action game aficionado. - It's because I played Ninja Gaiden Black - I'm not saying that-- - I'm not saying that-- (laughing) - And I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, and that's fucking awesome, by the way, I could never do that. But for me, for somebody like me, the first Ninja Gaiden I enjoyed, but I stopped because it got too hard. But I'm playing something, but I'm no stranger to action games. I've played God of War one and two on hard all the way through, so like-- - You hate yourself. - That says a lot about you right there. - But like what I couldn't do in Ninja Gaiden, maybe I just didn't give it enough of a chance, I guess, I don't know. - God of War, you can beat on hard if you just like force yourself through it. There are definitely parts where on Ninja Gaiden Black on hard, if you just have to rise up to a certain skill level to finish it, or get obscenely lucky. - Yeah, well with the heavenly sword, I feel like as opposed to the action being, I don't know how to describe it, like you don't have to be a ninja to do it. It feels more, instead of being this ultra fast paced, almost you have to see the frames that you're looking at in order to do it correctly, it feels more like it's meant to be elegant and paced. - You feel like it's more methodical and it's execution. - Methodical is the wrong word because methodical to me implies kind of this industrial sameness, whereas when you're talking about something like I see heaven, like when I look at heavenly sword, it almost feels to me like somebody who's watched a whole lot of martial arts films and loves the elegant flow from one thing into another. - It's funny that you bring that up, Matt, 'cause the first time I actually got into combat with the heavenly swords, specifically the parts like where you're like a, climb, you do like the crazy jumps to get up to each side of that big gate, the switches, and you know it does the quick time events and then you get up there, like the whole part, I kept on thinking of crouching tiger, hidden dragon the whole time. - I think that's deliberate, yeah. - I think this is the first game though, that really put me off to quick time events totally, especially at the end of the flying fox fight where you have to do it. - And then I liked them. - There are parts where it seemed like I was failing because it wasn't showing me the button I was supposed to press and I was just randomly, I would randomly hit a button and all of a sudden it would pass. - I think it is, I think, like Jose said, I think it's too quick. I think in this game, the quick time events, they're really punishing. If you don't hit it right away, you miss, but what I do like about them is that it's not that you miss and you instantly fail. Usually you have a couple chances, like something bad will happen, but you can still keep it going. Like in the flying fox combat, like when you're both running up the sides of the archway and you're attacking each other, like I missed two of those, but then I got the next two and the animation sequence finished out and I went on with the game. - I just want to see what's happening and I feel like looking for that arrow is making me miss part of the non-part of the stream. - They're in the wrong part of the stream. - Yeah, I really would rather see what's going on. - Also for the game we talked about that kind of fixes that where in heavy rain, if there's a knife coming down, the symbols like on the knife so that you are still seeing it. - I mean, at least the quick time events in God of war, there's like only a certain number of buttons. It's like the face buttons and rolling the stick one way or the other. It's like, all right, so we've got eight directions and all the face buttons and-- - It's not that bad. They use the four directions and all the face buttons. - Yeah, 'cause they only go angles. - And do it quickly. - Oh, they do, they do, they do. They do go angles and she's going up the side of the hill. They do angles, yeah. - Yeah, no, but at least that one was in two ways. - Honestly, it's like Simon with 12 buttons. - Honestly, I would rather have a little snap to a direction, though, that in God of war, where you have to rotate the sticks, the rotating the sticks, I would always fuck up the direction. - You can see the direction, turn it away. - That would happen in a bully. - No, this punishes you for failing quick time events. I have failed a quick time event in the boss I was fighting, got more life for it. - Yeah, that happens. - You missed the last-- - You missed the last action. - You gave more life for it. That's the worst part. - Yeah, it's if you missed the last action, then yeah, that happens. - Any of you saved those vases that were on the side that replenished your health? - Yes. - Yes. - So if you failed, you could come back down, kick it open. All right, bitch, I'm coming for it now. - Yeah, that's what I always keep those. - It helps a lot. Also, like I say, this being my second playthrough, like I know what the boss's patterns are and I know what they're gonna do. So, like, but the first time I played it, especially when I got to Whiptail, I got my ass kicked. - Shit, man, those fucking, not the big waves that you blast apart, but the narrow waves? - Yep. - I feel like-- - You have to dodge fair. - You have to dodge perpendicularly at exactly the right time. - Get them with the range stance. - The range stance, the range stance. - I can't ever hit those in time. - No, no range stance, not the horizontal waves, but the vertical waves. - Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. If you go to a range stance and hit triangle, she hits it. - And the other one is range stance with square. - You are blowing my mind. - I'm not yet. - Yeah, me too. See, I never knew that. - See, it's like 100% audio cue. If you listen to the audio, she'll tell which wave she's throwing at you even if you can't see it. - I know what else is weird. That bridge with the arrows with the shooting at you, with your Noriko, if you go to range stance on that one and just keep swinging, they will not hit you with that one. - Oh, that one, I knew that one. - I didn't know. - Yeah, I knew that. - Second and third time. - My pet peeve about that part is, I didn't kill someone as I walked by and then the camera shifted and there was a guy like super far away hitting me with arrows from behind. - Oh, that sucks. - Like the way that they, there are parts where they just get too eager to switch the camera angle. - You should be used to getting hit off camera if you play a lot of Ninja Gaiden. - But I also screamed at Ninja Gaiden too for doing that shit. Like Ninja Gaiden was doing major points for doing that and rightfully so. But what about switching from Whiptail to something else like Kai back to Whiptail? - That was kind of weird. - Weird? - I know, I'm weird, but I don't know if, I don't know if I didn't like it, I don't know if I liked it. - It was enticing as it was weird. Like in that you had two thirds of the Whiptail fight and then a long ass break with the slow-mo and then the last third. - Nothing, I was just gonna say we should back it up for a second 'cause we're jumping all the way to the Whiptail fight and we never even talked about really. I mean, what did you guys even think about fighting, flying fox? I thought the way that they, I died once on him and I thought it was really annoying that you had to fight all of his guys again before you fight him. - I forgot about that. - But I thought the part with fighting the guys and everything before him was actually really cool because they did the picture in picture and there was like so much character development even with those just those little inner parts the way he would like speed. - You don't wanna be next, you don't have to think. - You know what's funny about that is that's the demo that was at E3 when they first debuted the game and I played that demo and it's different in the final version than it was on the show floor. Like the, when they had on the show floor they didn't have the picture. - So much so the vertical slice of the picture. - You know, but yeah, yeah, I love that scene. - But like Anthony was saying like his blade things that are on his backs, they're a part of his character. They're a part of his animation. - Yeah, they emote. - Yeah, and that's one of the things that we learned in animation school was that, you know, don't waste things on your character. Don't just give them these, don't just give them costume things just to give them costume things. Have them do something, have them be something and like every, all the characters in this game like they, there's nothing wasted on them. It's all part of who they are. - Now if only they had applied their character design philosophy to some of their game design philosophy. - But up until that part I felt like the narrative was a little more serious and then, you know, here is Flying Fox with his blade shivering and he's emphasizing a little bit a lot on what he's saying. And it kind of became a little bit of a bad kung fu movie for me. - Yeah, I hate it. - He goes into Power Rangers level. - I hate Flying Fox. - Oh my god, Rita Repulsa level. - She has the worst voice acting in the game so far by far. - Oh man, I thought this was acting like great. - The weird thing is the very first time I'm introduced to Flying Fox. Like, I thought like, oh man, I'm gonna hate this guy. Also, I thought the same thing the first time I was introduced to Kai, I thought like, oh, I'm gonna hate this character too. But like, they both totally grew on me. And they like, I don't, I think Flying Fox's introduction is weak. It's the weakest part of all of his character's development. - He's not sold by the game until you realize that not only are you creeped out and disgusted by him but everyone around him. - Oh, and I think that his bow hand is creeped out and disgusted by him. And also the fact that it implies that his penis has been cut off is-- - She says, "sexless." - Yeah. And I mean, that's pretty low-cut, like, pant that he's wearing. - I got a visual I don't want now. - Of nothingness. - See, I mean, yeah, what did you think of the Flying Fox battle, Anthony? - Fighting him was really simple. Like, even when he got in hand-to-hand with him, I didn't have any trouble fighting him. Whereas, opposed to, shortly thereafter, the whip-till fight, like, I had a lot of trouble fighting her in hand-to-hand 'cause she would switch between the heavy and the light attack so much. Whereas, Flying Fox, you could pretty much trap in a corner and just beat the shit out of her. - Yeah, the trick to whip-tail was that, you know, how she has that, how she's stunned after she's thrown her waves at you, is that, like, I was talking about before, if you're far enough away, if you're just far enough away and you switch into, like, heavy stance, then you'll leap at her with a heavy slash. And during the first two-thirds of the battle, you could get off two or three of those heavy slashes. But during the last third of the battle, after you do the Kai sequence, you have to, like, you can only hit her once and then you have to, like, dodge out of the way 'cause she's done shooting at you. - I've never wished for a run button so much in an action game like this, as I did when I was fucking doing that fight. I was just like, okay, I see that she's not throwing any more waves, awesome, just let me get to her more quickly, please. - Oh, man. - I mean, that hurt, she was a piece of cake for me. - Let's see if maybe if I had known that the triangle thing broke the time piece. - I'm not saying that she was super difficult because I didn't die on her at all. And the way that I figured out to beat her was to be at the end of a basic, strong combo when she was getting up after my first combo and that always seemed to get her. - Yeah, I didn't die on her either. I died on Flying Fox three times and I was irritated that there's no checkpoint right before the battle went on. - Yeah, that's awful. - I actually, I don't think I died when I was playing it so I don't know if the checkpoint system is bad, but after playing Infamous, I've been noticing that my patience for checkpoint systems and other games is much degraded. - Yeah. So I guess another cool part that we kind of like in between the Flying Fox part and finishing Whiptail is the part where you have to save your father as Kai on the bridge, which the picture in picture with that was just really cool because they had such great music playing the really dramatized it 'cause there's no dialogue there whatsoever. - And you can hear Shen going, ah. (laughing) - Yeah, and that part, I mean, that was the part where actually by then it's good that you know, they after touch really well or not if you don't use it, but either way you just got to be really good 'cause you're so-- - You have to use after touch, yeah. - You couldn't do it in real time, otherwise the guys would catch him, there's just no way. - Did you ever get, did you lose at all? Did you have Shen die? - No, no, no. I managed to keep them off. - 'Cause I actually did, and like I remembered this from the last time I played too, as there was like, I missed like one guy in the back somewhere and I didn't see him until he was too late. I was like, oh shit, I fired my arrow really quick. I'll get him, I'll get him. And like he was standing right behind Shen and I had to have the arrow zip by Shen's ear and it does that sound whenever it goes by somebody and I'm like, yeah, I'll get him, but it then went right by the other guy's head too. And then like, you just see Shen get like sliced once from behind and he's down and you have to do that whole sequence over here. - Yeah, one slice, dude, I had a moment. - Man, that is a long fucking part to play all over. - For real, yeah. Man, I have one point where he was right in the middle of the bridge, it was when the enemies were coming from front and behind and I shot an arrow and there was a guy on him sword lean back to chop, dude. And I hit his hand, point blank, and I was like, fuck yeah. That was like so bad. - I had a good enough handle on it that I definitely started to try to figure out where I could hit them. Like I was, yes, I went for balls. - That was a big plot moment though too 'cause she just found out that her daddy wanted a killer. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Or more specifically that the dreams she said she used to have of him standing over him, her with his sword weren't dreams. They were memories of when she was a child. - Yeah, that's strong, strong. - And then like those guys on the bridge, I loved shooting in the ass too and they're running away from me. They grab their ass and they jump up and down before they fall over and die. - Yeah, yeah, it really doesn't matter where you shoot them, they die. - Also you can, oh I'm sorry. - No, no, by all means. - I was gonna say like also you can build up your combos really high right there. If you're shooting the guys and then there's that pause before they come out of the door behind him. If you shoot one of the jars that's up on the towers over there, then you can keep your combo points going. - Okay. - Is there a point behind the combo points? - Yeah, you unlock moves. - You unlock new moves. - Yeah, new combos. - And stuff that you get while your kai goes back to. - I saw that it said I unlocked an arrow combo and I was like, what arrow combo? I shoot arrows and they hit people. - Yeah, exactly. - I don't know, yeah. Can you hit start and check like what the combo is? - Yeah, I suppose I could die. - Yeah, there's a combo list. - Yeah, that's how I learned most of them. - And check the different ranges. - Aerial combos were fun. I just like how they looked. Maybe, you know, if you did them all the time, it was like God mode, but you know. - It kinda is, but you run into guys pretty quickly where the, hold the left bumper and hit triangle won't work on them the first time 'cause they block. You have to break their block and then you have to go into the launch into the air maneuver and then you can do the aerial combo. So they add in an extra layer. - Which, with motion controls off means you have to hold X, which, you know, I just, again, to just try it without motion control kind of bug me out 'cause then X becomes the pseudo jump button, but not really the jump button. That's the only way to launch the aerial combo, which, you know, kind of bug me out. - So I'm shaking the controller. - One good thing about having the motion controllers engaged is that if they knock you in the air, you can shake the motion control and then she'll do this thing or she'll throw the chain on the sword and grab them and then, like, kick them away. - Yeah, if you have them turned off, you just hit X. - Right, but, I mean, like, my whole thing is that, like, while I had motion control on, I was doing that move all the time by accident just 'cause I'm moving the controller. - That's what you're doing, the standard's fast. - Fuck, that's what I was gonna say. It happens to me all the time and-- - Without even trying. - What I mean is either a brilliant game design or an extremely happy accident on these parts. - At this point, I don't really know which it is. (both laughing) - Was there anything else that we wanted to point out in particular? - Yes. - Do it. - Before we pass over it, man, like, one thing this game, the shadow complex, so many games do, I'm tired of it, I'm tired of the metroid-ing in the beginning. - Oh, yeah. I know you use metroid as a verb, like I do. - Yeah, I could officially never play a segment like that in a game for the rest of my life and be happy. - People refer to that collectively as metroidvania a lot of times. - No, metroidvania is the style of collection and action. Metroid-ing specifically is where you get you-- - That's true, metroidvania is where they make you backtrack. - Although ironically enough in Symphony of the Night, which is probably, I don't know that Castlevania two counts as a metroidvania, but Symphony of the Night, you get fucking metroid-ed like 30 minutes into that game. - Two towns, there's a lot of back and forth and visiting different towns and the most obscure puzzle stuff in the world, but two kind of counts. - Mm. - There you go. - So we do not want, so where are we playing up to for the next part, just through the end? - I think you could pretty much beat it. - Right. - 'Cause chapters, let's see, we did one and two. - And three, four, and five, and then I heard six is just like a glorified-- - Yeah, three, four and five are full chapters and six is basically kind of a prologue. - Well, let me ask this, how much time did everyone spend playing this section of the game? - Three hours, maybe. - Tyler? - Man, I'm a terrible judge at the time that I have play games. I had two gaming sessions. - I got through the first two chapters in probably an hour and a half to two hours. It was really fast. - I was with Anthony three hours about two hours and 12 minutes spread across two sessions in the hours and I know that is 'cause I have the video files for it. So, I mean, how many hours will it take to finish the game? - Well, you're gonna get better at the game as you go. Although there is a section coming up where it may take you a little bit longer. I don't know, I think you can fit. I think if you don't finish the game by next week, then it's probably because you found a section that you just died on over and over and over again. - And you broke the disc. - And you broke the disc. - And to point out, Bohan must have some really dirty jeans, 'cause that kid is ugly. (laughing) - But he said it was his youthful loins, his youthful indiscriminate loins. - The first time he said daddy, I didn't know what he was saying. Bohan's response that clued me in. - And then he said it again, you're like, "Oh, you, you don't have that, I'm didn't you?" - Yeah, into his head. So yeah. - Which is a recurring theme in this game. - But I don't know, I'd really not try to finish the game for the next session because I mean, I wouldn't want to cram it in and get frustrated if I couldn't-- - Is three hours cramming? - I don't know, I don't know how long it's like-- - You want to savor it? - I think it's probably, you're probably looking at it for people who played it the first time, it's probably four hours to finish. - That's like pretty much what we fit for every game club ever, pretty much. - We'll see, Tyler. But the average play time, the average play time for this game from what I've been told is five hours. That's what I forgot. - Which was one of the bones of contention when it was reviewed that hurt it in a lot of areas that it was so short. - See, playing this game, I don't, you know, obviously I can't time travel, but I would, you know, I thought about this. - What would you do if you could time travel, too? - I would not go back to review heavenly sorta. (laughing) - I would definitely do something else. - I mean, no hating on the game, I am really enjoying it. - I would have higher priorities for my time travel as well. - Play a haters, go back in time. - I hate to say justice, but I'd want a cannonball mini game where I have to like shoot for points. I don't know, just, I really enjoyed that for some weird reason I really liked the cannon. - That was fun, man. - Well, cool, that's not the last time in the game you get to do that. - Thank God. The rockets, did you guys like control in the rockets as well? Was that, that different for you guys? - Fuck that part. - That was kind of fun. - There were two, like, aim, that was a part where the controls felt like they were not responding to what I wanted to do, because I would do a little bit to the left and all of a sudden she would be facing the fucking side of the bridge. - Yeah. - And I would hit-- - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I would hit square, like, as I was turning thinking, oh, it'll just tap it, and I just blew a rocket into the side of the fucking bridge. - Yeah, basically you might, I never heard Justin or Amy, yeah. I just fired, and then after touch did everything. - I did like that once you let go of after touch, the rocket just explodes. You don't have to hit it into the ground or anything like that. - Well, I didn't know that. - Very cool. - Yeah, I was always driving it into the ground or into a person. - I was driving it into a person. - I mean, maybe it just incidentally hit the ground after I let go, because sometimes it should go screwy when you let go of after touching that game, but every time I am the rocket between two groups of dudes like go and it blew up almost everyone. - See, that's awesome. - So I guess, are we done? - Well, are we playing through the end or not? - Yeah, we're playing through the end. - Okay. - We're just, I was just letting Tyler feel like he had a choice in this manner. - Well, I wanted to bring dramatic tension to my hand. - We like to let Tyler think. We like to let Tyler think it's okay to have opinions over you. (laughing) - Yeah, so yeah, play to the end and go watch area five. Let's go up on area5.tv or on revision3.net/coop. - It's .com, so it's .com/coop. - You know, like a real website. (laughing) - Yeah. - Not saying TV is a bad thing. (laughing) It's more the .net thing that I'm talking about. - Man, .tv is bad too. - So yeah, go watch that shit. It's .organism. - Go watch that shit and then grab 'em like a man. (laughing) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)