Shinji Mikami has one of the most impressive resumes in the gaming industry. RE4 alone is enough to rank him amongst the all time greats, yet he directed other great games like Vanquish, RE1, RE1 Remake, God Hand, Dino Crisis, Aladdin, Goof Troop, and The Evil Within.
Yup... and EW did modern RE better than any modern RE. It's what Capcom try to do with their two sides of RE (RE7/RE2R for the slow horror part, RE8/RE4R for the action) but in one game.
@@wakba6038 I'll never forget the anger I felt when I read reviewers dismissing the evil within because of its small sprint bar at the start. The one you could upgrade like an hour in.
I feel like this is the first time I've ever seen a game design RUclipsr argue in favor of tutorials taking place totally separately from the main game rather than being "naturally integrated" into the first level. It's super refreshing and makes total sense, ESPECIALLY for something as replayable as a game like Vanquish.
Yes I def am really passionate about removing tutorials from the main core of the game and it is funny how unique of a position it is right now, but I think it's because most reviewers 1: don't trust players to learn independently, and 2: are bought into this concept that all that matters is the first playthrough. So if you only care about the first playthrough, then sure whatever sit through the tutorial. But if you understand that games are meant to be replayed, that's then forcing your experienced players to constantly sit through a filler tutorial for hundreds of hours (as the replays start to stack). So yeah I'll def continue to push against this idea of baking in tutorials to the campaigns because I do think it's inelegant in the long run. Also mikami is a legend and he knows better, resi4 doesn't have any stupid tutorials. You start into core gameplay right away. Resi 4 is such a masterpiece dude, it's insane people think remake is anywhere in the same ballpark.
Vanquish was my comfort food during the "Bald Marine" 3rd person shooter ps3/360 era. Playing this game was like taking a hot shower after working in a swamp 🤯 This game definitely needs more recognition 😢
Gears of War and Vanquish are the only great Third-person-shooters for their own right and thats it. The rest is either extremly watered downed action games with gimmicks or games to breeze easily without aby thought whatsoever.
Yeah it's such a great example of a game that was definitely made during a certain era, the 360 cover shooter era, that is done so well that it transcends the trends of the time and still holds up today :-)
I'm so confused why we don't have game like this now. Everything now is so boring and bland. Yet Vanquish is so cool and stylish. Why nobody makes games like this?
I find it kind of funny Mikami doesn't remember how Vanquish came to be. The guy kept pitching ideas to Sega and getting turned down to the point of getting pissed off at them during a meeting. This game showed a path third person shooters could take but none followed.
That's amazing ha! I didn't know that bit of lore but it makes sense considering how popular cover shooters were at the time. And yes exactly, mikami brought his magic to the style of game and alas no one took it too seriously. I think because of the sales actually. It's interesting because at the time vanquish probably really blended into the gears popularity, but these days shines as a much stronger game with really strong ideas.
My favorite thing about this game is the way the slow motion mechanic is handled - it can only be used while boosting, vaulting over cover, or rolling, which are all actions that can potentially leave the player exposed to enemy gunfire. Using it also consumes a portion of the same energy meter which serves as the player’s regenerating health. In other words, it’s not simply a tool to kill enemies stylishly, but one that actually requires commitment and careful strategic management from the player.
Great point Shadow! yes I think this is a really smart choice as well because of exactly what you said, it has to be used offensively with built in risk, that way it can't be exploited too much to just slowly snipe away at enemies which is a really powerful strat if you could just activate it whenever.
Correction. it isn't part of the regen health. But if you get hit enough times to the point where you would die, if you have energy, the game forces slow mo so you can heal but will leave you a sitting duck once the meter drains.
@robertkovarna8294 Yeah, I may have misremembered some of the details, as I haven't played in a long time. Either way, the gist of it is that you will be in a vulnerable position if run out of meter while using slow mo.
Disappointing you didn't cover the amount of cool tech this game has. You mention weapon switching/reload canceling but there is also Boost Rolling, there is EMP sliding, you can boost melee off a wall so you don't overheat. One common play that is very important in vanquish is shooting your grenades as it does x5 more dmg and the blast radius is increased dramatically, you can even shoot the LFE gun, throw a grenade so that it can travel further. Also Cigarettes are very important in God Hard, such an overlooked and brilliant mechanic shouldn't go unnoticed.
He try to make his review more of a critique , if you want mechanics you could watch guides , if he talked about all the mechanics , half of the review would be a guide not a critique to the game .
@@kizuma4269 but he didn't mention Cigarettes once, and that is an HIGHLY important mechanic in Vanquish. That's like doing a review of a shmup and not mentioning bombs/hypers, that's how strong it is. I expect better from mark to not overlook something that's so fundamental to the game's design.
What sold me on vanquish all those years ago was when the main character grabbed a rocket & chucked it back with style! I thought, and still do, that was the friggin coolest thing ever 😁
It happens to good movies out there, that they are relegated to the category of hidden gems, because the mainstream only appreciates lazy content and immediate gratification that have simulation elements. It's too bad this channel doesn't have a greater following.
I think the main reason Vanquish sold poorly was because of it's gameplay length + no multiplayer. This was the era of COD4 and the multiplayer shooter. If you released a full-priced game players expected a long campaign and/or a multiplayer component (regardless of if it was good or not). I tried to get multiple friends into the game when it came out but they all passed because it was "only 6 hours long" . The idea of a game density / replayability was completely dead at the time. Especially for full-priced disc-based game. And I mean it basically still is. If Vanquish came out today it would never sell for $60 or on a disc unless it was padded with 5 more hours of filler.
Funny because now I hear hardcore gamers in the circles I frequent, those that are adults with full time jobs (I’m an adult with a full time job, I have no idea what minors want anymore).. adult hardcore gamers want games to be SHORTER or at least be paced better with the fluff cut out and of course stop being movie games which plagued our favorite medium in all the 2010s. FF16 for an example is a game with gameplay a lot of people like including me but the biggest complaint is too many cutscenes! Meanwhile a short well paced campaign with no BS like RE4 remake feels so good to play today
When you talk about routing in Vanquish, I also, immediately, in my mind drew a line to Mikami's somewhat undercooked an unfinished PN03 on the Gamecube. That game is pretty much routing exemplified when played for score, with its DDP style chaining.
@@michielkroder4031 I never played PN03 but these games have so many similar designs and aesthetics. Mikami must have been thinking of PN03 a little when designing Vanquish lol.
The number of hours I buried into this and Binary Domain lol, I used to keep a note everytime you said you're yet to try out Vanquish in videos or comments thinking "Yeah now, that's a match waiting to be made" so glad you finally played it Mark :D
Yes ha it's been sitting in my steam library for years. And like I said at the end of the vid mostly because I was kinda expecting it to take a week's worth of study to learn how it works and stuff, but I was really pleasantly surprised how intuitive the game is :-) So i do hope the vid helps encourage more people to grab it and play it, because it was really fun to review and play for sure.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Yeah the boost is one of those great mikami design decisions where it looks awesome and feels great, but also has a lot more to it in terms of design that you'd initially think. I can imagine mikami and the team sitting around and really tweaking how the boost works in a way that western devs probably wouldn't be able to think about.
I think character action shooters should be considered a real genre by now with games like Mullet mad jack, Ultrakill, and arguably doom eternal. Vanquish was basically the first one of these
Madjack is so good - I just wish it had more meat to it, since the total # of stages and enemy variety cap pretty quickly. I'd love an extended story and more modes with unique restrictions and clear requirements.
Madjack is garbage. It wants to be an arcade game but it’s actually an extremely shallow roguelite with entirely randomized levels the entire 100 floor campaign
I love Vanquish, it's one of my favorite third person shooters. That and it has the feel of Gundam mixed with Bubblegum Crisis and it's every bit as badass as implied.
Yeah it does have a bit of a feel of like a cool mech game too ha. I think that's because of the boost mechanic, it does seem like something from virtua on ha.
Man it's so obvious that every problem with every clover and platinum game can be explained by the fact that they didn't have enough time or budget. PN03 especially breaks my heart but at least it got released.
Finally! I bought this game the day it was released and still do a play through once in awhile to this day. It is the perfect combination of 3rd person shooter mixed with an Afterburner sensibility. The speed of the game is phenomenal and it never panders to you by dishing out new abilities to keep you going. You get it all right out of the gate (other than mild weapon upgrades that don't need an extra menu). The story is only in service of the action and not the other way around like so many modern games are. Platinum's greatest work IMO beside such titles and Bayo 1 and Metal Gear Revengence.
yeah I love how repayable the game is, it is like throwing on a favorite album that you return to over and over as time passes. Yes so far I think it easily ranks as one of platinum' best. At some point when I make my way through all the major platinum games, it would be fun to rank them and vanquish def is in the top sector of their library for sure.
It really is a shame we never got any kind of follow up to this game. I had hoped for some follow up of Vanquish from Mikami back when Tango Gameworks was announced. And that Archipel interview with Shinji Mikami from a few years ago, where he talks about the original version of Vanquish just makes me want Mikami to revisit that idea even more. The original idea for Vanquish sounded so good. It sounded like in the original version battles took place on larger open maps like EDF and Dynasty Warriors, and the enemies kind of functioned like an RTS where they had giant buildings they’d use to produce robot enemy from. The early 2010s was a nice little period for third person shooters. You had Vanquish, you had Resident Evil 6, and you had Binary Domain. Binary Domain is a pretty traditionally handled cover shooter; but Vanquish and Resident Evil 6 are like these cover shooter games where you’re not actually meant to be in cover, and you’re meant to get in close for you can punch enemies.
33:37 this is funny because modern devs these days are so desperate to release live service games and force high player retention on yet through cheap bloat and content updates, yet arcade gamedesigners figured the way to have natural player retention so long ago already
Exactly Astrea, because with arcade design we had the perfect set of incentives where the devs needed to make the games extremely re-playable for coin revenue, but they couldn't use the crutch of constantly adding more filler content because the games had to be burned onto arcade boards ha. This incentive structure is the best one to make games that endure over time without fluff and bloat.
It certainly makes for better games than live service fluff and progression systems. Unfortunately I'm not sure how viable it is in today's market -- engaging with depth requires a bit of player commitment that your typical live service doesn't. Bribing the player into playing is just easier (short-term) for both developers and players.
I wish you talked about the melee attack and the decision by the devs to cause it to overheat your suit (except for the sawblade). The melee attack is also unique for each weapon and they have different attributes. You could’ve also talked about the health system and how regenerating health affects this game. I find it pretty aggravating when sometimes if you take damage the game auto-triggers slow-motion and forces your suit to overheat, which causes most players to just wait in cover for a long time. I don’t think Vanquish really encourages careful play, since checkpoints are numerous, you have infinite lives and the scoring system is broken. Other things I don’t like about Vanquish are the QTEs and the walk ’n talk sections, which drag the pacing a bit. Otherwise it is a very unique and well made game, probably my favorite third person shooter.
Oh yeah well i did address this indirectly, but I could have been more clear. A lot of this stuff, like the forgiving health, the ability to be more rushdown and smack people with melee, a lot of this gets wiped clean on god hard mode ha. I think god hard mode is the definitive version of the game for sure in terms of design, and it really cuts down on a lot of these problems. This is the layering aspect of the design that I was talking about where it is pretty chill and forgiving on the lower difficulties, which does have these problems for sure. But then once you pop into god hard, then the real balance of the systems begins. I do think this idea could be communicated more clearly in the game's UI and stuff though. Like when you went into the modes, there's a little line on the god hard that says "the definitive balance of the game" or something like that.
I saw this on sale in a local shop for like £2 and regret not picking it up. Ever since seeing it I've heard it's got a cult-esque following and appreciation.
So glad you liked it, Mark. Like many of the greats from that era, it’s designed to be replayed. It’s an arcade style game for sure. I believe that God Hard mode is Mikami’s original vision for the game with Hard / Normal being added for accessibility (sales).
I'd love to see a comparison (or just a simple retrospective) to the Gears of War games to this game. There seems to be a lot of shared design philosophy DNA between the two, but there are clear differences in how "American" GOW feels and how "Japanese" arcade-y Vanquish feels.
I'm glad you highlighted the LFE, it's one of the greatest weapons I've seen in any action game. Goes through walls, massive hitbox, knocks enemies down, good for ringouts(I believe it's 3-7 where you can really see this), destroys enemy projectiles, and can even do some cool stuff like carry grenades across the stage after you've thrown one. And the enemy design is a cut above other action games. Instead of a color coded way to deal with weaknesses, romanovs have an optional weakness on their back that also sends them into an aggressive state if you attack it. You can also delimb them, knock them over, basically whatever you can think of like a good character action title. Alright Mark, now that you've covered the trinity of Mikami action classics, you need to play The Evil Within. It's not very arcadey but it does manage to blend RE4 enemy and weapon design with really tight resource management and some extremely unique mechanics. It's easily one of the best TPS ever.
Glad to hear someone else remembers Vanquish. It was a cool evolution of the cover shooter formula. Basically it shifted from Gears of Wars' game of inches ie football with guns, to a more free form soccer-ish design. Love the in depth review.
I missed this one out back in the day, but you got it on my radar now. I really appreciate games where the players need to learn to play, instead of evolving the character by adding moves as we go. We are the ones learning the game, not the character.
Vanquish is basically a Platinum character-action game at range. Also in God Hard your boost time is the same as in other modes. It's only bullet time that is reduced by 50%.
so I just found your channel on the last day of evo, and I was excited to see your takes on action games. funnily enough, I thought to myself "man I really hope they talk about Vanquish someday." I never clicked on a video faster than just now haha
Very happy you got around to Vanquish! When I found your channel and saw your videos on arcade design and such I always thought you would love this one. Easily one of my favorite action games of all time, hell might be my favorite action game ever made.
Vanquish always reminded me of a 3d bangai o. Moving around enemies, getting placed correctly to damage the enemies. Maybe im just reaching lol. I agree. Its definitely a game that must be played multiple times to really understand the mechanics
When it comes to Tutorials I Like how MDK2 does it. There is a detailed Tutorial at the beginning of the First Stage. But you can Skip it at any time by Just opening the door you learn to Open at the end of the Tutorial. That way repeat Players and those WHO figure stuff Out at their own pace are rewarded.
Gears of War (the first one anyways, I've yet to play 2 and 3) actually did the movement really well too. Nothing over the top like Vanquish, but you still had interesting movement tech if you got good. I'm firmly of the opinion that the cover shooter isn't a bad genre by default, and one of the first big ones already nailed how it should be done. However, all the GoW copycats really gave the genre a bad name.
Oh man, getting this platinum was a pain in the ass, but its mine. A god tier action game for sure. I wish Platinum Games made games like this nowdays.
I was riding the Vanquish train back in PS3 days when very few people did. When it was re-released on Steam years ago, picking it up again was a no brainer
The bit about the first playthrough is so true. I remember playing Viewtiful Joe and thinking how odd the game felt until I started to understand that the game was made with the idea of playing multiple times. Man I love that game.
Challenge 6 basically just exists to ease you through the massive difficulty gap between Hard and God Hard. The first time you play C6 it feels impossible, but then once you've learned to survive on GH, you realise C6 is actually a joke because it just feels like GH difficulty except they give you the massive boost gauge from the lower difficulties.
Also, since this channel usually covers bad ports and version inaccuracies, I'm surprised the FPS bug was never mentioned in the critique section at least? On any re-release of this game above 30FPS, the amount of damage you take is simply not correct compared to how it was on the 360/PS3. Certain enemy attacks even gain weird new properties that never existed before, like you'll receive a heavy stun but no damage taken on high FPS, when at 30 frames the attack just causes heavy damage with no stun. Overall it just feels very wrong to play when you've known both versions. The fact that you have to go back to 30FPS to play the intended game is a notable flaw of Vanquish.
@@newt2246 There was a patch from the developers but it didn't truly fix the problem. The original issue was that everything was doing too much damage, they tried to fix that with a patch, and now we're in the situation where certain things can randomly do less damage or stun you or whatever. If there's a community-made fix then I don't know about it, but I also haven't followed active Vanquish players super closely in recent times.
Great video. Please check g-warrior, a contra clone from the same guys that made ganablade that deserves more recognition and does things much better than the new contra for a fraction of the price
Would be cool to see your take on Astral Chain. I think the depth of the gameplay is something people miss unless they play the game on higher difficulties or take the time to play around with the skill trees and play styles.
I remember the final achievement for this game being so difficult, I actually never went back to it. You're making we want to finally start the PS4 version of Vanquish after all these years away from the PS3 game. This game definitely beats Binary Domain and Quantum Theory but I love those too.
Dude you can just grenade glitch the challenges. Makes it way more doable. Just press forward while throwing a grenade and instantly swap to emp grenades while in the air and you get infinite grenades or emp grenades what you like.
Would kill for a sequel, direct or spiritual, that actually looked nice visually. The PS3/360 era of Platinum games all look kinda drab and monotone. I remember booting up Bayo 2 and thinking it was a hell of a lot more pleasing to the eye, shame about how the gameplay ended up but I could see the vision for the art.
Yeah it makes me sad that this era of platinum is essentially over. They're still around of course, but they seem a lot less interested in these pure action games than the do action rpgs now, unfortunately.
I've always said this about Time Crisis. To this day, I think the spectacle of the TC games is more exciting to play through than PS3/360 era cover shooters.
Great vid man! Love your take on the ‘low profile slide’ mechanic in the game I did not think of the fact that its a high-committal movement ability that takes away options but gives others very cool you noticed that .. kind of like wavedashing in Melee, hugely powerful option but can’t shield while you’re in animation (I’m a fox main too). Just ordered the Vanquish/Bayonetta steelbook ps4 set off ebay thanks to your vid to add to my collection as I’ve never played Vanquish
@@cartoonvideos5 Yea, I was initially excited when my brother informed me about LP3's announcement. Quickly turned into disappointment when I found out they outsourced it to a Western dev.
What you were saying about how the game teaches you how to be good just by playing it reminds me of my experience with Armored Core, love those games especially 6
Awesome breakdown. The first time I beat God Hard mode back when the game was current, I didnt even use reload cancelling and the boost dodge roll I didnt learn until those final bosses. The Dual Bogies took me countless hours to finally beat, and there wasnt alot of info at the time. The leaderboards went from a few thousand clears on the previous mission to about 90 completions for that Dual Bogie fight, on the 360. Recently I beat God Hard again many years later, even made a tutorial for it on the channel, but still I wasnt using reload cancelling, but was using the boost dodge roll this time, from the beginning. Started the hardest mode straight out of the gate with the code, so took a while to re-learn everything (12 year break). Tactical Challenge 6 is what I found to be the most brutal thing in the game. I have around 30 hours of failed attempts just on that challenge. I can get to the final round, but it takes long to break through. Problem is I only get a few seconds of practice on the final rounds. Going to look into booting it up on the PS3 emulator and practicing the last 2 rounds with save states. The first time I got to the dual bogies on God hard I got so smoked out I took a 2 or 3 month break, having hit a brick wall. I persisted on that section for many days until I broke through, using a dangerous strat that stripped my armor (stun grenade,sliding melee, rocket combos only). This time around it only took 3 1/2 hours to beat the bogies with that method on God hard, which was surprising. Burns took me 6 hours. One of my favorite action games of all time, along with God Hand and RE4. The tactical challenges are interesting in design too. Apparently they take things from all the difficulty modes, such as God Hard level of enemy aggression, Normal difficulty player damage and other aspects from Hard, etc. Its like a very well designed remix with MUCH harder encounters than what are in the regular game. The arrangements of enemies become more extreme than whats in God Hard, such as Two Bio's enemies with tons of ground and flying enemies, Two bogies but with tons of other enemies (Round 5 of Challenge 6). Dont underestimate the usefulness of cigarettes to pull some bullshit, but those are very limited. One key difference in the tactical challenges is that all the enemies are now focusing fire on YOU only. There are no comrades to absorb enemy aggression in that mode. So while you do take less damage, everything is attacking you at once. The endurance aspect also makes the final challenge the hardest thing for me, since its essentially a 10-15 minute long checkpoint filled with intense encounters, with no ability to practice later rounds, since you die so fast when you finally get there. One thing that kind of cemented how bad the achievement system was, is that there was no achievement for God Hard Mode completion. They are mainly given out for menial tasks. I felt like Vanquish had the potential to be better than Ninja Gaiden Black, for me, but it lacked the amount of content that game had. The short campaign is action packed and can work in the game's favor, but it felt like it could use an extensive mission mode or some other content too. I think the game plays better than NGB, even though its more of a shooter.
As an FPS fan, one of my favorite games is Doom Eternal, but as much as I like it, I feel like the entire game is a tutorial until you get to the first DLC on Nightmare+ with your full arsenal and all your fun tools that you must use to survive - that's when the *real* game starts. I didn't even know Vanquish was a Mikami game. That and Wanted are now both on my wish list.
Vanquish and Bayonetta are very much corollaries to RE4 and DMC respectively, and both games took extraordinary risks to innovate those genre-defining formulas. Vanquish came out a little late to really capitalize on the new 3rd person shooter trend that Mikami pioneered, which is maybe why it remains undersold. Cover shooting in a gallery had become a staple and over-the-shoulder became a universal custom by 2010. At the same time, it does things that depart so dramatically that one could look at Vanquish today and see a game that's relatively fresh compared to the Gears and Uncharteds of that contemporary period in gaming. Not a perfect game but like Mark says, it's deep mechanically and accessible in the true sense of the word from front-end design to back-end replayability. A lot of games are similar yet nothing is quite like it.
This was a day 1 purchase for me on the X360, and years later again on Steam :) Along with Bayonetta and Halo 3, my top three games on the X360. I love the boost mechanic, the weapon variety, the set pieces, and yes even the melee attack. Similar to Bayonetta my first playthrough was fun, but also limiting, as I was still learning game mechanics. Subsequent playthroughs open up the game, invite experimentation, and greatly increased the pleasure I derived from playing them. The game indeed would benefit from cutting some of the slow/boring areas. But I recall people already complained the game was too short :( For years I was hoping for a sequel as story wise its pretty much setup for a sequel. But at least we got a steam port. Great review, and really enjoying your recent content.
one of my favourite games, got this on 7th gen consoles and PS4 and must of played though this at least half a dozen times now, i feel that this is how developers want to make games like, sadly the bosses do not! We are left with the crap that comes out today, again not the fault of the devs!
Incredible game. Feels very fresh every time i play it. Still awaiting the sequel thats supposed to have a cyberenetic dog like Casshern, Platinum. P.S. Also waiting for that Anarchy Reigns review, Mark 😅😅
A shame this game never took off. Would have been cool to see Mikami or somebody else iterate on it, because the idea of a really fast paced cover shooter is really cool and this doesn't really offer enough content to be something to go back to constantly.
Hi its great to see you give time to these misunderstood games, been playing wanted mainly cause of you and vanquish was one of the best games. Also can you check out the melee combat in biomutant it also has animation cancels added by ex avalanche devs, and one of the reviews was like when fighting minis the combat wasnt locking on, i feel like its like ff 16 and is being misunderstood
My biggest problem with this game is the jump between hard and god hard is too large. Hard mode, for the most part, isn’t too bad until the final boss; then god hard is brutal the entire way through. The final boss is a nightmare. I’m all for challenge, but Vanquish on god hard isn’t fun. It’s something you beat once just to say you did, then replay the game on hard afterwards.
This is the comment I came to make. I love this game, but God Hard is just way too difficult for me to enjoy. I wish there was a happy medium with the extra enemy spawns and aggression, but a more approachable level of difficulty.
I like the OG game. It's a cool arcade game with chaining between enemy spawns and the atmosphere is amazing. I dislike the sequel because of it's bad pacing and basically 0 soundtrack.
Vanquish is a strange case for me. Back when the PC port was released i was like "A Platinum game? Shut up an take my money!". The reviews made the game look hype AF and mechanically interesting. But when I got the game, I quickly realized that it is designed and balanced around a controller, and KBM just brakes the game in half and it quickly devolves into a mediocre brain-dead run-and-gun, with no need to even acknowledge the existence of any of the mechanics. I was bored out of my mind all the way through. Well, about half of the way through, actually, until I dropped it. I also skipped the game during my Platinum marathon earlier this year. Perhaps I should find a save file with God Hard mode unlocked and give the game another shot.
I remember the first time I played Vanquish: The tutorial before the game annoyed me a lot. I wanted the game TO START. Later, after many games with annoying introductory levels and a barrage of interruptions and textboxes I realised that Vanquished did the right thing.
yeah the tutorial is actually one of the more interesting subjects of the video and Vanquish itself. Even though the tutorial in it and something like zone of the enders might be boring, it turns out that it's better than having a "forced" tutorial section implemented into the story, that makes subsequent playthroughs feel boring and annoying. I think dmc5 is a step in the right direction though, where even though the prologue mission is a little too easy, it's not insufferable to go through after the first time like in many other games.
@@Gustavozxd13 Some 2D games found a good solution: They put signposts with a control hint in the background of the first level. A very organic implementation. Helpful for newbies and can be ignored by veterans.
I have played a few hundred hours of Vanquish when it released. I thought at the time that it was probably one of the best games ever made and that people would be inspired by this extraordinary game design. I thought a new kind of TPS games was born. Oh boy was I wrong, no TPS I have played since comes even close to being worthy of simply being compared to Vanquish.
Few, if not no games I've played had gave me the exhilaration of the boosting mechanic of Vanquish. Maybe some AG racing game could, but not when action gameplay is intertwined within. It feels so good that it pushes me to rely less on covers. The speed, the blur, the sound, the smooth transition in & out of it. Together with Bayonetta I'm really glad these games came to PC. I actually love the MC design and though this is still the best exo-suit design there is in games. The overall visuals however is indeed lacking. What do you think about the control scheme of the game? It was designed/balanced to play on a pad, but this is a rare instance where I feel M+KB plays better.
Speaking of cover shooters, have you had a chance to replay Wanted: Dead since the combat update that came out recently? Your review of it sparked my interest, but I'm wary if they "updated" the combat to have more bland, mainstream appeal.
Just replayed and beat this bad boy a couple weeks ago again and the gameplay is still so cool. bullet time is always my fave feature in games. Sega and Platinum always making the coolest shit. the visuals are timeless and the art is so sic, reminds me of a segaAM2 or 3 game.
As much as I like Platinum for its gameplay design, I always thought they significanty lacked in the visual design departement. Even Bayonetta... in the art departement it is all over the place. I think that's a big part of why much of their games didn't sell that well.
@@magicjohnson3121The original Xbox 360 version (and the remaster on Xbox One) of Bayonetta is very colorful and nice to look at. The other releases like PC, Switch, PS4 etc. Have much more drab and monotonous colors.
@@Bluesine_R It is not only the color palette, but the design of the game world and characters that is just not on the level of many other Japanese games (definitely Capcom's, since many Platinum developers had a history there). I recently saw in an interview with Kamiya that in early development Bayonetta had long ginger hair (since she is a witch). They said that this design was obviously not good enough. But I was like "eh this looks so much better, and makes so much more sense from a visual design perspective". I think Platinum modelled many of their early games on western aesthetics. Vanquish tries to be a mixture of Halo, Gears of War etc. Bayonetta probably tried to mix in the mythological feel of God of War. I think those games could have been better sales with a more Japanese aesthetic.
As much as the first 3 missions of EDF6 kinda suck, it's hilarious that the rest of the story is a joke on how the player has almost certainly done this before and doesn't need a tutorial. The NPCs still have the tutorial level "I wonder how we can defeat such a weapon" dialogue but are then interrupted by "wait, wtf, how did you know how to do that?!"
I’m a hi fi rush super fan. The sales metric that game got judged on by Microsoft could not have been more unfair. The fact it shadowdropped hurt it’s sales but boosted the games cool factor by at least 90 percent. I’m gonna predict in 4 to 7 years that hi fi rush gets looked at like dmc3 gets looked at now.
Hi-Fi Rush wasn't directed by him (it was directed by John Johanas). But Mikami probably supervised the development since he was the head of Tango Gameworks at that time.
It's interesting you mentioned doom and what difficulty Vanquish should be played on, because its the same for Doom, although modern day Doom has the problem of that you have to beat the game a few times to unlock such modes and more importantly the weapons. I mean I get why companies do it, to boost the playtime hours, but I think that's atleast one thing Vanquish does better than most games of its type, you can pretty much start off playing the true game without all that leg work. I'll have to get around to playing this game properly someday, anyway nice video!
@@MILDMONSTER1234 Does it I cant remember, its been that long since I played it, I stand corrected on that game if so, I dont think it had full weapons unlocked though, so you'd still have to playthrough to get those. I prefer 2016 tbh, I hope the new Doom game is more in line with that, I think awhole bunch of indie FPS since eternals time have took what it was doing and amped it up already, so it will be interesting how the new game does things.
It's funny 'cause new Wolfenstein has the opposite problem. You probably want to play on lower difficulties (if you come to Wolfenstein because you want to mow down nazis). Higher difficulties expect you to have memorized the level layouts so you can do way, way more stealth kills than you would probably expect for Wolfenstein.
@@TheCrewExpendable They really dropped the ball with the most recent Wolfestien reboots, I do like the first one, but my issue was with the respawning, I remember just having enough and just ran through the bullets until I literary came across an enemy respawning spot, spawning out of thin air behind a wall, I just laughed to myself, the following games just became worse that I didn't even want to play them and now we are once again at a point where Wolfestien needs another reboot lol, a truly cursed franchise.
I'm an indie game developer, and I must say, this is my favourite RUclips channel on the subject of games 🔥
Mark gets it.
@@miltiadiskoutsokeras9189 he really does
Word up!
Same been watching this guy and Masahiro Sakurai
@@miltiadiskoutsokeras9189 Mark definitely gets it. Certified Based.
Shinji Mikami has one of the most impressive resumes in the gaming industry. RE4 alone is enough to rank him amongst the all time greats, yet he directed other great games like Vanquish, RE1, RE1 Remake, God Hand, Dino Crisis, Aladdin, Goof Troop, and The Evil Within.
Interesting! Goof Troop in co-op is such a fun experience.
Yup... and EW did modern RE better than any modern RE. It's what Capcom try to do with their two sides of RE (RE7/RE2R for the slow horror part, RE8/RE4R for the action) but in one game.
@@BadAssMacmillan He did the Aladdin game on SNES? That's one of my favorite games ever.
@@wakba6038 I'll never forget the anger I felt when I read reviewers dismissing the evil within because of its small sprint bar at the start. The one you could upgrade like an hour in.
Mikami is far more responsible for DMC1 than Kamiya.
I feel like this is the first time I've ever seen a game design RUclipsr argue in favor of tutorials taking place totally separately from the main game rather than being "naturally integrated" into the first level.
It's super refreshing and makes total sense, ESPECIALLY for something as replayable as a game like Vanquish.
Yes I def am really passionate about removing tutorials from the main core of the game and it is funny how unique of a position it is right now, but I think it's because most reviewers 1: don't trust players to learn independently, and 2: are bought into this concept that all that matters is the first playthrough. So if you only care about the first playthrough, then sure whatever sit through the tutorial. But if you understand that games are meant to be replayed, that's then forcing your experienced players to constantly sit through a filler tutorial for hundreds of hours (as the replays start to stack). So yeah I'll def continue to push against this idea of baking in tutorials to the campaigns because I do think it's inelegant in the long run. Also mikami is a legend and he knows better, resi4 doesn't have any stupid tutorials. You start into core gameplay right away. Resi 4 is such a masterpiece dude, it's insane people think remake is anywhere in the same ballpark.
Vanquish was my comfort food during the "Bald Marine" 3rd person shooter ps3/360 era. Playing this game was like taking a hot shower after working in a swamp 🤯 This game definitely needs more recognition 😢
Also one of my favs
Gears of War and Vanquish are the only great Third-person-shooters for their own right and thats it. The rest is either extremly watered downed action games with gimmicks or games to breeze easily without aby thought whatsoever.
Yeah it's such a great example of a game that was definitely made during a certain era, the 360 cover shooter era, that is done so well that it transcends the trends of the time and still holds up today :-)
I'm so confused why we don't have game like this now. Everything now is so boring and bland. Yet Vanquish is so cool and stylish. Why nobody makes games like this?
I find it kind of funny Mikami doesn't remember how Vanquish came to be. The guy kept pitching ideas to Sega and getting turned down to the point of getting pissed off at them during a meeting. This game showed a path third person shooters could take but none followed.
That's amazing ha! I didn't know that bit of lore but it makes sense considering how popular cover shooters were at the time. And yes exactly, mikami brought his magic to the style of game and alas no one took it too seriously. I think because of the sales actually. It's interesting because at the time vanquish probably really blended into the gears popularity, but these days shines as a much stronger game with really strong ideas.
My favorite thing about this game is the way the slow motion mechanic is handled - it can only be used while boosting, vaulting over cover, or rolling, which are all actions that can potentially leave the player exposed to enemy gunfire. Using it also consumes a portion of the same energy meter which serves as the player’s regenerating health. In other words, it’s not simply a tool to kill enemies stylishly, but one that actually requires commitment and careful strategic management from the player.
Great point Shadow! yes I think this is a really smart choice as well because of exactly what you said, it has to be used offensively with built in risk, that way it can't be exploited too much to just slowly snipe away at enemies which is a really powerful strat if you could just activate it whenever.
Correction. it isn't part of the regen health. But if you get hit enough times to the point where you would die, if you have energy, the game forces slow mo so you can heal but will leave you a sitting duck once the meter drains.
@robertkovarna8294 Yeah, I may have misremembered some of the details, as I haven't played in a long time. Either way, the gist of it is that you will be in a vulnerable position if run out of meter while using slow mo.
Disappointing you didn't cover the amount of cool tech this game has. You mention weapon switching/reload canceling but there is also Boost Rolling, there is EMP sliding, you can boost melee off a wall so you don't overheat. One common play that is very important in vanquish is shooting your grenades as it does x5 more dmg and the blast radius is increased dramatically, you can even shoot the LFE gun, throw a grenade so that it can travel further. Also Cigarettes are very important in God Hard, such an overlooked and brilliant mechanic shouldn't go unnoticed.
He try to make his review more of a critique , if you want mechanics you could watch guides , if he talked about all the mechanics , half of the review would be a guide not a critique to the game .
@@kizuma4269 but he didn't mention Cigarettes once, and that is an HIGHLY important mechanic in Vanquish. That's like doing a review of a shmup and not mentioning bombs/hypers, that's how strong it is.
I expect better from mark to not overlook something that's so fundamental to the game's design.
Sega packaging it in a 10th anniversary bundle with Bayonetta was a really cool idea. Publishers should do more of that, especially with action games.
What sold me on vanquish all those years ago was when the main character grabbed a rocket & chucked it back with style! I thought, and still do, that was the friggin coolest thing ever 😁
Ha i love the vibe of this game and early platinum stuff. It def feels like a prelude to MGR in that regard for sure.
Bro this channel deserves to be so much bigger
The Electric Underground is the best video game channel that a few more people discover every single day.
it really is.
It happens to good movies out there, that they are relegated to the category of hidden gems, because the mainstream only appreciates lazy content and immediate gratification that have simulation elements. It's too bad this channel doesn't have a greater following.
indeed. Don't worry though, more and more people everyday are waking up.
Thanks very much my dude!! Yeah still on the smaller side, but things are steadily growing so definitely on the right track at least ha.
I think the main reason Vanquish sold poorly was because of it's gameplay length + no multiplayer. This was the era of COD4 and the multiplayer shooter. If you released a full-priced game players expected a long campaign and/or a multiplayer component (regardless of if it was good or not). I tried to get multiple friends into the game when it came out but they all passed because it was "only 6 hours long" . The idea of a game density / replayability was completely dead at the time. Especially for full-priced disc-based game. And I mean it basically still is. If Vanquish came out today it would never sell for $60 or on a disc unless it was padded with 5 more hours of filler.
Funny because now I hear hardcore gamers in the circles I frequent, those that are adults with full time jobs (I’m an adult with a full time job, I have no idea what minors want anymore).. adult hardcore gamers want games to be SHORTER or at least be paced better with the fluff cut out and of course stop being movie games which plagued our favorite medium in all the 2010s. FF16 for an example is a game with gameplay a lot of people like including me but the biggest complaint is too many cutscenes! Meanwhile a short well paced campaign with no BS like RE4 remake feels so good to play today
When you talk about routing in Vanquish, I also, immediately, in my mind drew a line to Mikami's somewhat undercooked an unfinished PN03 on the Gamecube. That game is pretty much routing exemplified when played for score, with its DDP style chaining.
Is PN03 worth playing?? Looks neat to me.
@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 I wold say so, even though it feels very much like a skeleton of a more fully featured and developed game.
@@michielkroder4031 I never played PN03 but these games have so many similar designs and aesthetics. Mikami must have been thinking of PN03 a little when designing Vanquish lol.
@@TheSweep I think so as well!
The number of hours I buried into this and Binary Domain lol, I used to keep a note everytime you said you're yet to try out Vanquish in videos or comments thinking "Yeah now, that's a match waiting to be made" so glad you finally played it Mark :D
Yes ha it's been sitting in my steam library for years. And like I said at the end of the vid mostly because I was kinda expecting it to take a week's worth of study to learn how it works and stuff, but I was really pleasantly surprised how intuitive the game is :-) So i do hope the vid helps encourage more people to grab it and play it, because it was really fun to review and play for sure.
@@TheElectricUnderground Oh man it's always that one week that takes so long to come hahaha. Makes perfect sense ♥️♥️
A game from the golden age of Platinum. thank you once more for an in-depth review!
Thanks for tuning in my dude! Yes I love this era of plat so much, back when they still had the action game spirit.
Dude, that boosting analysis was so good.
Invaluable game design info here.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Yeah the boost is one of those great mikami design decisions where it looks awesome and feels great, but also has a lot more to it in terms of design that you'd initially think. I can imagine mikami and the team sitting around and really tweaking how the boost works in a way that western devs probably wouldn't be able to think about.
I think character action shooters should be considered a real genre by now with games like Mullet mad jack, Ultrakill, and arguably doom eternal. Vanquish was basically the first one of these
How is Mullet Mad Jack a character action shooter?
Madjack is so good - I just wish it had more meat to it, since the total # of stages and enemy variety cap pretty quickly. I'd love an extended story and more modes with unique restrictions and clear requirements.
I would also maybe (maybe) add Ghost Runner.
People always leave put desync in this subgenre which came out quite early
Madjack is garbage. It wants to be an arcade game but it’s actually an extremely shallow roguelite with entirely randomized levels the entire 100 floor campaign
I love Vanquish, it's one of my favorite third person shooters. That and it has the feel of Gundam mixed with Bubblegum Crisis and it's every bit as badass as implied.
Yeah it does have a bit of a feel of like a cool mech game too ha. I think that's because of the boost mechanic, it does seem like something from virtua on ha.
Man it's so obvious that every problem with every clover and platinum game can be explained by the fact that they didn't have enough time or budget. PN03 especially breaks my heart but at least it got released.
Finally! I bought this game the day it was released and still do a play through once in awhile to this day. It is the perfect combination of 3rd person shooter mixed with an Afterburner sensibility. The speed of the game is phenomenal and it never panders to you by dishing out new abilities to keep you going. You get it all right out of the gate (other than mild weapon upgrades that don't need an extra menu). The story is only in service of the action and not the other way around like so many modern games are. Platinum's greatest work IMO beside such titles and Bayo 1 and Metal Gear Revengence.
yeah I love how repayable the game is, it is like throwing on a favorite album that you return to over and over as time passes. Yes so far I think it easily ranks as one of platinum' best. At some point when I make my way through all the major platinum games, it would be fun to rank them and vanquish def is in the top sector of their library for sure.
PlatinumGames as a studio was so strong in the first few years. Sega gave them the budget to make masterpieces.
It's a shame they've been sidelined
It really is a shame we never got any kind of follow up to this game. I had hoped for some follow up of Vanquish from Mikami back when Tango Gameworks was announced. And that Archipel interview with Shinji Mikami from a few years ago, where he talks about the original version of Vanquish just makes me want Mikami to revisit that idea even more.
The original idea for Vanquish sounded so good. It sounded like in the original version battles took place on larger open maps like EDF and Dynasty Warriors, and the enemies kind of functioned like an RTS where they had giant buildings they’d use to produce robot enemy from.
The early 2010s was a nice little period for third person shooters. You had Vanquish, you had Resident Evil 6, and you had Binary Domain. Binary Domain is a pretty traditionally handled cover shooter; but Vanquish and Resident Evil 6 are like these cover shooter games where you’re not actually meant to be in cover, and you’re meant to get in close for you can punch enemies.
Not even an indie Vanquish clone. Blight on humanity.
33:37 this is funny because modern devs these days are so desperate to release live service games and force high player retention on yet through cheap bloat and content updates, yet arcade gamedesigners figured the way to have natural player retention so long ago already
Exactly Astrea, because with arcade design we had the perfect set of incentives where the devs needed to make the games extremely re-playable for coin revenue, but they couldn't use the crutch of constantly adding more filler content because the games had to be burned onto arcade boards ha. This incentive structure is the best one to make games that endure over time without fluff and bloat.
It certainly makes for better games than live service fluff and progression systems. Unfortunately I'm not sure how viable it is in today's market -- engaging with depth requires a bit of player commitment that your typical live service doesn't. Bribing the player into playing is just easier (short-term) for both developers and players.
I wish you talked about the melee attack and the decision by the devs to cause it to overheat your suit (except for the sawblade). The melee attack is also unique for each weapon and they have different attributes.
You could’ve also talked about the health system and how regenerating health affects this game. I find it pretty aggravating when sometimes if you take damage the game auto-triggers slow-motion and forces your suit to overheat, which causes most players to just wait in cover for a long time. I don’t think Vanquish really encourages careful play, since checkpoints are numerous, you have infinite lives and the scoring system is broken.
Other things I don’t like about Vanquish are the QTEs and the walk ’n talk sections, which drag the pacing a bit. Otherwise it is a very unique and well made game, probably my favorite third person shooter.
Oh yeah well i did address this indirectly, but I could have been more clear. A lot of this stuff, like the forgiving health, the ability to be more rushdown and smack people with melee, a lot of this gets wiped clean on god hard mode ha. I think god hard mode is the definitive version of the game for sure in terms of design, and it really cuts down on a lot of these problems. This is the layering aspect of the design that I was talking about where it is pretty chill and forgiving on the lower difficulties, which does have these problems for sure. But then once you pop into god hard, then the real balance of the systems begins. I do think this idea could be communicated more clearly in the game's UI and stuff though. Like when you went into the modes, there's a little line on the god hard that says "the definitive balance of the game" or something like that.
Ever try Silent Bomber? Amazing arcadey PS1 action game. Super tight and challenging. I think you'd really like it!
I saw this on sale in a local shop for like £2 and regret not picking it up. Ever since seeing it I've heard it's got a cult-esque following and appreciation.
Gameplay density. Something i really miss in today's games
So glad you liked it, Mark. Like many of the greats from that era, it’s designed to be replayed. It’s an arcade style game for sure. I believe that God Hard mode is Mikami’s original vision for the game with Hard / Normal being added for accessibility (sales).
I'd love to see a comparison (or just a simple retrospective) to the Gears of War games to this game. There seems to be a lot of shared design philosophy DNA between the two, but there are clear differences in how "American" GOW feels and how "Japanese" arcade-y Vanquish feels.
I'm glad you highlighted the LFE, it's one of the greatest weapons I've seen in any action game. Goes through walls, massive hitbox, knocks enemies down, good for ringouts(I believe it's 3-7 where you can really see this), destroys enemy projectiles, and can even do some cool stuff like carry grenades across the stage after you've thrown one.
And the enemy design is a cut above other action games. Instead of a color coded way to deal with weaknesses, romanovs have an optional weakness on their back that also sends them into an aggressive state if you attack it. You can also delimb them, knock them over, basically whatever you can think of like a good character action title.
Alright Mark, now that you've covered the trinity of Mikami action classics, you need to play The Evil Within. It's not very arcadey but it does manage to blend RE4 enemy and weapon design with really tight resource management and some extremely unique mechanics. It's easily one of the best TPS ever.
I'll always remember coming home and playing challenge 6 for hours for an entire week until i beat it.
Great game.
Glad to hear someone else remembers Vanquish. It was a cool evolution of the cover shooter formula. Basically it shifted from Gears of Wars' game of inches ie football with guns, to a more free form soccer-ish design.
Love the in depth review.
I missed this one out back in the day, but you got it on my radar now. I really appreciate games where the players need to learn to play, instead of evolving the character by adding moves as we go. We are the ones learning the game, not the character.
Vanquish is basically a Platinum character-action game at range.
Also in God Hard your boost time is the same as in other modes. It's only bullet time that is reduced by 50%.
so I just found your channel on the last day of evo, and I was excited to see your takes on action games. funnily enough, I thought to myself "man I really hope they talk about Vanquish someday."
I never clicked on a video faster than just now haha
A VIDEO ON VANQUISH?
You're a man after my own heart. I knew I was right to subscribe.
I love the talking head on the CRT in front of a waterfall. Immaculate vibe.
Very happy you got around to Vanquish! When I found your channel and saw your videos on arcade design and such I always thought you would love this one. Easily one of my favorite action games of all time, hell might be my favorite action game ever made.
Vanquish always reminded me of a 3d bangai o. Moving around enemies, getting placed correctly to damage the enemies. Maybe im just reaching lol. I agree. Its definitely a game that must be played multiple times to really understand the mechanics
When it comes to Tutorials I Like how MDK2 does it. There is a detailed Tutorial at the beginning of the First Stage. But you can Skip it at any time by Just opening the door you learn to Open at the end of the Tutorial. That way repeat Players and those WHO figure stuff Out at their own pace are rewarded.
Crazy to see a review with so much actual game literacy and knowledge.
Gears of War (the first one anyways, I've yet to play 2 and 3) actually did the movement really well too. Nothing over the top like Vanquish, but you still had interesting movement tech if you got good. I'm firmly of the opinion that the cover shooter isn't a bad genre by default, and one of the first big ones already nailed how it should be done. However, all the GoW copycats really gave the genre a bad name.
Oh man, getting this platinum was a pain in the ass, but its mine. A god tier action game for sure. I wish Platinum Games made games like this nowdays.
All lanes clear for this channel to fucking take off. God speed.
Thanks very much my dude!!! I'm really happy with how it has been progressing lately :-)
I was riding the Vanquish train back in PS3 days when very few people did. When it was re-released on Steam years ago, picking it up again was a no brainer
The bit about the first playthrough is so true. I remember playing Viewtiful Joe and thinking how odd the game felt until I started to understand that the game was made with the idea of playing multiple times. Man I love that game.
Challenge 6 basically just exists to ease you through the massive difficulty gap between Hard and God Hard. The first time you play C6 it feels impossible, but then once you've learned to survive on GH, you realise C6 is actually a joke because it just feels like GH difficulty except they give you the massive boost gauge from the lower difficulties.
Also, since this channel usually covers bad ports and version inaccuracies, I'm surprised the FPS bug was never mentioned in the critique section at least? On any re-release of this game above 30FPS, the amount of damage you take is simply not correct compared to how it was on the 360/PS3.
Certain enemy attacks even gain weird new properties that never existed before, like you'll receive a heavy stun but no damage taken on high FPS, when at 30 frames the attack just causes heavy damage with no stun. Overall it just feels very wrong to play when you've known both versions. The fact that you have to go back to 30FPS to play the intended game is a notable flaw of Vanquish.
@@speed7424 dang really? Even the recent 10th anniversary re-release? That's disappointing to hear.
@@speed7424 Is there a patch for this on PC?
@@newt2246 There was a patch from the developers but it didn't truly fix the problem. The original issue was that everything was doing too much damage, they tried to fix that with a patch, and now we're in the situation where certain things can randomly do less damage or stun you or whatever.
If there's a community-made fix then I don't know about it, but I also haven't followed active Vanquish players super closely in recent times.
@@TheCrewExpendable Yep, even the 10th Anniv. version. It's a tricky one to solve when your game logic is tied to framerate.
Great video. Please check g-warrior, a contra clone from the same guys that made ganablade that deserves more recognition and does things much better than the new contra for a fraction of the price
Would be cool to see your take on Astral Chain. I think the depth of the gameplay is something people miss unless they play the game on higher difficulties or take the time to play around with the skill trees and play styles.
I remember the final achievement for this game being so difficult, I actually never went back to it. You're making we want to finally start the PS4 version of Vanquish after all these years away from the PS3 game. This game definitely beats Binary Domain and Quantum Theory but I love those too.
Dude you can just grenade glitch the challenges. Makes it way more doable. Just press forward while throwing a grenade and instantly swap to emp grenades while in the air and you get infinite grenades or emp grenades what you like.
@@ecchi12 thanks man, one day I’m gonna go back and get that one that got away 😆
I was just in love with this game back in the day
Finished it on God Hard on PS3, felt like 1000 attemts at final boss, what an experience!
awesome. electric underground is on fire.
Would kill for a sequel, direct or spiritual, that actually looked nice visually. The PS3/360 era of Platinum games all look kinda drab and monotone. I remember booting up Bayo 2 and thinking it was a hell of a lot more pleasing to the eye, shame about how the gameplay ended up but I could see the vision for the art.
Vanquish and Bulletstorm are the most fun shooter games I've ever played.
I love vanquish so much!!!
Is a crime this game series is dead...
Series? Is the game a sequel or prequel to something else?
Yeah it makes me sad that this era of platinum is essentially over. They're still around of course, but they seem a lot less interested in these pure action games than the do action rpgs now, unfortunately.
11:29 Time Crisis basically is an arcade cover shooter when you think about it.
Absolutely!! Yes cover shooters have a ton of arcade roots, even old school cabal shooters have cover elements
Literally said this out loud at that part 🎯
I've always said this about Time Crisis. To this day, I think the spectacle of the TC games is more exciting to play through than PS3/360 era cover shooters.
Imagine something like 2B or Eve in Vanquish
Great vid man! Love your take on the ‘low profile slide’ mechanic in the game I did not think of the fact that its a high-committal movement ability that takes away options but gives others very cool you noticed that .. kind of like wavedashing in Melee, hugely powerful option but can’t shield while you’re in animation (I’m a fox main too). Just ordered the Vanquish/Bayonetta steelbook ps4 set off ebay thanks to your vid to add to my collection as I’ve never played Vanquish
I fucking love this game, and Shinji Mikami is the G.O.A.T. of action game design.
This game was the best. I've played it multiple times now. Love everything about it.
Vanquish, Lost Planet 2, and Re5 are my holy trifecta of 3rd person shooters.
@@cartoonvideos5 Yea, I was initially excited when my brother informed me about LP3's announcement. Quickly turned into disappointment when I found out they outsourced it to a Western dev.
What you were saying about how the game teaches you how to be good just by playing it reminds me of my experience with Armored Core, love those games especially 6
Awesome breakdown. The first time I beat God Hard mode back when the game was current, I didnt even use reload cancelling and the boost dodge roll I didnt learn until those final bosses. The Dual Bogies took me countless hours to finally beat, and there wasnt alot of info at the time. The leaderboards went from a few thousand clears on the previous mission to about 90 completions for that Dual Bogie fight, on the 360. Recently I beat God Hard again many years later, even made a tutorial for it on the channel, but still I wasnt using reload cancelling, but was using the boost dodge roll this time, from the beginning. Started the hardest mode straight out of the gate with the code, so took a while to re-learn everything (12 year break). Tactical Challenge 6 is what I found to be the most brutal thing in the game. I have around 30 hours of failed attempts just on that challenge. I can get to the final round, but it takes long to break through. Problem is I only get a few seconds of practice on the final rounds. Going to look into booting it up on the PS3 emulator and practicing the last 2 rounds with save states. The first time I got to the dual bogies on God hard I got so smoked out I took a 2 or 3 month break, having hit a brick wall. I persisted on that section for many days until I broke through, using a dangerous strat that stripped my armor (stun grenade,sliding melee, rocket combos only). This time around it only took 3 1/2 hours to beat the bogies with that method on God hard, which was surprising. Burns took me 6 hours. One of my favorite action games of all time, along with God Hand and RE4.
The tactical challenges are interesting in design too. Apparently they take things from all the difficulty modes, such as God Hard level of enemy aggression, Normal difficulty player damage and other aspects from Hard, etc. Its like a very well designed remix with MUCH harder encounters than what are in the regular game. The arrangements of enemies become more extreme than whats in God Hard, such as Two Bio's enemies with tons of ground and flying enemies, Two bogies but with tons of other enemies (Round 5 of Challenge 6). Dont underestimate the usefulness of cigarettes to pull some bullshit, but those are very limited. One key difference in the tactical challenges is that all the enemies are now focusing fire on YOU only. There are no comrades to absorb enemy aggression in that mode. So while you do take less damage, everything is attacking you at once. The endurance aspect also makes the final challenge the hardest thing for me, since its essentially a 10-15 minute long checkpoint filled with intense encounters, with no ability to practice later rounds, since you die so fast when you finally get there. One thing that kind of cemented how bad the achievement system was, is that there was no achievement for God Hard Mode completion. They are mainly given out for menial tasks.
I felt like Vanquish had the potential to be better than Ninja Gaiden Black, for me, but it lacked the amount of content that game had. The short campaign is action packed and can work in the game's favor, but it felt like it could use an extensive mission mode or some other content too. I think the game plays better than NGB, even though its more of a shooter.
As an FPS fan, one of my favorite games is Doom Eternal, but as much as I like it, I feel like the entire game is a tutorial until you get to the first DLC on Nightmare+ with your full arsenal and all your fun tools that you must use to survive - that's when the *real* game starts.
I didn't even know Vanquish was a Mikami game. That and Wanted are now both on my wish list.
Vanquish and Bayonetta are very much corollaries to RE4 and DMC respectively, and both games took extraordinary risks to innovate those genre-defining formulas. Vanquish came out a little late to really capitalize on the new 3rd person shooter trend that Mikami pioneered, which is maybe why it remains undersold. Cover shooting in a gallery had become a staple and over-the-shoulder became a universal custom by 2010. At the same time, it does things that depart so dramatically that one could look at Vanquish today and see a game that's relatively fresh compared to the Gears and Uncharteds of that contemporary period in gaming.
Not a perfect game but like Mark says, it's deep mechanically and accessible in the true sense of the word from front-end design to back-end replayability. A lot of games are similar yet nothing is quite like it.
"Vanquish and Bayonetta are very much corollaries to RE4 and Bayonetta"
Are you sure you don't mean RE4 and Devil May Cry?
@@demgreens Yeah that's what I meant lmao
This was a day 1 purchase for me on the X360, and years later again on Steam :) Along with Bayonetta and Halo 3, my top three games on the X360.
I love the boost mechanic, the weapon variety, the set pieces, and yes even the melee attack. Similar to Bayonetta my first playthrough was fun, but also limiting, as I was still learning game mechanics. Subsequent playthroughs open up the game, invite experimentation, and greatly increased the pleasure I derived from playing them.
The game indeed would benefit from cutting some of the slow/boring areas. But I recall people already complained the game was too short :( For years I was hoping for a sequel as story wise its pretty much setup for a sequel. But at least we got a steam port.
Great review, and really enjoying your recent content.
Game was a masterpiece and it should be much more highly regarded in the industry. There's a lot to learn from it.
one of my favourite games, got this on 7th gen consoles and PS4 and must of played though this at least half a dozen times now, i feel that this is how developers want to make games like, sadly the bosses do not! We are left with the crap that comes out today, again not the fault of the devs!
The best third person cover shooter ever.
Incredible game. Feels very fresh every time i play it. Still awaiting the sequel thats supposed to have a cyberenetic dog like Casshern, Platinum.
P.S. Also waiting for that Anarchy Reigns review, Mark 😅😅
Resi 5 mercs is amazing. Possibly my favorite extra mode in any game period.
i appreciate all the low-angle shots of Elena Ivanova in this video game.
Alright, you've sold me on the game
I'll add it to the list lol
Just finished this game last week and watched some video on it
A shame this game never took off. Would have been cool to see Mikami or somebody else iterate on it, because the idea of a really fast paced cover shooter is really cool and this doesn't really offer enough content to be something to go back to constantly.
Hi its great to see you give time to these misunderstood games, been playing wanted mainly cause of you and vanquish was one of the best games.
Also can you check out the melee combat in biomutant it also has animation cancels added by ex avalanche devs, and one of the reviews was like when fighting minis the combat wasnt locking on, i feel like its like ff 16 and is being misunderstood
My biggest problem with this game is the jump between hard and god hard is too large. Hard mode, for the most part, isn’t too bad until the final boss; then god hard is brutal the entire way through. The final boss is a nightmare. I’m all for challenge, but Vanquish on god hard isn’t fun. It’s something you beat once just to say you did, then replay the game on hard afterwards.
This is the comment I came to make. I love this game, but God Hard is just way too difficult for me to enjoy. I wish there was a happy medium with the extra enemy spawns and aggression, but a more approachable level of difficulty.
Agreed, it's like if you went from bayo normal to NSIC
Are the old Gungraves on PS2 good at all?
I like the OG game. It's a cool arcade game with chaining between enemy spawns and the atmosphere is amazing. I dislike the sequel because of it's bad pacing and basically 0 soundtrack.
Vanquish is a strange case for me.
Back when the PC port was released i was like "A Platinum game? Shut up an take my money!". The reviews made the game look hype AF and mechanically interesting.
But when I got the game, I quickly realized that it is designed and balanced around a controller, and KBM just brakes the game in half and it quickly devolves into a mediocre brain-dead run-and-gun, with no need to even acknowledge the existence of any of the mechanics.
I was bored out of my mind all the way through. Well, about half of the way through, actually, until I dropped it.
I also skipped the game during my Platinum marathon earlier this year.
Perhaps I should find a save file with God Hard mode unlocked and give the game another shot.
The Electric Underground's reviews are on point.
I remember the first time I played Vanquish: The tutorial before the game annoyed me a lot. I wanted the game TO START. Later, after many games with annoying introductory levels and a barrage of interruptions and textboxes I realised that Vanquished did the right thing.
yeah the tutorial is actually one of the more interesting subjects of the video and Vanquish itself. Even though the tutorial in it and something like zone of the enders might be boring, it turns out that it's better than having a "forced" tutorial section implemented into the story, that makes subsequent playthroughs feel boring and annoying. I think dmc5 is a step in the right direction though, where even though the prologue mission is a little too easy, it's not insufferable to go through after the first time like in many other games.
@@Gustavozxd13 Some 2D games found a good solution: They put signposts with a control hint in the background of the first level. A very organic implementation. Helpful for newbies and can be ignored by veterans.
I have played a few hundred hours of Vanquish when it released. I thought at the time that it was probably one of the best games ever made and that people would be inspired by this extraordinary game design. I thought a new kind of TPS games was born. Oh boy was I wrong, no TPS I have played since comes even close to being worthy of simply being compared to Vanquish.
This video is a nice coincidence. I was just doing a Vanquish on 360 playthrough like I have been promising to do.
Few, if not no games I've played had gave me the exhilaration of the boosting mechanic of Vanquish. Maybe some AG racing game could, but not when action gameplay is intertwined within. It feels so good that it pushes me to rely less on covers. The speed, the blur, the sound, the smooth transition in & out of it. Together with Bayonetta I'm really glad these games came to PC.
I actually love the MC design and though this is still the best exo-suit design there is in games. The overall visuals however is indeed lacking.
What do you think about the control scheme of the game? It was designed/balanced to play on a pad, but this is a rare instance where I feel M+KB plays better.
I absolutely love the vibe and gameplay of Vanquish. Definitely in my top 10
I've felt for a long time now, that full featured tutorials are massively overhated.
I understand why they exist. Would just love to be able to skip them on replays. So few games give that option any more :(
I definitely need to check out this game! Never knew Vanquish was from Platinum
Loved this game! It was shear joy compared to the claustrophobic feel of its contemporary cover shooters.
Awesome video yet again!
The gameplay looks cool, but it's just so very gray looking, it never appealed to me for that reason.
Speaking of cover shooters, have you had a chance to replay Wanted: Dead since the combat update that came out recently? Your review of it sparked my interest, but I'm wary if they "updated" the combat to have more bland, mainstream appeal.
it's so funny that you brought up RE5 mercs, i'm playing it as i listen to this video
Just replayed and beat this bad boy a couple weeks ago again and the gameplay is still so cool. bullet time is always my fave feature in games. Sega and Platinum always making the coolest shit. the visuals are timeless and the art is so sic, reminds me of a segaAM2 or 3 game.
As much as I like Platinum for its gameplay design, I always thought they significanty lacked in the visual design departement. Even Bayonetta... in the art departement it is all over the place. I think that's a big part of why much of their games didn't sell that well.
I don't get Marks love for the visuals of Bayonetta. It's very brown and ugly looking. Even if the character designs are cool.
@@magicjohnson3121The original Xbox 360 version (and the remaster on Xbox One) of Bayonetta is very colorful and nice to look at. The other releases like PC, Switch, PS4 etc. Have much more drab and monotonous colors.
@@Bluesine_R It is not only the color palette, but the design of the game world and characters that is just not on the level of many other Japanese games (definitely Capcom's, since many Platinum developers had a history there). I recently saw in an interview with Kamiya that in early development Bayonetta had long ginger hair (since she is a witch). They said that this design was obviously not good enough. But I was like "eh this looks so much better, and makes so much more sense from a visual design perspective". I think Platinum modelled many of their early games on western aesthetics. Vanquish tries to be a mixture of Halo, Gears of War etc. Bayonetta probably tried to mix in the mythological feel of God of War. I think those games could have been better sales with a more Japanese aesthetic.
bayonetta was about witches which is generally thought of as a european thing. so i think the european astetic makes sense
first time i saw the gameplay of vanquish back in the day i thought main character was a robot lol, he really could use some flair and skins.
As much as the first 3 missions of EDF6 kinda suck, it's hilarious that the rest of the story is a joke on how the player has almost certainly done this before and doesn't need a tutorial. The NPCs still have the tutorial level "I wonder how we can defeat such a weapon" dialogue but are then interrupted by "wait, wtf, how did you know how to do that?!"
Gears of War has held third person shooters back for many years.
Yeah the problem is GoW and other "standard" cover shooters are about getting and staying behind cover. Vanquish is about popping out of cover.
His last game Hi-Fi Rush also got great reviews but sadly did not make enough money
I’m a hi fi rush super fan. The sales metric that game got judged on by Microsoft could not have been more unfair. The fact it shadowdropped hurt it’s sales but boosted the games cool factor by at least 90 percent. I’m gonna predict in 4 to 7 years that hi fi rush gets looked at like dmc3 gets looked at now.
Hi-Fi Rush wasn't directed by him (it was directed by John Johanas). But Mikami probably supervised the development since he was the head of Tango Gameworks at that time.
His last game was The Evil Within in 2014...
This game needs a sequel. And even two sequels. One of the best games ever made.
It's interesting you mentioned doom and what difficulty Vanquish should be played on, because its the same for Doom, although modern day Doom has the problem of that you have to beat the game a few times to unlock such modes and more importantly the weapons. I mean I get why companies do it, to boost the playtime hours, but I think that's atleast one thing Vanquish does better than most games of its type, you can pretty much start off playing the true game without all that leg work. I'll have to get around to playing this game properly someday, anyway nice video!
Doom eternal has nightmare unlocked from the start
@@MILDMONSTER1234 Does it I cant remember, its been that long since I played it, I stand corrected on that game if so, I dont think it had full weapons unlocked though, so you'd still have to playthrough to get those. I prefer 2016 tbh, I hope the new Doom game is more in line with that, I think awhole bunch of indie FPS since eternals time have took what it was doing and amped it up already, so it will be interesting how the new game does things.
It's funny 'cause new Wolfenstein has the opposite problem. You probably want to play on lower difficulties (if you come to Wolfenstein because you want to mow down nazis). Higher difficulties expect you to have memorized the level layouts so you can do way, way more stealth kills than you would probably expect for Wolfenstein.
@@TheCrewExpendable They really dropped the ball with the most recent Wolfestien reboots, I do like the first one, but my issue was with the respawning, I remember just having enough and just ran through the bullets until I literary came across an enemy respawning spot, spawning out of thin air behind a wall, I just laughed to myself, the following games just became worse that I didn't even want to play them and now we are once again at a point where Wolfestien needs another reboot lol, a truly cursed franchise.
Vanquish is like a comfort food for me