Guard cancel into aim down sights shooting is the element you're missing here. You seem to have caught on to how good guard canceling is, but doing that trick will really elevate your play to the next level and make the mix of melee and shooting come together in a way that makes a lot of sense and explain why enemies in general stagger for a long amount of time in this game at times. It's a lot easier to do with aim assist and auto camera rotation turned off. To give an example, it's possible to do a basic combo on an enemy, and while they're stunned, guard cancel into ADS for massive damage in a quick and seamless motion. You can do this from parries as well by guard canceling after the parry attack followup and laying into them with weapon rounds of your choice. With weapons like the shotgun you can use this to blow off limbs and leave them open to a finisher, or if they have a delimbed leg, you can choose to leave them on the battlefield so they blow themselves and any enemies nearby up as well. The game is pretty flexible and interesting in how its systems interact. You actually can be way more aggressive and push the offense more than one might think due to how generous the game is with checkpoints and restocking heals and revives.
oh snap thank you for the tip!! I'm gonna try this out when I play last night. I had the feeling that mixing into the guns from melee had potential, but yeah I couldn't quite put it together yet, but I am def gonna try this out tonight :-)
@@TheElectricUnderground Yeah, it's essentially the main combat mechanic that carries over from Devil's Third. In that game it was essentially a basic technique in the multiplayer for players to stun an enemy with a melee attack and then followup with your gun for the kill. For example, hitting a dude with a sledgehammer and then unloading shotgun rounds into them while they're stumbling. Devil's Third was full of even more interesting and deep ways to interplay melee and guns in this way because most of it's melee combat was actually fighting game inspired and built around multiplayer (something which was impossible to appreciate in its rather poor single player campaign). But yeah, I was pretty happy playing this game and seeing that they found a way to translate just a few of that game's many unsung ideas and mechanics into a single player context.
@@drers25iI'm sorry but have you ever seen an action game telling you about cancel in the tutorial ? It will put mainstream audience off. The game let you learn to guard cancel with parry. You use guard to parry, and you can cancel your attack in order to parry. Since parry is the guard, it's the same thing.
@@micpangocos they need to feel their hobby is respected and dads girlfriends and friends are not gonna understand arcades they only understand movies, casual people is not going to give the opportunity to something so hardcore they want to WATCH not to PLAY.
The lead game designer on this project worked on Sekiro as a design assistant, which probably explains why the game features parrying as much as it does. While Itagaki is only mentioned under the Special Thanks section, two of the directors of NG2 & Devil's Third did work on this project, as well as a bunch of other ex-TN guys. You should try out the first proper action game that Soleil made a few years back: Samurai Jack Battle Through Time. That one did have Itagaki as an Advisor, as well as several others who now worked on W:D. It's a simple little AA action game, but it's very fun. I'm looking forward to the Space Runaway video!
Oh thanks for the explanation of the game's credits and staff my friend! That sekiro connection makes a lot of sense ha. I m excited to try the shmup in the game :-)
I bought Samurai Jack a ways back but only played it a couple weeks ago and I enjoyed it. Fun and Hard, even on normal. Liked how enemies increase in rank, quantity, and occurrence in harder difficulties.
Thank you for taking the time to THINK about and LEARN the game, and then offer a unique, perspective that goes deeper than a typical channel. Very refreshing! I am really enjoy this game (playing through Japanese Hard mode now) and will have to play around with the guard cancelling tech you’ve highlighted.
Oh yeah I'm really excited to try out Japanese Hard mode myself, I'm really curious to see where the changes in difficulty occur (damage, enemy count, etc)
Real talk: this isn't just an IGN problem, a lot of paid analysts (or RUclipsrs, tho they are not professionals) will look at a B-tier budget games and will not do their due diligence to give them a fair shot. If they don't vibe with it in the first 30 minutes, it's an easy target, and they can get away with trashing them, they will. It's much more profitable to them/the publishing site because polarization sells, and they can get an fast review out and they can move to the next thing and that means more content. On the other side, I'm glad the game is good! I was waiting for it because I actually liked Devil's Third even with its jank, so I'm glad to see Itagaki's team is still around and doing cool shit.
PS: the parry critique is even more ridiculous when you also consider that Revengeance (absolute banger of a game) is all about that parry mechanic and that still managed to get an 8.5
For sure Chato! So I see it as an issue on two fronts, you have the industry side, where the reviewers are in bed deeply with the publishers and basically doing marketing for them, and then you have the other front of the mass mob, which grab onto mainstream reviews and then steamroll the talking points out onto social media. And once that train starts moving, it's very hard to stop.
Best review I’ve seen in awhile. Other networks never touch on this subject but sometimes the jankiness in a game turns it into a classic. Love your analogy with melee because movement like this created a huge fan base. I think it will become a hidden gem, but I hope enough copies are sold so that publishers aren’t afraid to put out more games like this. This is the type of stuff I miss from the older generations. Great video as always 👍
for sure, though it would be interesting to tackle what some people view as jank. Wanted Dead does have some for sure, like the stim pack pickups or the dash attack randomly whiffing, but for the most part I also think people classify other elements as "jank" when really they are part of the game's design - like the way the guns work and the ammo count for example.
I played the game on hard difficulty, and once you unlock some of those skills and master the parrying, it becomes a cakewalk. There aren't a lot of enemy types, and they consistently use the same scream sound effect after you defeat them. The 5 bosses feel flat, with only two of them providing any real challenge. that being said, I was extremely disappointed with this game; the storyline is lackluster, and the bugs make the gameplay frustrating. Visually, the game feels outdated, and the optimization is severely lacking. To make matters worse, they're charging a full $60 price tag for a game that only offers 5-6 hours of mediocre gameplay. While the soundtrack may be enjoyable, it's not good enough to justify purchasing the entire game.
I m curious to see what Japanese hard mode introduces in terms of a difficulty boost, I'll be trying that later on. On the price as I said in the vid I agree that 60 is just too much. These days 60 brings this expectation of this massive stage after stage campaign, so I think 30 to 40 would be a better price point. I do like the graphics of the game, they aren't AAA studio tier, but I like the blood and the look of the levels, especially the casino. The boss fights are a bit lacking for sure, though it s gonna be interesting do no death runs as they do have some wild card moves that instakill. The problem I have that I explained in the vid is that all the complaints you mention here also apply directly to sifu, if not more so tbh. Especially sifu s graphics which are horrible. So how is sifu landing at a 9 / 10 and wanted dead is a 4? When it comes to action games a lot of the reviews are so subjective it's to the point of being incoherent. Whereas I would rate this game around a 7, and also place sifu around that score. But as it sits now we have sifu at near masterpiece and wanted dead at outright bad. Also I think the gun play in wanted dead adds a lot to the game, melee is only half of the story
@@TheElectricUnderground tbf, Sifu is $40, very well optimized, almost no bugs at launch, better graphics (imo, at least it can run on steam deck 60 fps at high settings), doesn’t have a cringe story and I played about 24 hours altogether
Thank you. Someone with Intelligence & class reviewing this beautiful game. Everyone begs for something different and challenging and when it comes they complain it doesn’t have the usual suspects of modern gaming. Hand holding/copy & pasting is killing games. Definitely got you a new fan brudda!!
Copy/paste, huh. You saying that's bad? So you must hate elden ring, the most recent high profile copy paste asset flip. Tell me again how many enemy types there were in this game sans bosses. That's right, 5. Only the ninjas had variation and it was only different levels of bullet sponginess. Get your head out.
Masahiro Sakurai has an interesting video highlighting the benefits of letting players break your game in certain ways. That came to mind during this excellent review.
Oh I've heard about this vid MoonDog. While I agree with the idea for sure, it is a bit ironic coming from Sakurai who, after seeing what was done in melee, went to far as to add a trip mechanic into brawl ha. The vid sounds really interesting though, maybe he makes some distinctions on what type of breaking he likes and doesn't.
@@TheElectricUnderground I love his series of videos, there is a lot to learn there. ... buuuuut I have also questioned many of his design choices such as the trip mechanic in Brawl. My friends and I had an explicit rule not to hit someone who was exposed from the trip!
When has IGN ever not been tripping? 😅This game really gave me some nice PS2-era AA-game vibes, which I'm definitely a fan of, so I'm glad to hear it's good! And hey, Devil's Third definitely deserved a second chance to shine, fascinating shitshow that it was. Once this game's on sale for like 40 or so I'll definitely jump in! What you're describing there about learning the mechanics reminds me of Galak-Z, some games really change _completely_ once the controls click with you. Love that moment.
No kidding hans, IGN have been tripping and falling down the stairs for years ha. And on the control moments, I love when that happens for games. Another example of that for me was with dead or Alive funny enough, when you understand what the game wants and the meta
Thanks Mark, we need you more and more in these days of low-skilled reviewers. I suspect, as in music media, a lot of favourable reviews for games are actually paid for.
absolutely touraline! When IGN did their 7/10 response video, they sort of hinted at being paid to do preliminary reviews by publishers and then probably follow up those preliminary reviews with some meetings on how to shore up a positive review. I'm excited to talk about it when i make the vid next month or so.
Reviews arent influential enough to get outright paid for. Advertising on the site and flying journalists to special events for games the most they do to pay for reviews. Theres no direct payment for anything.
Of course, steam, reddit, youtube are filled with paid boot suckers to manipulate how players should react because nowadays you need someone to actually think for you, your thoughts does not matter until you make sure someone is with you specially if it's an influencer
exactly, checkpoints have gone from a useful halfway marker in the stage to being required every minute, so players need to repeat gameplay if they fail. But then, if you are never punished for failing, does it even matter ha.
I still don't see how the cancel mechanic improves the game. Just seems like an extra step to make the game play like it normally should've been instead of an extra layer. It also doesn't help with enemy/encounter variety, the health system or move property. I'm glad to see a different opinion of the game, but don't feel the need to do another run of the game now :/
This topic comes up in melee a lot funny enough, but I'm a big fan of the cancel system. It's a way for the player to establish a rhythm and be able to connect moves together in interesting ways. A good way to think about this is the korean backdash in tekken. Why keep the korean backdash, which has a complicated input, when the devs could just add in a fast backwalk? Some games can do the fast backwalk well, but having that cancel element in the controls also adds some mindfullness to the controls that you can't get if you just allow players to hit whatever buttons whenever and flow automatically. Like autocombos in fighting games. Why not just have fighting games do autocombos instead of these manual combos? Learning combos takes time.
I am entirely unsurprised at two things: 1. IGN is a joke; and, 2. Itagaki requires skill from his audience. Great review! I'm excited to finally crack into this.
I honestly don't know what IGN were thinking with their review, it seems so half-hearted and dismissive that it feels like the reviewer had his mind made up before even playing. He even says in the review he was sick of the game by stage 2, which is like an hour into playing ha.
IGN just tosses reviews to whoever. In fact, most gaming "reviews" sites do that. It's too hard to find someone interested who will put the time in and give it a fair shake. I'd say about 80% of the time, when a good game receives a bad score, it's because the person they gave it to is resentful for having been handed the game.
Great review. I put in almost 14 hours into Wanted Dead and absolutely loved it. It has its flaws. But it was an extremely fun game. An adrenaline rush of high octane action. I loved its over the top Japanese anime presentation. As I'm more into the gameplay centric games. Find my self more drawn to the niche AA games, than the big budget AAA games. Personally I give Wanted Dead an 8/10. I do agree with how some of these major gaming outlets operate. There's also a lot of bias towards certain platforms. But that's another story. This game was never going to be favorable amongst mainstream media. Because of it's old school feel and low budget quality. Similar to a Suda51 game. The media seem more into the cinematic experience and open world games. Their take on how modern games should be. I must say that I do disagree on the Bayonetta 3 take. As Bayonetta 3 is a more polished game than Wanted Dead. But not only that, the gameplay in Bayonetta 3 or any of the Bayonetta games for that matter, is phenomenal. It's another AA very gameplay centric game.
HardcoreGamer (great name by the way) we have very similar tastes it sounds like :-) Yes the niche AA games are so much more interesting and exciting because they take way more risks and tend to be much less bloated. The philosophy of AAA games is volume over value, while AA games tend to be more focused for a variety of reasons, one of them I imagine is pure budget constraints ha.
Mark dropping the awesome honesty hammer as always! I Stopped reading and watching IGNs reviews years ago as it was clear their intentions weren’t to promote good games but to follow the mob and $$$.
Absolutely. What really shocked me with this 4/10 review of theirs was just how careless it was, like there were no stakes or need to explain that number. The reviewer just made some vague points and called it a day. It wasn't so much a hot take, it was a "I don't even care this game isn't worth my time" take.
@@TheElectricUnderground why does IGN still exist though, why people keep watching it, why is it so big? If for years already we know in a very obvious manner how incompetent and not caring even these people are. They are not even gamers.
@@stanislavkimov2779 Cus Too many idiots continue to give them clicks in general. People are too stupid, and there are not enough good people that know how ign really are compared to other reviewers for gaming. For being properly informed about IGN. Unlike us. We are too few and far between. Thus too big majority continue to give them darn continues clicks...
I think you’re wrong about Sifu. The best mechanic is the dodging while holding block. It’s not as technical or deep as guard cancels, but pulling it off as apposed to dashing away or parrying makes you feel like Jackie Chan dipping under punches and jumping over leg sweeps.
Agreed. I’m very bad at parrying, so I hardly ever use it, yet I can complete Sifu’s levels without dying and almost never get hit. So I was a bit confused when he said Sifu is just parry parry parry… Maybe he should give it another try 😂
Great review man! btw, the game was directed by Hiroaki Matsui who also was co-director of Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 and actually was the one who came up with its battle system and even Ryu's movements!
bro. people hating on this game are tripping. i had no idea what this game was. it was just in the steam store. i thought maybe it was like dmc from the trailer. but it wasnt. it was hard af. it seems janky because you're not used to the controls and you don't understand the game yet. i am telling you, it feels good and it is fluent once you get good.
@@TheElectricUnderground i realize it seems i was directing it towards you. i'm agreeing with everything you said and thats me saying that to the people hating.
I bought this game on release, played for 20 minutes, hated that it wasn't Ninja Gaiden, called it a piece of shit, refunded, and moved on. Then I came across this video like a month ago, put the game on my wishlist, and bought it on sale. I've been methodically playing it with what you said in mind, the guard cancelling and everything and I realize now that yeah, I was not fair to this game, and kept running up to every enemy trying to Ryu Hayabusa my way into every encounter and dying. Now that I'm playing properly I see that, despite the kusoge jank it's actually pretty damn fun. I already am looking forward to how my abilities will shape up on another playthrough. Thanks for making this video and making me realize I was being a shithead, I would've missed out on this one. You're one of my favorite action game youtubers.
Dude! Thank you! This is exactly what’s necessary! People that understand games and that like diving deep and dissecting games. Als, you’re on point about the checkpoints issue, a lot handholding sort of makes me lose focus, I also like challenging games!
This game is already in the hall of fame alongside with: Lollipop Chainsaw, Shadows of the Damned, Left Alive,Binary Domain, The Darkness and Evil West. LOVED YOUR REVIEW MAN!
I remember playing Binary Domain a decade ago on X360 and didn't think much of it, but I keep hearing glimpses of it here and there in various more interesting gaming reviewers and essayists, I also see the steam rating is surprisingly high nowadays, I think it's time to give it a shot. What makes it interesting/special in your opinion?
I wish modern games would put these advanced mechanics, like guard canceling and so on, in a sort of "advanced tutorial". I think it would help opening them up to a bit of a wider audience and protect them a little from the superficial criticism of reviewers and players who are not willing to put in the time. Some fighting games do that already, that I'm aware, but those that I know are by some larger studios. Nothing wrong, then, with requiring more skill than what I have to actually execute. Assuming that the average player should "discover" those mechanics themselves is a bit unrealistic, and I don't think most people will go online looking for an in depth mechanics guide before playing a game, or lab. Regarding the price, I often feel videogames are being priced too low. I'm absolutely NOT talking about stuff from AAA studios, but often the ratio of money/time for a game is much better than, for example, for a movie.
IGN translation: "It's a 4/10 because the devs didn't pay us enough for it to be higher and the fans won't send us death threats if we rate it down so who gives a sheet?"
I hate accessibility bullshit in today's games. The checkpoint systems in the middle of intense encounters is really killing gaming for the hardcore crowd. I love some of the big blockbusters like the Last of Us or the new God of Wars but man, imagine how much better these would be without this crap. The new GOW was ruined by accessibility- every. single. solution. to. every damn puzzle is TOLD to us BEFORE we can even attempt it! Every boss battle has checkpoints You'd think the developers who put so much resources and effort into their game wouldn't want to something that universally is considered to make the game worse ..like ruining puzzles .. but "accessibility features" is the big buzzword and they're getting reviewed higher from the likes of IGN for it so here we are ...
Yes exactly CD, and they do this because otherwise unskilled journalists are going to complain and doc the game's score. So we end up with games that are so handholdy that you can beat them without every having to repeat a section or learn the levels.
Haven't played this myself so I might be totally off base here, but having to guard cancel after every move sounds rather annoying to be honest. It also looks insanely clunky. So clunky I'm not entirely sure whether this weird looking way to play was really intentional or people just found a way to brute force themselves past the system's limitations. Also: don't you think it's also on the devopers to teach a mechanic like that when it is that crucial to enjoying the game?
I understand that point of view but don’t think that is necessary. It might be the nineties gamer in me but I kind of miss when games didn’t blatantly tell you everything. Some of the best games of all time, Mario 64, Ketsui, Battle Garrega, lots of 2D beat ‘em ups…. All have mechanics in them that are never explicitly told to the player that once you learn them the game becomes much much better. I guess it just depends on what kind of games you like. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s bad
@@CrowScareify I'm a 90s gamer myself, but I still think key mechanics should be at the very least mentioned. Especially if they're so counter intuitive due to similar games having gone in entirely opposite directions for decades now. I mean I'd love to trade in most of these super high risk AAA games for more smaller scale titles that can afford to be a little different myself, but unless those titles are willing to extend the occasional olive branch to folks not hardened by the trials and tribulations of oddball PS2 titles, they are just destined to fail and we'll be once again left with the slow trickle of overpriced repackagings of arcade games from the 90s.
What's funny is I don't know if you have played nioh before, but it literally has this exact same mechanic with the stamina pulse system, you press the pulse button after every attack and combo, and people love it. It is literally the exact same thing, just not tied to a meter. Why did team ninja do this? To add purpose and precision to inputs and then rewarding that precision. A lot of old school action games have stuff like this, the reason why is because it creates a sense of purpose and rhythm on the inputs, or simply how the system fits together mechanically. The game can absolutely function without you knowing about the mechanic, but when you tap into it you gain more freedom with your moves. All action games have stuff like this, just usually reviewers at least pretend to understand them ha. Devil may cry has all of it's crazy cancels (check out the shotgun cancel in dmc3, it's amazing) and even bayo, which is mostly automated, has free step dodge. Ninja gaiden has block buffering and some pretty crazy moves like the graveyard spin that can stunlock some bosses.
@@TheElectricUnderground point is nioh made damn sure you knew about that mechanic. It also looked hella cool too and you didn't have to use it between singular slashes either.
The air-juggling comment sort of reminds me of their infamous Shin Megami Tensei V review. They basically spent the review complaining that it wasn’t Persona.
I know it's a comment that is useful in that you get insight into what the reviewer is actually expecting, but at the same time it shows that the reviewer is obviously not trying to understand the game's mechanics because air juggles in the game sounds pretty absurd to me. Why doesn't hitman blood money have air juggles lol
That's what I'm saying. Like don't review a game if that's not your wheelhouse of video games. And I see that a lot in reviews. That's why I don't even listen to their ass. If I was a reviewer. You won't catch me reviewing turn based rpg's or RTS's. I wouldn't know what I'm talking about.
It's not a bad game, it has a lot of fun stuff you can discover that feels earned, the overall flow of combat is nice cause enemies die quickly and you quickly run & dash from one to another, the pacing/level design makes it really enjoyable to come back to, but I'm a lot harsher on it than you are since I think it's very sloppy & lacks focus even after playing it a good bit. The cancels + mobility make it feel decently dynamic and spacing based, but the counters are still too OP and encourage fishing - why fight groups when you can get a single counter & slice them all up? You can cancel attacks but they are mostly just different ways of doing damage. They don't interact with the enemies beyond doing hitstun/interrupting attacks, the ones that *do* interact with them like the run kick are awkward to perform & can't be worked into combos afaik. As a result, I just resorted to dash attack -> backdash -> dashattack canceling a lot since it's easy & effective. I wish the cancels were more varied, guard cancels are fun but they also break the flow of combos unless you do them insanely quickly, and a lot of your attacks are parts of strings which sucks. Some other interesting attacks seemingly cannot be canceled at all (charged attack, would be a fun combo finisher). The gunplay also feels more like its own "mode" rather than a part of combat, cause you can't really use it to for example transition between parts of your strings, or do any unique cancels with it. Vanquish did that sorta thing a lot better despite having a really boring melee system. On top of that, most shooting enemies past stage 1 can be countered so I found very little reason to use guns aside from some very specific sections (stage 2 grenade launcher dudes). Enemies could be a fuckton more aggressive too, they feel like Batman enemies in a game that's much better & more open ended, rather than the glorious coked up chimps from Ninja Gaiden. Lastly it just doesn't feel too good to play. Hannah animations often end abruptly or lack strong key poses (pistol cancels feel like a non attack, finishers also suffer from this), most attacks have this really nasty slowmo effect that feels terrible and breaks the intended motion of the animations. Finisher activation is delayed for whatever reason (enemy state transitions?), there's too much soft locking & magnetism going on, it's like I'm playing an AAA game. A sequel/spiritual successor would do wonders, even though it'll never happen...
Also heh nice to see that IGN's hatred of more sparse checkpoints persists even after they've seemingly been bullied out of it by Dark Souls fans. A very small hint of consistency among the clusterfuck of clashing opinions usually present in their reviews, and suggests what they actually want from action games :)
I agree with a lot of your points bog for sure, though I'm probably less bothered by a nice and chunky parry system (I think we debated this in elden ring ha) as long as it isn't forced and completely linear like Sifu. One thing about this review that makes it more contextual is the review environment where poor wanted dead is getting absolutely obliterated by most reviewers, so I ended up needing to spend the majority of the review pointing out the games strengths, because it's an interesting situation where players need to understand what it does right first, and then in that framework can start digging into possible improvements. I do think though that if they make a sequel (i really hope they do), a lot of these more nuanced improvements can be made. For example I do with the crowds were more aggressive like in Ninja Gaiden, the devs were probably nervous to push the melee combat that far. I'm holding out hope that maybe the japanese hard move might increase enemy aggressiveness and give out fight tickets like the Fight N Rage dev does.
@@TheElectricUnderground Think we bickered about parries at least 10 times now in different contexts : D But yeah that's the big issue - whether a review is positive or negative doesn't mean much, as long as the points are thought out. With IGN, even when our conclusions are similar, I can't agree with them cuz they never explain anything.
@@boghogSTG @The Electric Underground My feelings are a bit between yours. I also think fishing for counters is just too damn powerful and encouraged. The fact that they decide only one enemy can melee you at a time, unlike Ninja Gaiden's "give no quarter" attitude means repositionning is not really essential as long as you're not in the crosshair of too many long range foes. A parry leads to arm dismemberement of many threats, and a gun counter leads to the iai stance slash that cut the legs, both of those reward with an invulnerable finishing move. So just baiting and punishing is probably the optimal strat, from normal to japanese hard. Advanced threats won't die from just that but they discourage proactive play even more. At the same time, there are definitely more ways to play than what you tend to think at first glance. Bog Hog says gunplay feels like its own mode and I disagree, because my way to play this game is often to stun first, with parries/sword attack/dodge attack, then block cancel, then a good shotgun blast or a big salvo point-blank range. It's crazy effective DPS-wise! I also like to quickly deals some damage with the AR as they come towards me. Transitionning from gunplay to swordplay is really smooth and makes you feel like you're always active despite the emphasis on punishes. It's a bit sad you can't instantly select your gun with left or right (since you only carry two) and have to cycle through them... This kind of oversight is jarring. I really enjoy the level design. It's straightforward and filled with enemies. Those long gauntlets against what seems at time like an infinite number of reinforcements reminds me a lot of Razor's Edge. I'm not surprised many people dislike that, but after the highly diluted Hi-Fi Rush and especially Bayonetta 3, it's so refreshing! I dig that so much! I'm going against many reviews but, to me, the checkpoints felt really on point as well. I don't mind only 5 levels but the difficulty options change nothing in terms of enemies distribution. It should have! There are no real additional challenges to undertake after that as well, like all those ninja trials you can enjoy in the Ninja Gaiden. Add to that the lack of additional melee weapons/characters, the limited moveset, the few enemy types... I understand why many people feels it should have been a $40 game. So, mixed feelings... Ultimately, I still have so much fun playing it and I'm glad this kind of games still come out from time to time.
@@KrieGor27 Oh yeah I saw someone's comment over here earlier where they mentioned abusing lengthy hitstun to sneak gunshots in, think I'll have to retract that crit once I test it out cause if it's effective, that shit sounds slick. Will be really handy for the ninja dudes since they dodge backdash cancel attacks like nothing. The levels keep me coming back the most I think, it's crazy how just having no filler BS in between fights is enough to compensate for so much of the game's awkwardness. Japanese hard mode's a let down for sure, I'm kinda hoping they update the game some more but I think that's a lost cause sadly... Also, you might know - doesn't NG2 have enemy turns as well? My impression is that enemies take turns but also do shit in "passive mode", and the turn order can get a little funky sometimes so it's not as blatant and predictable (maybe it's set per enemy group? idk)
I was going to make a joke the other day that games should add a mode called journalist mode, where the game literally plays itself ... and then I realized journalists would absolutely use a mode like this lol
Thankful for such an in-depth and well done YT channel that informs so well. I’m wondering which to grab first between Wanted: Dead and Gungrave: GORE now!
Character action games typically have historically always been snubbed in reviews by mainstream critics. I don’t even wanna say it’s because these critics are “bad” it’s just that character action games that aren’t like the ones you mentioned ask a lot out of the player which from your opinion and others is definitely something WE appreciate but other reviewers do not really make the distinction of.
My bro send Ms this review after I keep tell him this game is more then what it seems. Then after hearing you my dude you got a sub. Keep up the good work we need good reviewers like you my friend.
That's awesome to hear Tlaloc! I'm glad my review was useful in clarifying what's happening with the game's design and so forth. That's one of my goals on this channel is to discuss the actual design and gameplay of games, rather than the surface elements like story or whatever ha.
Agreed victor. I was surprised Stephanie Joosten wasn't the main character honestly. I was thinking that you play the game as essentially Quiet from MGS5 would be really cool, thank god for pc mods ha.
The problem with IGN and most of these gaming review “outlets” is that they’re hilariously out of touch with the majority of gamers. This game is fun as hell once you get the hang of it.
Honest review man, subed for that. When I saw the ING revew I had the exact same thooughts : it was a long rant about why the reviewer didin't like the game. I think this game will become a cult clasic in the future.
If guard canceling is the key to understanding the gameplay, shouldn't that be communicated in the tutorial? I have noticed a trend on this channel and in the comments of blaming the players, but the developer has a responsibility to properly convey their mechanics, too. In many games, you would cancel out with a dash or a roll, not by blocking, so I wouldn't say this was particularly intuitive. You didn't even pick it up on your first play, and you're far from a casual player.
There is not a lot of action game that tells you how to cancel in tutorial, because it will put mainstream audience off. However you can learn this mecanics through tutorial. The game tells you how to parry. You need to guard, and it works while you're attacking. Since parry is the guard, you can guard while attacking ^^
That is so true about checkpoints; even in Arkham Asylum I was getting good at the Poison Ivy fight in hard mode after getting bodied in the first phase, but the checkpoint kind of negated the need to get good.
Yeah modern devs seemed to have gotten a memo at some point that demanded no longer having meaningful checkpoints, now it's just the game constantly pushing you forward. I can't remember which game it was exactly, but I remember there was a more mainstream game with boss phase checkpoints and so to practice the early phase of the boss, I had to let him kill me before I caused his phase change ha. Otherwise I would be locked out of that phase until the next run. I know for sure I did this in ZeroRanger, but that game just needs a practice mode.
Bruh, I stopped listening to IGN when they reviewed Anarchy Reigns and they gave it a con for having "locked characters" .it's been re-rereviewed by someone else, but they still gave it a 6 If I recall. I really don't even listen to reviews anymore because everyone has such high expectations that don't really make sense or unrealistic. I'd rather look up gameplay, see what some people are saying about it mechanically, but if it's something I'm generally interested in I'll play it for myself. I brought the collection edition and do not regret my purchase. After my first play through I immediately went into NG+
This reminds me to Shin Megami Tensei V reviews. They were not as bad as this game, but most of the points were as well "this game is not like that game" type of thing, instead of analyzing the game itself. This kind of reviews are unseless to me, if you are not engaging with the game and what the developer is intending to do, the review is mostly a "game vs game" thing, not an analysis.
I agree it's important to give a game some time and research to better understand it. But I also think the developers have to bear some responsibility for how players are responding to it since it seems the developers aren't explicitly teaching what is presumably a core game mechanic like the guard cancel which is going to affect the perception of the whole experience. For a complex genre blend like this you probably do just want to onboard/teach all the complexities of playing the game so that the player is armed with the knowledge they need to have fun with the execution, not just struggle and come to the wrong conclusions. I'll definitely check this game out when it's on sale or on a subscription service. Seems like an interesting game to at least try.
This reminds me a lot of Devil's 3rd as a lot of the key people involved in that game made this game too. All of the skilless reviewers wrote that game off as clunky too. Once you understand how the combat mechanics work in that game though, you can do some really incredible things. A bunch of ninjas can jump out at you while running on the rooftops and you can throw your sword into one of them, use an uzi on another, get in close and use another's katana on them, then use it to hack through some others. Unfortunately once all of the internet drones determine something sucks, it's nearly impossible to get through to them.
exactly david, that's one of my strong motivations in this vid to discuss my disagreements with the IGN review, because once that internet opinion train gets rolling it's nearly impossible to stop.
Wow Mark amazing review. I've always loved your reviews. Shump's or other games it doesn't matter. This looks bloody amazing honestly. I'm balls deep into a old MMO I got back into (dungeons & dragons online, it has a reincarnation system where once you hit level cap you can either stay at 'endgame' and raid/grind gear or you can do a 'true reincarnation' and go back to level 1 but you get a past life feat which gives you a little bonus there are 15 classes that each stack 3 times so thats 45 past lives. There are new racial past lives with 14 races stacking 3 times....so tons of stuff to do in DDO) since nov. I've even stop playing DDP SDOJ ( I know I know I need to get back on the grind, but I do listen to stage 3's music AI extended and on repeat when I grind out stuff so im kinda shumping...I guess :P ) Great review as always, great breakdown and explanations as always. IGN lost all credibility about 10 years ago during 'gamergate' and labeling them as hate crimers -rolls eyes-. They have been nothing but a triple A shill rag for a long long long time. I sure hope that Outzone on steam gets fixed soon. I watched Jaimes 3-all where he listed all the mistakes...its a duzey.
Yeah IGN are essentially the promotional wing of the larger studios, they don't even seem to have some kind of core outlook on what makes a game good. They just ride along with whatever they need to say
Just put in an order for a T-Shirt to support the channel 😁 I was looking for the link in the description in this video but ended up finding it in the previous upload
totally agree that reviewers are obligated to explore a game’s systems, but personally i consider it a major flaw when i have to spend time in the lab to “unlock” base-level enjoyment of a game. to me the experimentation to figure this kind of stuff out isn’t interesting; it’s just trial and error testing possible interactions. if i want to figure some shit out i’ll go play a puzzle game where the designer actually cared about making the figuring out process fun. this is one reason why leaderboards with replays are great. they’re a natural way for players to learn about the unintuitive (often unintended) tricks without tedious testing. i rarely see anyone else mention this issue, so i assume some people enjoy the lab process itself. and that’s fine i guess. although i suspect most players learn these kinds of tricks from wikis, youtube, etc. which i think is also less than ideal.
I do get your point here. But the problem is that this is going to be an element of pretty much any action game / gameplay focused game. For example even in an fps, you could quick scope people in the older call of duty games and it was a very powerful technique. The devs may not have even intended for you to be able to do this, but it's really fun and powerful. Same thing with melee, half the stuff you do in melee is probably outside the realm of developer intention. In the case of Wanted Dead, it does seem to me that guard canceling is clearly intended (NG games always have some sort of guard play), but I don't think the technique is actually required to beat the game or anything, but it opens up the gameplay a lot. So as a reviewer I think this is a classic case of why reviewers should be at least somewhat skilled players, otherwise they have no ability to evaluate a game beyond what is spoon fed to them. So what do we end up with? Games that hold the players hand all day and spoon feed every mechanic. Otherwise your game is going to get a 4/10 because reviewers won't even attempt to try and play it beyond a very basic understanding.
@@TheElectricUnderground i'm totally with you about the reality of how action games work. i just think designers should signal the existence of tech they're aware of. it doesn't have to be spoonfeeding; there can be a nice middle ground, like leaderboards with replays. replays don't trivialize the testing process, but they give you a nudge in the right direction if you're paying attention. i don't have a specific suggestion for Wanted: Dead because i haven't played it, but it sounds like a small hint about the guard cancels would have gone a long way. for IGN and the like, it would make a huge difference if they gave games a bit of time to breathe instead of rushing out a clueless day 1 (or earlier) review. they could see the community discovering strats, revisit the game with those strats in mind, and write their reviews accordingly. that's really the only way they can accurately represent the casual audience they're writing for, because let's face it, IGN readers aren't about to lab shit either. of course that's never going to happen because they gotta get those day 1 clicks. i'm just glad you've got a different reviewing style going on here for those of us who like gameplay in our games (imagine that). even though my tastes don't perfectly align with yours, i find your reviews infinitely more valuable than any mainstream reviews.
I like your reviews, you do a good job. Well done for calling out poor reviews with lazy, flawed argumentation. It's very easy but dangerous and damaging to put out generic, superficial reviews. Loads of these professional critics shouldn't even be in their position.... Many are waaaay out of their depth. It's very rare to come across mainstream reviews that offer value and insight to the reader/viewer.
That's a really good point Hoffmann. I'm not sure exactly what the qualifications are for being a game reviewer with these outlets is (probably college or something lol), but being skilled and knowledgeable at games is def not one.
Yeah sorry about that I was just glancing through the marketing, it sounds like they were name dropping him so I just sort of assumed he was part of the project. He's mentioned in the credits apparently but not a director.
I don't remember exactly how i found your channel/videos, but I'm glad I did. I otherwise wouldn't have known about Wanted: Dead. I've put over 40 hrs into this game w/ 9 or 10 playthroughs. For me, it's easily GOTY. Its just so unique for this era of gaming. It's definitely like another Vanquish type of game, especially with how aggressive you can be in the game and with it innovating the third person shooter genre. Aside from your coverage of this game, I enjoy your video discussions on the actual meat and potatoes of games, their mechanics and design, and how gaming got to where it is now. I had idea of why before, but now I have a much better picture and a better framework/philosophy to work with if I ever decide to make a game of my own.
If a game is unique then to most it's instantly 'terrible' as it doesn't remind them of something else. Review scoring is absolutely nonsense right now..... Buy the game and stick with it, figure out what you need to play it and most of all enjoy it...👍
yes, we need all our games to play the same and be as homogenized as possible, that way journalists can hussle through their reviews without having to think about the game play and then can be free to talk about story telling and whatever else they are interested in ha.
Once again, another validating review. I always appreciate your perspective on these action games. I've been hyped for this game for a while, then it gets the poor/mixed reception, I get it anyway, and just absolutely love the game. It feels like this cycle repeats so much these days to the point where I wonder how many reviewers actually like action games. I just want these kinds of games to do well enough to keep them being made. As far as the gameplay, it's just sick and I love the hybrid aspect of the combat. The shooting is very similar to Kill Switch (which was the influence for Gears of War). That was a ps2-era game I loved that this reminded me of so much with the ammo management, cover fire, grenades, and emphasis on headshots. The swordplay is good and I really like how the pistol operates. I liked customizing it for max stopping power so it's very reliable for creating openings. There are all kinds of little quirks you can do things like the diving slash and canceling.
absolutely liteOwl! I don't think many mainstream reviewers like or get action games. Their idea of a good action game is one that is mostly an rpg with some action elements to it. if you want your action game to be liked by the mainstream, add a stamina bar and rpg mechanics ha. I don't mind some action rpg (like Nioh), but I really wish this wasn't the new standard. Sifu, for example, is actually an action RPG in some sense with its stamina bars and so forth.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Now I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Valkyrie Elysium. Soleil made it and it was received pretty negatively as well. I want to pick up Wanted: Dead soon, especially because its price is $29.99 now.
I'm so glad you made this video because I was intrigued by this game but didn't really feel like reviews were giving me a good idea. I was dying for the Electric Underground analysis of the game. Don't necessarily have time now but it's definitely going on the list. You said a lot of interesting stuff so hopefully I can keep from rambling here. I'll actually defend the pricing here for two reasons. One, as you suggest, everybody knows that games are "supposed" to go on deep discount, so some buffer has to go in. And also, even if the game is lower-budget and not larded with filler, it has to make it work with a much smaller audience of people who this kind of hardcore experience appeals to, so it can't necessarily be cheaper just because of that. I've defended a lot of games for this reason... just not sure they can happen, jank and all, at the lower prices people think they should be going for. Your points on reviews are also good. I will say, it is a bit unfair that we think of it as "the IGN review" rather than the review of whoever wrote it -- the jokers left behind at NintendoLife probably wouldn't review shmups consistently with you but that doesn't make your reviews hypocritical. But ultimately, yeah, reviewers just want to get through games and resent things that are too different, and they definitely do want to use their opportunity for a "safe" punching bag to get out some frustrations (very familiar phenomenon to anyone who loves Sonic the Hedgehog). I think they also have trouble really understanding, let alone articulating, what it is they like. Sparse checkpoints are bad... unless it's a Soulslike where they're awesome even though they're extra punishing. Or Returnal making you do the whole game over is cool even though other games we hate not having enough checkpoints. Games being hard is sometimes good and sometimes bad without much why or wherefore. Similar point to what you said about Sifu, I suppose.
I'm really happy to hear when people want for me to review a game :-) as I do try to provide some insights that don't typically come up on regular gaming outlets and so forth ha. Yeah no shame with bookingmarking this one and keeping and eye out for a nice sale. I think the game is really good, but $60 is a bit steep all things considered.
Great video. I had a feeling you were going to enjoy this game, the same as I did. And I also agree with your thoughts on reviews and how they kneejerk. Additionally, believe it or not mostly Agents of Mayhem(on Chief of Executions) and to much lesser extent because of all of the bugs... Saints Row 2022(on Boss). Agents of Mayhem especially, showed me a lot of what TPS brawler hybrids potentials could possibly be, and the constant reminder of trying to discover and understand the most of what a game is attempting to offer and convey, on a gameplay mechanics standpoint. Even if both those games aren't the greatest, or have the strongest reputation. Though both of those games are more gunplay oriented over melee, and their sandbox nature has them both struggle with focus. Lastly, besides these things, I have already learned 20+ years ago, that reviewers don't ever dip into gameplay nuance, and the reviews never show that the authors understand past the superficial layer. Think about any fighting game releases (as you mentioned DOA in this video), anyone that is, or has been a competitor at any point, looks at reviews for the games as jokes with very little credence. Action and action/RPGs, classic arcade genres, etc should be approached similarly, until publications can show they at least have competency and knowledge of nuance and prove it. Until then, as far as action and action RPGs are concerned, we aren't going to see the last of the reviews using other games as the descriptor ("this game is like DMC or Ninja Gaiden with guns." "Oh this game is just like Dark Souls or a soulslike") - as a copout to avoid nuance of mechanics and to meet games on their own terms. If you read this far, my bad for the long-winded rant, but your videos make for great discussion.
great comment my friend! I really like your point on fighting game reviews because as an FGC player back in the day, it was funny to see reviewers latching onto really trivial stuff about the game in their reviews and then not ever actually commenting on the meta of how the game played. So it was always down to talking to other players to get a feel for if a game played well or not ha.
@@TheElectricUnderground absolutely, and what happens often is that outlets and other less invested discourse, will almost speak in code to describe a game. As in, they'll name drop another game or adjacent superficially, to describe the subject matter, attempting to put the reverence and onus on the reader or listener for the value or credibility(based on their own personal knowledge or experience with whatever is name dropped), and dodge accountability or responsibility to articulate or describe further in detail themselves. It's like trying to play an "IYKYK"(If You Know You Know) card, but they don't actually know! And can dodge having to prove that they know anything, by passing the hot potato to the end reader, on the shoulders of the sentiment of the coded name drops.
I have a feeling that the IGN reviewer expected a certain game, and also liked that SIFU was forthcoming with it's tech/mechanics whereas Wanted doesn't tell you. Evident in that you had to experiment to find these cancels (Which makes me think Wanteds mechanics were unintentional). Also SIFU has a less budget presentation. That being said, I'm glad this game isn't as ass as reviews made it out, much more willing to try it after your review!
Yeah I think that is the reason why. Sifu told the reviewer exactly what to do when, and that made him a very happy boy. On the presentation though, I cannot emphasize more how much I prefer wanted dead's visuals over sifu's. Sifu's art style looks like a cheap pixar movie, and I hate the way pixar stuff looks. I find it disgusting in its bland disney look. Wanted dead isn't team ninja tier, but at least it has some edge and some gore.
I will be repeating myself, but this is the same case as Star Fox Zero. Too bad people judge games based on their own habits and what they are used to, instead of adapting to the game and getting the best out of it. Thanks for this review, I will definitely check it out since I loved Ninja Gaiden 1/2. What would you say is the best game from Team Ninja- do you like Ninja Gaiden more than lets say Nioh series? And which game would you say has the deepest combat ever thats hard to master but super rewarding? For me I loved Astral Chain, Wonderful 101, Vanquish, but even with all the hate I thought Bayonetta 3 had a great gameplay and I had no issue as most who complained since juggling with the Demons is something most didnt do.
Came back to watch this review again. You are spot on with your take on not writing off action games too early. Particularly ones with a pedigree. Going to finally jump into this gem
14:06 the irony here is that Sifu is EXACTLY as you describe wanted dead: my first play through I beat using the avoid mechanic and dodging, until the final boss where you have to parry
Yeah I think i'll need to make a topic video soon defending checkpoints, because there seems to be this memo going around that checkpoints need to take place every 30 seconds ha
This game caught my eye since day 1, I'm gonna buy it as soon as I can. IGN can't be taken seriously since ages ago; there isn't a single real gamer in their whole staff.
agreed augusto. I always get the impression that IGN are a bit embarrassed that they started as a game review outlet, and they want to spring board away from gaming as soon as possible ha. In their reviews for games they actually rarely discuss gameplay, instead much more interested in talking about social media trends.
Reminds me of Robotron 2084 where the game punishes you if you try to hog the edges, punishes you for staying around the same spot and punishes for just focusing on the strongest enemy. You have to kind of switch between different strategies all the time.
yes and I love that style of design, I think it's great. One of the biggest bummers was when I was playing rainbow six 3 on the xbox and realized that I could pretty much beat the game by just slowly and steadily peeking around corners.
Dude I’m so glad I found this video and I’m so glad games like this still exist. I’ve been watching your videos a lot and it feels good to relate when it comes to opinions on gaming. Definitely gonna check this game out, can’t believe I never even heard of it
The tutorial should have explained the guard cancel system at least in its most basic form. Usually this kind of thing is a bug in modern games, some oversight that would be used by speedrunners, so if a player inadvertently stumbles on the guard cancel, they're very likely to think they've found a glitch rather than the actual way to play the game. It even looks a little bit wonky. I think (I may be wrong!) even Dark Souls tells you explicitly you can roll through attacks in the tutorial. That is extremely important, because most games would want you to roll away from attacks, but Dark Souls wants you right next to the enemy, rolling through the attacks. Games should give you a hint on what you're expected to do to play them, especially now that modern audiences have been trained to follow what the game tells them. It doesn't need to hold your hand and list every single move and every in-depth mechanic, but there should be a mention, like you should be required to do one guard cancel in the tutorial and there should be a text box saying "Try and experiment more to see what other move combinations are possible!"
IGN: We have a Skill Issue. 4/10 After getting used to the checkpoint system, I found it incredibly fun. I hate doing the comparison, but it reminded me of first playing Dark Souls, where the game intentionally forces you to unlearn conventions of modern gaming that simplify everything to cater to the player. The Police Station was where it clicked, in the section where you go through the training arena, fight a Ninja, through a bunch of brown ninjas, the grenade throwing brute, then you realize you're still not done and still have to fight through a section of office space which includes ANOTHER brute, I knew the game was not pulling any punches with the challenge. And it felt like some old school gaming where the game really challenged you. Most memorable game of 2023 by far.
I get what you're saying about the sparser checkpoints creating tension but poorly done this can backfire and create a scenario where the player is forced to play through mundane sections of a level or parts they already mastered just to get a try at a trickier/harder/more challenging/trial and error/bs segment. This can get incredibly tedious, not because the hard part is hard but because the parts before it are long and easy and become a slog. I feel like checkpointing has a lot of nuance to it that games often miss to look into. I'd be a fan of games using dynamic or smarter checkpointing more often. For example, Crash 4 is tough af but at times the game throws you a bone and makes one of the "?" crates into a checkpoint crate if you die several times during a section. This doesn't hurt more skillful players but lets players who are still learning get through the game while malding less. I wanna play the challenging parts of the game and practice those, not do parts I already know how to pass over and over to then get trolled or "gotcha momented".
Players mastering checkpoints is a problem but I think it doesn't happen that often - usually players just get kinda ok at it and repeat those ok at best strats even if there's a lot more they could do, optimize, discover, etc. The problem there is tunnel vision - when you're so damn focused on a goal & frustrated, everything else standing in between you & the goal feels like a chore, even if it's really engaging otherwise. It's a difficult problem to solve but I suppose a way to go about it is to tie stage optimization to your power level when facing the boss or whatever end level challenge waits for you. ...Or just borrow from shmups and use practice modes, which solve everything perfectly ;)
@@boghogSTG Ok, by mastering I don't mean absolutely pixel perfect optimal. I mean "can do without dying consistently and reach the next part with full resources" basically in a neutral state. So that there'd be little to no difference starting from that point vs starting from the beginning. Yes, tunnel vision can be a thing but often this isn't the case. Take another example of Crash 4: There are a few boxes to break before a hard section starts. You gotta break those boxes every time you attempt the hard part. This isn't difficult, they're sitting right there but you gotta do it every try. This gets tedious without adding much challenge at all. Could you elaborate on the optimization part because I don't think I understand what you mean. Another way to get around this would be quick saving/loading I guess but that comes with its own pros and cons and the design needs to fit it.
@@HighLanderPonyYT A good example would be something like a really deep racing game - there might be a hard turn at the end of the track which always gets you, but it rarely makes the previous parts of the track unimportant because any miliseconds you get from them can then compensate for any losses you have on that one hard turn. And if you do win, you will win with a bigger margin/beat your pb. The reason trying to do better doesn't matter to you is cause that's not your goal. You're trying to beat the boss, and whether or not you clear that level quickly, stylishly, efficiently, that's all meaningless details. So devs can either leave you alone with your goal by giving extra checkpoints/practice modes, OR they could try to align your goals in a way where you'll actually care about whatever small gains you get during the level. This already sorta exists in some ways like having more healing items/lives/health for the boss if you do well on a level, but it's minimal. Ofc this probably doesn't apply to Crash 4's boxes if there's really just no way of doing it faster/better in some way.
@@boghogSTG Aight, I think I get it now, thx! This seems to boil down to designing around perfection vs designing around just (stage) progression. I do like when the difficulty or tension asks you to engage with the game more and interact with its mechanics more intensely. I like that part. I already explained the part I dislike. lol A lot of this affects and has to do with level flow and pacing probably, too.
@@HighLanderPonyYT Yeah ideally the perfection element could feed into the progression element, so time spent repeating the same stuff would feel fruitful. But yeah it requires games with depth, there's only so much optimization you can squeeze out of a retro Castlevania game, or one of those fucking Dark Souls elevators :|
From my perspective, basically what you're describing here is akin to the weapon-switching mechanic in Doom Eternal. For those who aren't familiar, switching weapons in DE cancels the reload time, making you basically unstoppable against even the most high-level enemies. When that game launched, everyone was whining about the Marauder and how cheap he was (myself included), and if you follow the tutorial verbatim, he IS a pain in the arse to fight. However, set up your quick-switch correctly (typically ballista/super shotgun) and he becomes one of the most fun encounters, so much so that they doubled down in the DLC with a dual Marauder fight.
Oh that s awesome! I love reload tech! Another fun one that no one cares about is that you can cancel the reload animation of guns in read dead revolver too, makes shotgun and rifle so much better
A major update dropped a few days ago that reworks the entire skill tree along with some of the moves and weapon balancing. Any plans to cover it for your channel?
I pulled an all nighter for maybe 4 or 5 hours, then apparently the next day I boot up the game and I face the final boss right away, this was one of those games where I was like "okay next checkpoint I'll sleep." Nope, kept going and just happened to stop near the final boss xD
I don't read IGN, but this was one of the worst games I have played in ages. Every aspect of Wanted: Dead was so poorly presented and executed I was shocked anyone thought it was fit for release. The game ran like mud at odd times, the camera was from 2003, with frequent crashes, tons of enemy and object clipping, cutscenes that crashed frequently, and the worst voice work I have heard since... well, 2003. Nonsense story and cinematics as well. I'm here for the gameplay, but if you charge full price and present your game in this market as such, shame on you. Never mind the fact the AI was super buggy, braindead often (if I stopped moving or stood on certain objects the AI would stop working), and it was piss easy to get permanently stuck in geometry. The game isn't even consistent with its hitboxes and you can slash through walls at enemies at times and other times geometry messes up the radius of explosions hitting you. Such a technical mess and sloppy, low-budget execution. Hard disagree on this one, my brother. Very hard. It borders on insult & irresponsibility for a developer to release a product such as Wanted: Dead when $10 games on Steam are better considered and executed.
Love me some IGN bashing, but this game I just don't like the modern warfare style enough. Is there a tutorial at all for it? Seems like the type of game that needs one, as your guard cancelling after the first slash certainly didn't 'look' like it was how the game should be played. Would be interesting if they held your hand but only in teaching you the game first, and I wonder how game journalists would knowingly be able to play it like bayonetta after that. Keep up the great reviews!
You get a really basic tutorial at the start (that you can skip :-) ) but other than that you are thrown right in. I don't mind that so much but yeah some type of advanced tutorial would probably be really useful. The guard canceling the first attack over and over isn't necessary, as you can guard cancel combos and so forth as well, but I must say it is effective ha. Much like when you play final fight and do a bunch of turn around cancel jabs :-)
Well, you've definitely sold me on this game. It seems like the type of game that's gonna be $20 within the year though, and with Wo Long coming out in a couple weeks and Metroid Prime in my Switch right now....think I'll hold off till then, lol. But I've wishlisted it! We need more games like this! ....just not at this price point, haha
very understandable my friend, I think a nice price point for it would be in the $30-$40 range but I am sure it will drop to $20 during sales and stuff.
I still see this as somewhat of a failure of the game's design. Shouldn't the game be fun even if you don't dig extremely deep in the combo lab? Why didn't the developers make it clear that guard cancelling was so important? Why isn't it in the tutorial? Even the best shmups are still at their base form fun to credit feed or play for survival without digging into high level scoring mechanics. Not that I'm trying to defend an IGN review, just that I know a lot of people bounced off this game fwiw.
There is a valid critique there that the game could help communicate it's design more for sure. However, that should not be considered a fatal error of the game and result in a 4/10. Otherwise the review standard would be if a game doesn't immediately spell itself out completely in five minutes, it's a bad game ha. This is why I think reviewers need to be somewhat skilled gamers, so that they know how to analyze aspects of the game that might not be completely obvious at first - isn't that the job of the reviewer? The approach IGN takes though is very closed off: "I want the game to be a certain way, and if it doesn't immediately tell me what to do at all times it's bad design." That's essentially how IGN looks at things and that's why we have games now with so much handholding that there is no room for players to need to experiment and try new things. I think you could play the game and beat it without guard buffering, but it's just a very helpful technique to open up the gameplay.
@@TheElectricUnderground sadly that's how most people approach video games nowadays. First sign of actual challenge or a requirement for some level of mastery and they drop the game... Like you said, God Hand all over again. There needs to be a balance between the player putting in effort, and the devs communicating well.
I cannot wait to play this game. It came across my radar out of nowhere and the marketing (to me) was stellar! The setting also makes me miss Katana Zero for some reason.
Really excited for this. One thing I’ve noticed recently with reviewers who hate more action oriented games, if you watch their gameplay, they’re doing very poorly in the game. Like with a couple of my favorite games I saw reviews saying “it’s way too hard” or “there’s no flow in the combat”, but as I watched the gameplay, they were playing the game in a very miserable way lol like if I was that bad at the game I also probably wouldve hated it. Like in the gameplay for IGNs review of this game, the person is playing in such a frustratingly horrible way lol
absolutely crow! I talk about that a lot in the review actually ha. Because I think it's very unfair and poor practice how these games are just getting so casually dismissed by larger outlets
I bought the game yesterday on ps5 and getting used to how it plays is key to getting good. Still trying to figure out it how to guard cancel and the parry timing but the satisfaction of kicking butt makes up for it.
I think you focus too much on IGN they're just a symptom there are also tons of "independant" reviews tearing this game apart. Steam's gamers reviews are mostly bad as well. It's just that most people aren't accustomed this type of games anymore. People have forgotten that some things are an aquired taste. It's not because you don't like something at first sight that it is necessarily bad. In general games that are rough with you won't work anymore, unless you're called FromSoftware you won't get a pass and the average gamer will drop it in the fist couple of hours or get through it not trying to explore its gameplay.
Regarding the Steam reviews: I think there's also an aspect of groupthink going on there - many people will just follow along with whatever the public consensus appears to be rather than think critically themselves. Which is what makes platforms like IGN so problematic, as they reach a huge amount of people that think like that by default, who then go on to spread that negativity, which then eventually takes on a life of its own and dooms even the most promising of underdog projects. They're effectively narrowing the playing field on what games are allowed to be from a creative standpoint by their sheer existence as rapid-output, low-quality reviewers with massive reach at this point.
I focus so much on IGN because they are the actual embodiment of the issues I find with gaming journalism. They are obviously not the only reviewers that I disagree with, but they set the tone for all other reviewers. They also get their reviews out before anyone else can because of industry connections. They are the kingmakers, plain and simple. For example my brothers, both very casual gamers, completely rely on IGN to know if they should buy a game or not. There is also no alternative to IGN, all the other outlets are just IGN juniors. There is no alternative in the mainstream really. They all agree and IGN is clearly the top dog. I think we live in an interesting echo system where IGN are basically able to steamroll or glorify any game they want, but there is no alternative press that disagrees with them at all. And what you might consider possible alternatives, like my channel, are little mice in comparison when it comes to influence. Larger channels are not going to go too hard at IGN or other reviewers because that would be too risky career wise, as that channel would lose out on industry connections. It's all very insider trading stuff. I'll talk about this more in my ign 7/10 response video I'll do in a month or two.
@@HansAlRachid Group thinking also affects RUclips reviewers who claim to be independant and in touch with the "real gamers". They just repeat each other, or worse say exactly what they think their audience wants to hear. If one tears the game apart the others will follow the same direction, and their communities altogether. I also realized something about modern arcade games. It's almost impossible to make an arcade type of game with a modern 3D presentation anymore, the only way to get a pass is to make 2D pixel art. Make it a "2D throwback" and then all the complains about writing, difficulty, check points etc. disapear. It's like people are unable to see beneath the presentation and adapt their expectations.
@@kathleendelcourt8136 Absolutely! Though I'd argue that even then, stagnation in counterculture, or in niche fanbases, is inherently less destructive on the industry at large than stagnation in the mainstream, but that's neither here nor there. (Personally I happen to be a huge fan of _good_ pixel art - which very few 2D throwbacks actually have - but I totally see your point and I absolutely agree that that style should never give devs any more leeway than any other and also that people should be more open to lower budgeted 3D projects. Especially since figuring out 3D visuals is a learning process and without iteration, it's hard to get anywhere with that style. And in order to iterate, it needs to be financially viable.)
@@HansAlRachid Of course, I wasn't throwing a jab at modern 2D games, just pointing out that their 3D counterparts weren't benefiting from the same tolerance in the eye of the public and reviewers.
Nice video title! Bought the game after watching this. Hadn't even hear of it but love most Itagaki involved titles and this looks to have the feel of Devil's Third, which I also loved..
Awesome. This is the review I've been waiting for. Didn't even bother looking through the general publications since they predominantly have a scrub mentality. Like you said Mark, if all mechanics aren't all apparent from the get-go, they'll automatically call it a bad game.
Yeah it's shocking how industry "professionals" literally do not know how to play video games that present challenges or are mechanically different. They just assume it's bad design and call it a day.
8:27 The game also does not allow customizable touchdown celebrations. Heck, it doesn't even have touchdown celebrations, because it doesn't have touchdowns! As a football game, it really fails.
What made me interested in the game (got it yesterday and played until the first boss then wandered around the police hq) and subsequently falling in love with it, was how it reminded me of Deadly Premonition. It's goofy and surreal and I'm all for it. Also, the second time the ninja showed up (Japanese garden outside) instead of using the chainsaw to kill all the knife soldiers, I saved for the ninja and it was a one hit kill ❤️ oh, and subscribed!
This review is so good. What a great breakdown of the current state of games and game reviews. I will 100% pick this up and talk about it on The Loot Bros Podcast. Subbed and glad I discovered your channel.
When people say tthat you should go to youtube if you want actually useful game critiques and reviews, videos like this are EXACTLY the kind of stuff they mean. +1 sale of Wanted Dead and +1 sub to you.
I know it might stray a bit from the usual games covered on this channel, but I'd be very interested in a review of Rollerdrome from you, very few RUclips reviewers take score attack games seriously and just about every video on the game right now is just "hurr durr Tony Hawk with guns"
The state of mainstream reviews right now is just awful. Your review and calling out IGN is brilliant and is such a microcosm of everything wrong with reviews today.
Subscribed! I really appreciate that you dig deep and give the a game a proper chance, especially with a game like 'Wanted Dead' that is a little unconventional. IGN could use a journalist like you. It would be a breath if fresh air. They are hurting developers with their superficial reviews.
![ARGENTINA vs. BOLIVIA [6-0] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 10](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/C3wPtKNbAOA/mqdefault.jpg)
Guard cancel into aim down sights shooting is the element you're missing here. You seem to have caught on to how good guard canceling is, but doing that trick will really elevate your play to the next level and make the mix of melee and shooting come together in a way that makes a lot of sense and explain why enemies in general stagger for a long amount of time in this game at times. It's a lot easier to do with aim assist and auto camera rotation turned off.
To give an example, it's possible to do a basic combo on an enemy, and while they're stunned, guard cancel into ADS for massive damage in a quick and seamless motion. You can do this from parries as well by guard canceling after the parry attack followup and laying into them with weapon rounds of your choice. With weapons like the shotgun you can use this to blow off limbs and leave them open to a finisher, or if they have a delimbed leg, you can choose to leave them on the battlefield so they blow themselves and any enemies nearby up as well.
The game is pretty flexible and interesting in how its systems interact. You actually can be way more aggressive and push the offense more than one might think due to how generous the game is with checkpoints and restocking heals and revives.
oh snap thank you for the tip!! I'm gonna try this out when I play last night. I had the feeling that mixing into the guns from melee had potential, but yeah I couldn't quite put it together yet, but I am def gonna try this out tonight :-)
@@TheElectricUnderground Yeah, it's essentially the main combat mechanic that carries over from Devil's Third. In that game it was essentially a basic technique in the multiplayer for players to stun an enemy with a melee attack and then followup with your gun for the kill. For example, hitting a dude with a sledgehammer and then unloading shotgun rounds into them while they're stumbling.
Devil's Third was full of even more interesting and deep ways to interplay melee and guns in this way because most of it's melee combat was actually fighting game inspired and built around multiplayer (something which was impossible to appreciate in its rather poor single player campaign). But yeah, I was pretty happy playing this game and seeing that they found a way to translate just a few of that game's many unsung ideas and mechanics into a single player context.
thank you, this made my playtrough much more enjoyable
I think problem is that they don't teach you or let you know that can Guard Cancel in to attacks. They should at least put that in tutorial.
@@drers25iI'm sorry but have you ever seen an action game telling you about cancel in the tutorial ? It will put mainstream audience off.
The game let you learn to guard cancel with parry. You use guard to parry, and you can cancel your attack in order to parry. Since parry is the guard, it's the same thing.
Another anti mainstream review which is very appreciated. We need more games like this and less boring movie games.
Thank you very much Reiul, I agree completely!
Shut up
The mainstream games media want games to be movies so bad it’s sickening
@@micpangocos they need to feel their hobby is respected and dads girlfriends and friends are not gonna understand arcades they only understand movies, casual people is not going to give the opportunity to something so hardcore they want to WATCH not to PLAY.
Bold of you to say that about Wanted: Dead which has tons of cutscenes actually.
The lead game designer on this project worked on Sekiro as a design assistant, which probably explains why the game features parrying as much as it does.
While Itagaki is only mentioned under the Special Thanks section, two of the directors of NG2 & Devil's Third did work on this project, as well as a bunch of other ex-TN guys.
You should try out the first proper action game that Soleil made a few years back: Samurai Jack Battle Through Time. That one did have Itagaki as an Advisor, as well as several others who now worked on W:D. It's a simple little AA action game, but it's very fun.
I'm looking forward to the Space Runaway video!
Oh thanks for the explanation of the game's credits and staff my friend! That sekiro connection makes a lot of sense ha. I m excited to try the shmup in the game :-)
Hey! :D
The protag is 99% a female model slapped on to Wolf-from-Sekiro's design, too. You'll never convince me to like SJBTT. Nevurrrr!
I bought Samurai Jack a ways back but only played it a couple weeks ago and I enjoyed it. Fun and Hard, even on normal. Liked how enemies increase in rank, quantity, and occurrence in harder difficulties.
Thank you for taking the time to THINK about and LEARN the game, and then offer a unique, perspective that goes deeper than a typical channel. Very refreshing!
I am really enjoy this game (playing through Japanese Hard mode now) and will have to play around with the guard cancelling tech you’ve highlighted.
Oh yeah I'm really excited to try out Japanese Hard mode myself, I'm really curious to see where the changes in difficulty occur (damage, enemy count, etc)
Enemy damage and hp are definitely increased. Stimpak drops are less frequent… and the health recovery mechanic is gone. Good times! Ha.
Real talk: this isn't just an IGN problem, a lot of paid analysts (or RUclipsrs, tho they are not professionals) will look at a B-tier budget games and will not do their due diligence to give them a fair shot. If they don't vibe with it in the first 30 minutes, it's an easy target, and they can get away with trashing them, they will. It's much more profitable to them/the publishing site because polarization sells, and they can get an fast review out and they can move to the next thing and that means more content.
On the other side, I'm glad the game is good! I was waiting for it because I actually liked Devil's Third even with its jank, so I'm glad to see Itagaki's team is still around and doing cool shit.
PS: the parry critique is even more ridiculous when you also consider that Revengeance (absolute banger of a game) is all about that parry mechanic and that still managed to get an 8.5
For sure Chato! So I see it as an issue on two fronts, you have the industry side, where the reviewers are in bed deeply with the publishers and basically doing marketing for them, and then you have the other front of the mass mob, which grab onto mainstream reviews and then steamroll the talking points out onto social media. And once that train starts moving, it's very hard to stop.
Best review I’ve seen in awhile. Other networks never touch on this subject but sometimes the jankiness in a game turns it into a classic. Love your analogy with melee because movement like this created a huge fan base. I think it will become a hidden gem, but I hope enough copies are sold so that publishers aren’t afraid to put out more games like this. This is the type of stuff I miss from the older generations. Great video as always 👍
for sure, though it would be interesting to tackle what some people view as jank. Wanted Dead does have some for sure, like the stim pack pickups or the dash attack randomly whiffing, but for the most part I also think people classify other elements as "jank" when really they are part of the game's design - like the way the guns work and the ammo count for example.
A saying as old as time "You can't spell ignorant without IGN".
it's a classic saying for a reason XD
I played the game on hard difficulty, and once you unlock some of those skills and master the parrying, it becomes a cakewalk. There aren't a lot of enemy types, and they consistently use the same scream sound effect after you defeat them. The 5 bosses feel flat, with only two of them providing any real challenge.
that being said, I was extremely disappointed with this game; the storyline is lackluster, and the bugs make the gameplay frustrating. Visually, the game feels outdated, and the optimization is severely lacking. To make matters worse, they're charging a full $60 price tag for a game that only offers 5-6 hours of mediocre gameplay. While the soundtrack may be enjoyable, it's not good enough to justify purchasing the entire game.
I m curious to see what Japanese hard mode introduces in terms of a difficulty boost, I'll be trying that later on. On the price as I said in the vid I agree that 60 is just too much. These days 60 brings this expectation of this massive stage after stage campaign, so I think 30 to 40 would be a better price point. I do like the graphics of the game, they aren't AAA studio tier, but I like the blood and the look of the levels, especially the casino. The boss fights are a bit lacking for sure, though it s gonna be interesting do no death runs as they do have some wild card moves that instakill. The problem I have that I explained in the vid is that all the complaints you mention here also apply directly to sifu, if not more so tbh. Especially sifu s graphics which are horrible. So how is sifu landing at a 9 / 10 and wanted dead is a 4? When it comes to action games a lot of the reviews are so subjective it's to the point of being incoherent. Whereas I would rate this game around a 7, and also place sifu around that score. But as it sits now we have sifu at near masterpiece and wanted dead at outright bad. Also I think the gun play in wanted dead adds a lot to the game, melee is only half of the story
@@TheElectricUnderground tbf, Sifu is $40, very well optimized, almost no bugs at launch, better graphics (imo, at least it can run on steam deck 60 fps at high settings), doesn’t have a cringe story and I played about 24 hours altogether
Thank you. Someone with Intelligence & class reviewing this beautiful game. Everyone begs for something different and challenging and when it comes they complain it doesn’t have the usual suspects of modern gaming. Hand holding/copy & pasting is killing games. Definitely got you a new fan brudda!!
Exactly hossfly, we ve entered an age of uniformity of game design, anything that slightly diverges must be dismissed as outdated or bad
Copy/paste, huh. You saying that's bad?
So you must hate elden ring, the most recent high profile copy paste asset flip.
Tell me again how many enemy types there were in this game sans bosses.
That's right, 5. Only the ninjas had variation and it was only different levels of bullet sponginess.
Get your head out.
It's a shit game
Masahiro Sakurai has an interesting video highlighting the benefits of letting players break your game in certain ways. That came to mind during this excellent review.
Oh I've heard about this vid MoonDog. While I agree with the idea for sure, it is a bit ironic coming from Sakurai who, after seeing what was done in melee, went to far as to add a trip mechanic into brawl ha. The vid sounds really interesting though, maybe he makes some distinctions on what type of breaking he likes and doesn't.
@@TheElectricUnderground I love his series of videos, there is a lot to learn there.
... buuuuut I have also questioned many of his design choices such as the trip mechanic in Brawl. My friends and I had an explicit rule not to hit someone who was exposed from the trip!
When has IGN ever not been tripping? 😅This game really gave me some nice PS2-era AA-game vibes, which I'm definitely a fan of, so I'm glad to hear it's good! And hey, Devil's Third definitely deserved a second chance to shine, fascinating shitshow that it was. Once this game's on sale for like 40 or so I'll definitely jump in!
What you're describing there about learning the mechanics reminds me of Galak-Z, some games really change _completely_ once the controls click with you. Love that moment.
No kidding hans, IGN have been tripping and falling down the stairs for years ha. And on the control moments, I love when that happens for games. Another example of that for me was with dead or Alive funny enough, when you understand what the game wants and the meta
Thanks Mark, we need you more and more in these days of low-skilled reviewers. I suspect, as in music media, a lot of favourable reviews for games are actually paid for.
absolutely touraline! When IGN did their 7/10 response video, they sort of hinted at being paid to do preliminary reviews by publishers and then probably follow up those preliminary reviews with some meetings on how to shore up a positive review. I'm excited to talk about it when i make the vid next month or so.
Reviews arent influential enough to get outright paid for. Advertising on the site and flying journalists to special events for games the most they do to pay for reviews. Theres no direct payment for anything.
Of course, steam, reddit, youtube are filled with paid boot suckers to manipulate how players should react because nowadays you need someone to actually think for you, your thoughts does not matter until you make sure someone is with you specially if it's an influencer
21:17 man i remember when a game even having a checkpoint was a big deal, people nowadays have the atention span of a goldfish
exactly, checkpoints have gone from a useful halfway marker in the stage to being required every minute, so players need to repeat gameplay if they fail. But then, if you are never punished for failing, does it even matter ha.
I still don't see how the cancel mechanic improves the game. Just seems like an extra step to make the game play like it normally should've been instead of an extra layer. It also doesn't help with enemy/encounter variety, the health system or move property. I'm glad to see a different opinion of the game, but don't feel the need to do another run of the game now :/
This topic comes up in melee a lot funny enough, but I'm a big fan of the cancel system. It's a way for the player to establish a rhythm and be able to connect moves together in interesting ways. A good way to think about this is the korean backdash in tekken. Why keep the korean backdash, which has a complicated input, when the devs could just add in a fast backwalk? Some games can do the fast backwalk well, but having that cancel element in the controls also adds some mindfullness to the controls that you can't get if you just allow players to hit whatever buttons whenever and flow automatically. Like autocombos in fighting games. Why not just have fighting games do autocombos instead of these manual combos? Learning combos takes time.
I am entirely unsurprised at two things:
1. IGN is a joke; and,
2. Itagaki requires skill from his audience.
Great review! I'm excited to finally crack into this.
I honestly don't know what IGN were thinking with their review, it seems so half-hearted and dismissive that it feels like the reviewer had his mind made up before even playing. He even says in the review he was sick of the game by stage 2, which is like an hour into playing ha.
IGN just tosses reviews to whoever. In fact, most gaming "reviews" sites do that. It's too hard to find someone interested who will put the time in and give it a fair shake.
I'd say about 80% of the time, when a good game receives a bad score, it's because the person they gave it to is resentful for having been handed the game.
Itagaki hasn't made a good video game in almost 20 years
Great review. I put in almost 14 hours into Wanted Dead and absolutely loved it. It has its flaws. But it was an extremely fun game. An adrenaline rush of high octane action. I loved its over the top Japanese anime presentation. As I'm more into the gameplay centric games. Find my self more drawn to the niche AA games, than the big budget AAA games. Personally I give Wanted Dead an 8/10.
I do agree with how some of these major gaming outlets operate. There's also a lot of bias towards certain platforms. But that's another story. This game was never going to be favorable amongst mainstream media. Because of it's old school feel and low budget quality. Similar to a Suda51 game. The media seem more into the cinematic experience and open world games. Their take on how modern games should be.
I must say that I do disagree on the Bayonetta 3 take. As Bayonetta 3 is a more polished game than Wanted Dead. But not only that, the gameplay in Bayonetta 3 or any of the Bayonetta games for that matter, is phenomenal. It's another AA very gameplay centric game.
HardcoreGamer (great name by the way) we have very similar tastes it sounds like :-) Yes the niche AA games are so much more interesting and exciting because they take way more risks and tend to be much less bloated. The philosophy of AAA games is volume over value, while AA games tend to be more focused for a variety of reasons, one of them I imagine is pure budget constraints ha.
Mark dropping the awesome honesty hammer as always! I Stopped reading and watching IGNs reviews years ago as it was clear their intentions weren’t to promote good games but to follow the mob and $$$.
Absolutely. What really shocked me with this 4/10 review of theirs was just how careless it was, like there were no stakes or need to explain that number. The reviewer just made some vague points and called it a day. It wasn't so much a hot take, it was a "I don't even care this game isn't worth my time" take.
@@TheElectricUnderground that is absolutely the worst part as his dumb review could sway way too many people…
@@TheElectricUnderground why does IGN still exist though, why people keep watching it, why is it so big?
If for years already we know in a very obvious manner how incompetent and not caring even these people are. They are not even gamers.
@@stanislavkimov2779 Cus Too many idiots continue to give them clicks in general. People are too stupid, and there are not enough good people that know how ign really are compared to other reviewers for gaming. For being properly informed about IGN. Unlike us. We are too few and far between. Thus too big majority continue to give them darn continues clicks...
No one cares about honesty anyways and this game is a failure.
I think you’re wrong about Sifu. The best mechanic is the dodging while holding block. It’s not as technical or deep as guard cancels, but pulling it off as apposed to dashing away or parrying makes you feel like Jackie Chan dipping under punches and jumping over leg sweeps.
He's review is genuinely shallow and biased.
Agreed. I’m very bad at parrying, so I hardly ever use it, yet I can complete Sifu’s levels without dying and almost never get hit. So I was a bit confused when he said Sifu is just parry parry parry… Maybe he should give it another try 😂
Great review man! btw, the game was directed by Hiroaki Matsui who also was co-director of Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 and actually was the one who came up with its battle system and even Ryu's movements!
Oh that s super interesting! That makes sense because the more i play the more I can feel the Ng influence, even if is in a different form
man can design more then one game
This is an excellent video. I like what you’ve seen in this game,that others have missed.
You should embrace this style of review.
Subbed!!
Thank you very much Paul!!! :-) I m glad I could help show the game some love, because I do think it s much better than it s getting credit for
bro. people hating on this game are tripping. i had no idea what this game was. it was just in the steam store. i thought maybe it was like dmc from the trailer. but it wasnt. it was hard af. it seems janky because you're not used to the controls and you don't understand the game yet. i am telling you, it feels good and it is fluent once you get good.
Absolutely my friend!
@@TheElectricUnderground i realize it seems i was directing it towards you. i'm agreeing with everything you said and thats me saying that to the people hating.
I bought this game on release, played for 20 minutes, hated that it wasn't Ninja Gaiden, called it a piece of shit, refunded, and moved on. Then I came across this video like a month ago, put the game on my wishlist, and bought it on sale. I've been methodically playing it with what you said in mind, the guard cancelling and everything and I realize now that yeah, I was not fair to this game, and kept running up to every enemy trying to Ryu Hayabusa my way into every encounter and dying. Now that I'm playing properly I see that, despite the kusoge jank it's actually pretty damn fun. I already am looking forward to how my abilities will shape up on another playthrough.
Thanks for making this video and making me realize I was being a shithead, I would've missed out on this one. You're one of my favorite action game youtubers.
I recently got a Batsugun Special ver. Arcade 1ALL as Type-A without losing shields!
hell yeah!
GGs my dude
Nice, congrats man!
Dude! Thank you! This is exactly what’s necessary! People that understand games and that like diving deep and dissecting games. Als, you’re on point about the checkpoints issue, a lot handholding sort of makes me lose focus, I also like challenging games!
This game is already in the hall of fame alongside with: Lollipop Chainsaw, Shadows of the Damned, Left Alive,Binary Domain, The Darkness and Evil West. LOVED YOUR REVIEW MAN!
I remember playing Binary Domain a decade ago on X360 and didn't think much of it, but I keep hearing glimpses of it here and there in various more interesting gaming reviewers and essayists, I also see the steam rating is surprisingly high nowadays, I think it's time to give it a shot. What makes it interesting/special in your opinion?
@@Dwesk The satisfying shooting mechanics, the robot enemies which break down in an awesome way, goofy ass humor.
U should really play Vanquish. It’s an incredible third person insane shooter. It’s remastered on ps4 and Xbox one. My favorite shooter ever made.
I'd add Killer is Dead to that list, for me the most underrated Suda51 game
Beautiful list. Would also add Wet to it. Had so many good memories from it. Lots of them was brought back by Wanted Dead
I wish modern games would put these advanced mechanics, like guard canceling and so on, in a sort of "advanced tutorial". I think it would help opening them up to a bit of a wider audience and protect them a little from the superficial criticism of reviewers and players who are not willing to put in the time. Some fighting games do that already, that I'm aware, but those that I know are by some larger studios. Nothing wrong, then, with requiring more skill than what I have to actually execute. Assuming that the average player should "discover" those mechanics themselves is a bit unrealistic, and I don't think most people will go online looking for an in depth mechanics guide before playing a game, or lab.
Regarding the price, I often feel videogames are being priced too low. I'm absolutely NOT talking about stuff from AAA studios, but often the ratio of money/time for a game is much better than, for example, for a movie.
Bravo. My only criticism is that you brought a mic to this review and did not end with a mic drop.
IGN translation: "It's a 4/10 because the devs didn't pay us enough for it to be higher and the fans won't send us death threats if we rate it down so who gives a sheet?"
Pretty much lol XD
I hate accessibility bullshit in today's games. The checkpoint systems in the middle of intense encounters is really killing gaming for the hardcore crowd. I love some of the big blockbusters like the Last of Us or the new God of Wars but man, imagine how much better these would be without this crap. The new GOW was ruined by accessibility- every. single. solution. to. every damn puzzle is TOLD to us BEFORE we can even attempt it! Every boss battle has checkpoints
You'd think the developers who put so much resources and effort into their game wouldn't want to something that universally is considered to make the game worse ..like ruining puzzles .. but "accessibility features" is the big buzzword and they're getting reviewed higher from the likes of IGN for it so here we are ...
Yes exactly CD, and they do this because otherwise unskilled journalists are going to complain and doc the game's score. So we end up with games that are so handholdy that you can beat them without every having to repeat a section or learn the levels.
They've made an update and overall made it easier to please IGN and other critics, do you have any thoughts on that?
Haven't played this myself so I might be totally off base here, but having to guard cancel after every move sounds rather annoying to be honest. It also looks insanely clunky. So clunky I'm not entirely sure whether this weird looking way to play was really intentional or people just found a way to brute force themselves past the system's limitations.
Also: don't you think it's also on the devopers to teach a mechanic like that when it is that crucial to enjoying the game?
I understand that point of view but don’t think that is necessary. It might be the nineties gamer in me but I kind of miss when games didn’t blatantly tell you everything. Some of the best games of all time, Mario 64, Ketsui, Battle Garrega, lots of 2D beat ‘em ups…. All have mechanics in them that are never explicitly told to the player that once you learn them the game becomes much much better. I guess it just depends on what kind of games you like. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s bad
@@CrowScareify I'm a 90s gamer myself, but I still think key mechanics should be at the very least mentioned. Especially if they're so counter intuitive due to similar games having gone in entirely opposite directions for decades now. I mean I'd love to trade in most of these super high risk AAA games for more smaller scale titles that can afford to be a little different myself, but unless those titles are willing to extend the occasional olive branch to folks not hardened by the trials and tribulations of oddball PS2 titles, they are just destined to fail and we'll be once again left with the slow trickle of overpriced repackagings of arcade games from the 90s.
What's funny is I don't know if you have played nioh before, but it literally has this exact same mechanic with the stamina pulse system, you press the pulse button after every attack and combo, and people love it. It is literally the exact same thing, just not tied to a meter. Why did team ninja do this? To add purpose and precision to inputs and then rewarding that precision. A lot of old school action games have stuff like this, the reason why is because it creates a sense of purpose and rhythm on the inputs, or simply how the system fits together mechanically. The game can absolutely function without you knowing about the mechanic, but when you tap into it you gain more freedom with your moves. All action games have stuff like this, just usually reviewers at least pretend to understand them ha. Devil may cry has all of it's crazy cancels (check out the shotgun cancel in dmc3, it's amazing) and even bayo, which is mostly automated, has free step dodge. Ninja gaiden has block buffering and some pretty crazy moves like the graveyard spin that can stunlock some bosses.
@@TheElectricUnderground point is nioh made damn sure you knew about that mechanic. It also looked hella cool too and you didn't have to use it between singular slashes either.
The air-juggling comment sort of reminds me of their infamous Shin Megami Tensei V review. They basically spent the review complaining that it wasn’t Persona.
I know it's a comment that is useful in that you get insight into what the reviewer is actually expecting, but at the same time it shows that the reviewer is obviously not trying to understand the game's mechanics because air juggles in the game sounds pretty absurd to me. Why doesn't hitman blood money have air juggles lol
That's what I'm saying. Like don't review a game if that's not your wheelhouse of video games. And I see that a lot in reviews. That's why I don't even listen to their ass. If I was a reviewer. You won't catch me reviewing turn based rpg's or RTS's. I wouldn't know what I'm talking about.
Exactly my thoughts as well ha. Yes I m not about to review the new Madden game XD
It's not a bad game, it has a lot of fun stuff you can discover that feels earned, the overall flow of combat is nice cause enemies die quickly and you quickly run & dash from one to another, the pacing/level design makes it really enjoyable to come back to, but I'm a lot harsher on it than you are since I think it's very sloppy & lacks focus even after playing it a good bit.
The cancels + mobility make it feel decently dynamic and spacing based, but the counters are still too OP and encourage fishing - why fight groups when you can get a single counter & slice them all up? You can cancel attacks but they are mostly just different ways of doing damage. They don't interact with the enemies beyond doing hitstun/interrupting attacks, the ones that *do* interact with them like the run kick are awkward to perform & can't be worked into combos afaik. As a result, I just resorted to dash attack -> backdash -> dashattack canceling a lot since it's easy & effective.
I wish the cancels were more varied, guard cancels are fun but they also break the flow of combos unless you do them insanely quickly, and a lot of your attacks are parts of strings which sucks. Some other interesting attacks seemingly cannot be canceled at all (charged attack, would be a fun combo finisher).
The gunplay also feels more like its own "mode" rather than a part of combat, cause you can't really use it to for example transition between parts of your strings, or do any unique cancels with it. Vanquish did that sorta thing a lot better despite having a really boring melee system. On top of that, most shooting enemies past stage 1 can be countered so I found very little reason to use guns aside from some very specific sections (stage 2 grenade launcher dudes).
Enemies could be a fuckton more aggressive too, they feel like Batman enemies in a game that's much better & more open ended, rather than the glorious coked up chimps from Ninja Gaiden.
Lastly it just doesn't feel too good to play. Hannah animations often end abruptly or lack strong key poses (pistol cancels feel like a non attack, finishers also suffer from this), most attacks have this really nasty slowmo effect that feels terrible and breaks the intended motion of the animations. Finisher activation is delayed for whatever reason (enemy state transitions?), there's too much soft locking & magnetism going on, it's like I'm playing an AAA game.
A sequel/spiritual successor would do wonders, even though it'll never happen...
Also heh nice to see that IGN's hatred of more sparse checkpoints persists even after they've seemingly been bullied out of it by Dark Souls fans. A very small hint of consistency among the clusterfuck of clashing opinions usually present in their reviews, and suggests what they actually want from action games :)
I agree with a lot of your points bog for sure, though I'm probably less bothered by a nice and chunky parry system (I think we debated this in elden ring ha) as long as it isn't forced and completely linear like Sifu. One thing about this review that makes it more contextual is the review environment where poor wanted dead is getting absolutely obliterated by most reviewers, so I ended up needing to spend the majority of the review pointing out the games strengths, because it's an interesting situation where players need to understand what it does right first, and then in that framework can start digging into possible improvements. I do think though that if they make a sequel (i really hope they do), a lot of these more nuanced improvements can be made. For example I do with the crowds were more aggressive like in Ninja Gaiden, the devs were probably nervous to push the melee combat that far. I'm holding out hope that maybe the japanese hard move might increase enemy aggressiveness and give out fight tickets like the Fight N Rage dev does.
@@TheElectricUnderground Think we bickered about parries at least 10 times now in different contexts : D
But yeah that's the big issue - whether a review is positive or negative doesn't mean much, as long as the points are thought out. With IGN, even when our conclusions are similar, I can't agree with them cuz they never explain anything.
@@boghogSTG @The Electric Underground My feelings are a bit between yours. I also think fishing for counters is just too damn powerful and encouraged. The fact that they decide only one enemy can melee you at a time, unlike Ninja Gaiden's "give no quarter" attitude means repositionning is not really essential as long as you're not in the crosshair of too many long range foes. A parry leads to arm dismemberement of many threats, and a gun counter leads to the iai stance slash that cut the legs, both of those reward with an invulnerable finishing move. So just baiting and punishing is probably the optimal strat, from normal to japanese hard. Advanced threats won't die from just that but they discourage proactive play even more.
At the same time, there are definitely more ways to play than what you tend to think at first glance. Bog Hog says gunplay feels like its own mode and I disagree, because my way to play this game is often to stun first, with parries/sword attack/dodge attack, then block cancel, then a good shotgun blast or a big salvo point-blank range. It's crazy effective DPS-wise! I also like to quickly deals some damage with the AR as they come towards me. Transitionning from gunplay to swordplay is really smooth and makes you feel like you're always active despite the emphasis on punishes. It's a bit sad you can't instantly select your gun with left or right (since you only carry two) and have to cycle through them... This kind of oversight is jarring.
I really enjoy the level design. It's straightforward and filled with enemies. Those long gauntlets against what seems at time like an infinite number of reinforcements reminds me a lot of Razor's Edge. I'm not surprised many people dislike that, but after the highly diluted Hi-Fi Rush and especially Bayonetta 3, it's so refreshing! I dig that so much! I'm going against many reviews but, to me, the checkpoints felt really on point as well.
I don't mind only 5 levels but the difficulty options change nothing in terms of enemies distribution. It should have! There are no real additional challenges to undertake after that as well, like all those ninja trials you can enjoy in the Ninja Gaiden. Add to that the lack of additional melee weapons/characters, the limited moveset, the few enemy types... I understand why many people feels it should have been a $40 game.
So, mixed feelings... Ultimately, I still have so much fun playing it and I'm glad this kind of games still come out from time to time.
@@KrieGor27 Oh yeah I saw someone's comment over here earlier where they mentioned abusing lengthy hitstun to sneak gunshots in, think I'll have to retract that crit once I test it out cause if it's effective, that shit sounds slick. Will be really handy for the ninja dudes since they dodge backdash cancel attacks like nothing.
The levels keep me coming back the most I think, it's crazy how just having no filler BS in between fights is enough to compensate for so much of the game's awkwardness. Japanese hard mode's a let down for sure, I'm kinda hoping they update the game some more but I think that's a lost cause sadly...
Also, you might know - doesn't NG2 have enemy turns as well? My impression is that enemies take turns but also do shit in "passive mode", and the turn order can get a little funky sometimes so it's not as blatant and predictable (maybe it's set per enemy group? idk)
Choose difficulty:
Hard - Normal - Easy - Journalist
I was going to make a joke the other day that games should add a mode called journalist mode, where the game literally plays itself ... and then I realized journalists would absolutely use a mode like this lol
Thankful for such an in-depth and well done YT channel that informs so well. I’m wondering which to grab first between Wanted: Dead and Gungrave: GORE now!
Character action games typically have historically always been snubbed in reviews by mainstream critics. I don’t even wanna say it’s because these critics are “bad” it’s just that character action games that aren’t like the ones you mentioned ask a lot out of the player which from your opinion and others is definitely something WE appreciate but other reviewers do not really make the distinction of.
My bro send Ms this review after I keep tell him this game is more then what it seems. Then after hearing you my dude you got a sub. Keep up the good work we need good reviewers like you my friend.
That's awesome to hear Tlaloc! I'm glad my review was useful in clarifying what's happening with the game's design and so forth. That's one of my goals on this channel is to discuss the actual design and gameplay of games, rather than the surface elements like story or whatever ha.
Really wish the Wanted Dead character designs and art style were cooler and more like Devil's Third or Ninja Gaiden.
Agreed victor. I was surprised Stephanie Joosten wasn't the main character honestly. I was thinking that you play the game as essentially Quiet from MGS5 would be really cool, thank god for pc mods ha.
The problem with IGN and most of these gaming review “outlets” is that they’re hilariously out of touch with the majority of gamers. This game is fun as hell once you get the hang of it.
Honest review man, subed for that.
When I saw the ING revew I had the exact same thooughts : it was a long rant about why the reviewer didin't like the game.
I think this game will become a cult clasic in the future.
If guard canceling is the key to understanding the gameplay, shouldn't that be communicated in the tutorial? I have noticed a trend on this channel and in the comments of blaming the players, but the developer has a responsibility to properly convey their mechanics, too. In many games, you would cancel out with a dash or a roll, not by blocking, so I wouldn't say this was particularly intuitive. You didn't even pick it up on your first play, and you're far from a casual player.
There is not a lot of action game that tells you how to cancel in tutorial, because it will put mainstream audience off.
However you can learn this mecanics through tutorial. The game tells you how to parry. You need to guard, and it works while you're attacking. Since parry is the guard, you can guard while attacking ^^
That is so true about checkpoints; even in Arkham Asylum I was getting good at the Poison Ivy fight in hard mode after getting bodied in the first phase, but the checkpoint kind of negated the need to get good.
Yeah modern devs seemed to have gotten a memo at some point that demanded no longer having meaningful checkpoints, now it's just the game constantly pushing you forward. I can't remember which game it was exactly, but I remember there was a more mainstream game with boss phase checkpoints and so to practice the early phase of the boss, I had to let him kill me before I caused his phase change ha. Otherwise I would be locked out of that phase until the next run. I know for sure I did this in ZeroRanger, but that game just needs a practice mode.
Bruh, I stopped listening to IGN when they reviewed Anarchy Reigns and they gave it a con for having "locked characters" .it's been re-rereviewed by someone else, but they still gave it a 6 If I recall. I really don't even listen to reviews anymore because everyone has such high expectations that don't really make sense or unrealistic. I'd rather look up gameplay, see what some people are saying about it mechanically, but if it's something I'm generally interested in I'll play it for myself. I brought the collection edition and do not regret my purchase. After my first play through I immediately went into NG+
This reminds me to Shin Megami Tensei V reviews. They were not as bad as this game, but most of the points were as well "this game is not like that game" type of thing, instead of analyzing the game itself. This kind of reviews are unseless to me, if you are not engaging with the game and what the developer is intending to do, the review is mostly a "game vs game" thing, not an analysis.
Absolutely otherwise we end up where we are now where every action game needs to be devil may cry or bayo, homogenization
Awesome, thanks!! Was waiting for your review knowing how much you appreciate Ninja Gaiden.
I was very close at skipping the review, due to how crazy my schedule has been, but I just had to try it anyway, schedule be damned XD
I agree it's important to give a game some time and research to better understand it. But I also think the developers have to bear some responsibility for how players are responding to it since it seems the developers aren't explicitly teaching what is presumably a core game mechanic like the guard cancel which is going to affect the perception of the whole experience.
For a complex genre blend like this you probably do just want to onboard/teach all the complexities of playing the game so that the player is armed with the knowledge they need to have fun with the execution, not just struggle and come to the wrong conclusions.
I'll definitely check this game out when it's on sale or on a subscription service. Seems like an interesting game to at least try.
Just got my 4th Japanese hard mode clear ha. The game has a lot going on with it that I am going to describe in a commentary vid :-)
This reminds me a lot of Devil's 3rd as a lot of the key people involved in that game made this game too. All of the skilless reviewers wrote that game off as clunky too. Once you understand how the combat mechanics work in that game though, you can do some really incredible things. A bunch of ninjas can jump out at you while running on the rooftops and you can throw your sword into one of them, use an uzi on another, get in close and use another's katana on them, then use it to hack through some others. Unfortunately once all of the internet drones determine something sucks, it's nearly impossible to get through to them.
exactly david, that's one of my strong motivations in this vid to discuss my disagreements with the IGN review, because once that internet opinion train gets rolling it's nearly impossible to stop.
Are there any videos that show off more of devils 3rd mechanics
Wow Mark amazing review. I've always loved your reviews. Shump's or other games it doesn't matter. This looks bloody amazing honestly. I'm balls deep into a old MMO I got back into (dungeons & dragons online, it has a reincarnation system where once you hit level cap you can either stay at 'endgame' and raid/grind gear or you can do a 'true reincarnation' and go back to level 1 but you get a past life feat which gives you a little bonus there are 15 classes that each stack 3 times so thats 45 past lives. There are new racial past lives with 14 races stacking 3 times....so tons of stuff to do in DDO) since nov. I've even stop playing DDP SDOJ ( I know I know I need to get back on the grind, but I do listen to stage 3's music AI extended and on repeat when I grind out stuff so im kinda shumping...I guess :P )
Great review as always, great breakdown and explanations as always. IGN lost all credibility about 10 years ago during 'gamergate' and labeling them as hate crimers -rolls eyes-. They have been nothing but a triple A shill rag for a long long long time. I sure hope that Outzone on steam gets fixed soon. I watched Jaimes 3-all where he listed all the mistakes...its a duzey.
Yeah IGN are essentially the promotional wing of the larger studios, they don't even seem to have some kind of core outlook on what makes a game good. They just ride along with whatever they need to say
Mark, do you have some opinion on hi-fi rush?
I haven't played it, but I've heard it is pretty good
I haven't played it yet as it's not as much my style visually, as wanted dead. But both Icon and Bog like it, so it must be doing some stuff right ha.
Just put in an order for a T-Shirt to support the channel 😁
I was looking for the link in the description in this video but ended up finding it in the previous upload
Oh snap I forgot too add it, I ll do that now. Thank you so much for supporting the channel!
@@TheElectricUnderground Just my way of saying thanks
Plus the shirts do look awesome 😁
IGN is definitely tripping. They didn't get the point
Yeah I still don't get why the review is so negative, the game is really fun. I just beat Japan hard mode :-)
totally agree that reviewers are obligated to explore a game’s systems, but personally i consider it a major flaw when i have to spend time in the lab to “unlock” base-level enjoyment of a game. to me the experimentation to figure this kind of stuff out isn’t interesting; it’s just trial and error testing possible interactions. if i want to figure some shit out i’ll go play a puzzle game where the designer actually cared about making the figuring out process fun. this is one reason why leaderboards with replays are great. they’re a natural way for players to learn about the unintuitive (often unintended) tricks without tedious testing.
i rarely see anyone else mention this issue, so i assume some people enjoy the lab process itself. and that’s fine i guess. although i suspect most players learn these kinds of tricks from wikis, youtube, etc. which i think is also less than ideal.
I do get your point here. But the problem is that this is going to be an element of pretty much any action game / gameplay focused game. For example even in an fps, you could quick scope people in the older call of duty games and it was a very powerful technique. The devs may not have even intended for you to be able to do this, but it's really fun and powerful. Same thing with melee, half the stuff you do in melee is probably outside the realm of developer intention. In the case of Wanted Dead, it does seem to me that guard canceling is clearly intended (NG games always have some sort of guard play), but I don't think the technique is actually required to beat the game or anything, but it opens up the gameplay a lot. So as a reviewer I think this is a classic case of why reviewers should be at least somewhat skilled players, otherwise they have no ability to evaluate a game beyond what is spoon fed to them. So what do we end up with? Games that hold the players hand all day and spoon feed every mechanic. Otherwise your game is going to get a 4/10 because reviewers won't even attempt to try and play it beyond a very basic understanding.
@@TheElectricUnderground i'm totally with you about the reality of how action games work. i just think designers should signal the existence of tech they're aware of. it doesn't have to be spoonfeeding; there can be a nice middle ground, like leaderboards with replays. replays don't trivialize the testing process, but they give you a nudge in the right direction if you're paying attention. i don't have a specific suggestion for Wanted: Dead because i haven't played it, but it sounds like a small hint about the guard cancels would have gone a long way.
for IGN and the like, it would make a huge difference if they gave games a bit of time to breathe instead of rushing out a clueless day 1 (or earlier) review. they could see the community discovering strats, revisit the game with those strats in mind, and write their reviews accordingly. that's really the only way they can accurately represent the casual audience they're writing for, because let's face it, IGN readers aren't about to lab shit either.
of course that's never going to happen because they gotta get those day 1 clicks. i'm just glad you've got a different reviewing style going on here for those of us who like gameplay in our games (imagine that). even though my tastes don't perfectly align with yours, i find your reviews infinitely more valuable than any mainstream reviews.
I like your reviews, you do a good job.
Well done for calling out poor reviews with lazy, flawed argumentation. It's very easy but dangerous and damaging to put out generic, superficial reviews.
Loads of these professional critics shouldn't even be in their position.... Many are waaaay out of their depth. It's very rare to come across mainstream reviews that offer value and insight to the reader/viewer.
That's a really good point Hoffmann. I'm not sure exactly what the qualifications are for being a game reviewer with these outlets is (probably college or something lol), but being skilled and knowledgeable at games is def not one.
Itagaki? Where did you get this information? As far as I know, the team was created by former Team Ninja developers, not by Itagaki himself.
Yeah sorry about that I was just glancing through the marketing, it sounds like they were name dropping him so I just sort of assumed he was part of the project. He's mentioned in the credits apparently but not a director.
I don't remember exactly how i found your channel/videos, but I'm glad I did. I otherwise wouldn't have known about Wanted: Dead. I've put over 40 hrs into this game w/ 9 or 10 playthroughs. For me, it's easily GOTY. Its just so unique for this era of gaming. It's definitely like another Vanquish type of game, especially with how aggressive you can be in the game and with it innovating the third person shooter genre. Aside from your coverage of this game, I enjoy your video discussions on the actual meat and potatoes of games, their mechanics and design, and how gaming got to where it is now. I had idea of why before, but now I have a much better picture and a better framework/philosophy to work with if I ever decide to make a game of my own.
If a game is unique then to most it's instantly 'terrible' as it doesn't remind them of something else. Review scoring is absolutely nonsense right now..... Buy the game and stick with it, figure out what you need to play it and most of all enjoy it...👍
yes, we need all our games to play the same and be as homogenized as possible, that way journalists can hussle through their reviews without having to think about the game play and then can be free to talk about story telling and whatever else they are interested in ha.
@@TheElectricUnderground 💯
Looks interesting but yeah...I would never pay 60 bucks for this. Budget titles need to be priced appropriately.
Agreed, it's too expensive. I think most games honestly are too expensive. $40 is a much better price point for this release I think.
Once again, another validating review. I always appreciate your perspective on these action games. I've been hyped for this game for a while, then it gets the poor/mixed reception, I get it anyway, and just absolutely love the game. It feels like this cycle repeats so much these days to the point where I wonder how many reviewers actually like action games. I just want these kinds of games to do well enough to keep them being made.
As far as the gameplay, it's just sick and I love the hybrid aspect of the combat. The shooting is very similar to Kill Switch (which was the influence for Gears of War). That was a ps2-era game I loved that this reminded me of so much with the ammo management, cover fire, grenades, and emphasis on headshots. The swordplay is good and I really like how the pistol operates. I liked customizing it for max stopping power so it's very reliable for creating openings. There are all kinds of little quirks you can do things like the diving slash and canceling.
absolutely liteOwl! I don't think many mainstream reviewers like or get action games. Their idea of a good action game is one that is mostly an rpg with some action elements to it. if you want your action game to be liked by the mainstream, add a stamina bar and rpg mechanics ha. I don't mind some action rpg (like Nioh), but I really wish this wasn't the new standard. Sifu, for example, is actually an action RPG in some sense with its stamina bars and so forth.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Now I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Valkyrie Elysium. Soleil made it and it was received pretty negatively as well. I want to pick up Wanted: Dead soon, especially because its price is $29.99 now.
I'm so glad you made this video because I was intrigued by this game but didn't really feel like reviews were giving me a good idea. I was dying for the Electric Underground analysis of the game. Don't necessarily have time now but it's definitely going on the list.
You said a lot of interesting stuff so hopefully I can keep from rambling here.
I'll actually defend the pricing here for two reasons. One, as you suggest, everybody knows that games are "supposed" to go on deep discount, so some buffer has to go in. And also, even if the game is lower-budget and not larded with filler, it has to make it work with a much smaller audience of people who this kind of hardcore experience appeals to, so it can't necessarily be cheaper just because of that. I've defended a lot of games for this reason... just not sure they can happen, jank and all, at the lower prices people think they should be going for.
Your points on reviews are also good. I will say, it is a bit unfair that we think of it as "the IGN review" rather than the review of whoever wrote it -- the jokers left behind at NintendoLife probably wouldn't review shmups consistently with you but that doesn't make your reviews hypocritical. But ultimately, yeah, reviewers just want to get through games and resent things that are too different, and they definitely do want to use their opportunity for a "safe" punching bag to get out some frustrations (very familiar phenomenon to anyone who loves Sonic the Hedgehog). I think they also have trouble really understanding, let alone articulating, what it is they like. Sparse checkpoints are bad... unless it's a Soulslike where they're awesome even though they're extra punishing. Or Returnal making you do the whole game over is cool even though other games we hate not having enough checkpoints. Games being hard is sometimes good and sometimes bad without much why or wherefore. Similar point to what you said about Sifu, I suppose.
I'm really happy to hear when people want for me to review a game :-) as I do try to provide some insights that don't typically come up on regular gaming outlets and so forth ha. Yeah no shame with bookingmarking this one and keeping and eye out for a nice sale. I think the game is really good, but $60 is a bit steep all things considered.
Great video. I had a feeling you were going to enjoy this game, the same as I did.
And I also agree with your thoughts on reviews and how they kneejerk. Additionally, believe it or not mostly Agents of Mayhem(on Chief of Executions) and to much lesser extent because of all of the bugs... Saints Row 2022(on Boss). Agents of Mayhem especially, showed me a lot of what TPS brawler hybrids potentials could possibly be, and the constant reminder of trying to discover and understand the most of what a game is attempting to offer and convey, on a gameplay mechanics standpoint. Even if both those games aren't the greatest, or have the strongest reputation. Though both of those games are more gunplay oriented over melee, and their sandbox nature has them both struggle with focus.
Lastly, besides these things, I have already learned 20+ years ago, that reviewers don't ever dip into gameplay nuance, and the reviews never show that the authors understand past the superficial layer. Think about any fighting game releases (as you mentioned DOA in this video), anyone that is, or has been a competitor at any point, looks at reviews for the games as jokes with very little credence. Action and action/RPGs, classic arcade genres, etc should be approached similarly, until publications can show they at least have competency and knowledge of nuance and prove it.
Until then, as far as action and action RPGs are concerned, we aren't going to see the last of the reviews using other games as the descriptor ("this game is like DMC or Ninja Gaiden with guns." "Oh this game is just like Dark Souls or a soulslike") - as a copout to avoid nuance of mechanics and to meet games on their own terms.
If you read this far, my bad for the long-winded rant, but your videos make for great discussion.
great comment my friend! I really like your point on fighting game reviews because as an FGC player back in the day, it was funny to see reviewers latching onto really trivial stuff about the game in their reviews and then not ever actually commenting on the meta of how the game played. So it was always down to talking to other players to get a feel for if a game played well or not ha.
@@TheElectricUnderground absolutely, and what happens often is that outlets and other less invested discourse, will almost speak in code to describe a game. As in, they'll name drop another game or adjacent superficially, to describe the subject matter, attempting to put the reverence and onus on the reader or listener for the value or credibility(based on their own personal knowledge or experience with whatever is name dropped), and dodge accountability or responsibility to articulate or describe further in detail themselves.
It's like trying to play an "IYKYK"(If You Know You Know) card, but they don't actually know! And can dodge having to prove that they know anything, by passing the hot potato to the end reader, on the shoulders of the sentiment of the coded name drops.
I have a feeling that the IGN reviewer expected a certain game, and also liked that SIFU was forthcoming with it's tech/mechanics whereas Wanted doesn't tell you. Evident in that you had to experiment to find these cancels (Which makes me think Wanteds mechanics were unintentional). Also SIFU has a less budget presentation.
That being said, I'm glad this game isn't as ass as reviews made it out, much more willing to try it after your review!
Yeah I think that is the reason why. Sifu told the reviewer exactly what to do when, and that made him a very happy boy. On the presentation though, I cannot emphasize more how much I prefer wanted dead's visuals over sifu's. Sifu's art style looks like a cheap pixar movie, and I hate the way pixar stuff looks. I find it disgusting in its bland disney look. Wanted dead isn't team ninja tier, but at least it has some edge and some gore.
I will be repeating myself, but this is the same case as Star Fox Zero. Too bad people judge games based on their own habits and what they are used to, instead of adapting to the game and getting the best out of it. Thanks for this review, I will definitely check it out since I loved Ninja Gaiden 1/2. What would you say is the best game from Team Ninja- do you like Ninja Gaiden more than lets say Nioh series? And which game would you say has the deepest combat ever thats hard to master but super rewarding? For me I loved Astral Chain, Wonderful 101, Vanquish, but even with all the hate I thought Bayonetta 3 had a great gameplay and I had no issue as most who complained since juggling with the Demons is something most didnt do.
Came back to watch this review again. You are spot on with your take on not writing off action games too early. Particularly ones with a pedigree. Going to finally jump into this gem
14:06 the irony here is that Sifu is EXACTLY as you describe wanted dead: my first play through I beat using the avoid mechanic and dodging, until the final boss where you have to parry
Had no idea this game was out or about. Looks cool.
Edit: Them complaining about the checkpoint dont know to fear not having ink for a typewriter.
Yeah I think i'll need to make a topic video soon defending checkpoints, because there seems to be this memo going around that checkpoints need to take place every 30 seconds ha
@@TheElectricUnderground back in my day I had to write down a password! Darn kids and technolology!!!
This game caught my eye since day 1, I'm gonna buy it as soon as I can.
IGN can't be taken seriously since ages ago; there isn't a single real gamer in their whole staff.
agreed augusto. I always get the impression that IGN are a bit embarrassed that they started as a game review outlet, and they want to spring board away from gaming as soon as possible ha. In their reviews for games they actually rarely discuss gameplay, instead much more interested in talking about social media trends.
Reminds me of Robotron 2084 where the game punishes you if you try to hog the edges, punishes you for staying around the same spot and punishes for just focusing on the strongest enemy. You have to kind of switch between different strategies all the time.
yes and I love that style of design, I think it's great. One of the biggest bummers was when I was playing rainbow six 3 on the xbox and realized that I could pretty much beat the game by just slowly and steadily peeking around corners.
This is an awesome channel man. Kudos
Thank you my dude!!!
Dude I’m so glad I found this video and I’m so glad games like this still exist. I’ve been watching your videos a lot and it feels good to relate when it comes to opinions on gaming. Definitely gonna check this game out, can’t believe I never even heard of it
The tutorial should have explained the guard cancel system at least in its most basic form. Usually this kind of thing is a bug in modern games, some oversight that would be used by speedrunners, so if a player inadvertently stumbles on the guard cancel, they're very likely to think they've found a glitch rather than the actual way to play the game. It even looks a little bit wonky.
I think (I may be wrong!) even Dark Souls tells you explicitly you can roll through attacks in the tutorial. That is extremely important, because most games would want you to roll away from attacks, but Dark Souls wants you right next to the enemy, rolling through the attacks.
Games should give you a hint on what you're expected to do to play them, especially now that modern audiences have been trained to follow what the game tells them. It doesn't need to hold your hand and list every single move and every in-depth mechanic, but there should be a mention, like you should be required to do one guard cancel in the tutorial and there should be a text box saying "Try and experiment more to see what other move combinations are possible!"
IGN: We have a Skill Issue. 4/10
After getting used to the checkpoint system, I found it incredibly fun. I hate doing the comparison, but it reminded me of first playing Dark Souls, where the game intentionally forces you to unlearn conventions of modern gaming that simplify everything to cater to the player. The Police Station was where it clicked, in the section where you go through the training arena, fight a Ninja, through a bunch of brown ninjas, the grenade throwing brute, then you realize you're still not done and still have to fight through a section of office space which includes ANOTHER brute, I knew the game was not pulling any punches with the challenge. And it felt like some old school gaming where the game really challenged you. Most memorable game of 2023 by far.
I get what you're saying about the sparser checkpoints creating tension but poorly done this can backfire and create a scenario where the player is forced to play through mundane sections of a level or parts they already mastered just to get a try at a trickier/harder/more challenging/trial and error/bs segment. This can get incredibly tedious, not because the hard part is hard but because the parts before it are long and easy and become a slog.
I feel like checkpointing has a lot of nuance to it that games often miss to look into. I'd be a fan of games using dynamic or smarter checkpointing more often. For example, Crash 4 is tough af but at times the game throws you a bone and makes one of the "?" crates into a checkpoint crate if you die several times during a section. This doesn't hurt more skillful players but lets players who are still learning get through the game while malding less.
I wanna play the challenging parts of the game and practice those, not do parts I already know how to pass over and over to then get trolled or "gotcha momented".
Players mastering checkpoints is a problem but I think it doesn't happen that often - usually players just get kinda ok at it and repeat those ok at best strats even if there's a lot more they could do, optimize, discover, etc. The problem there is tunnel vision - when you're so damn focused on a goal & frustrated, everything else standing in between you & the goal feels like a chore, even if it's really engaging otherwise. It's a difficult problem to solve but I suppose a way to go about it is to tie stage optimization to your power level when facing the boss or whatever end level challenge waits for you.
...Or just borrow from shmups and use practice modes, which solve everything perfectly ;)
@@boghogSTG Ok, by mastering I don't mean absolutely pixel perfect optimal. I mean "can do without dying consistently and reach the next part with full resources" basically in a neutral state. So that there'd be little to no difference starting from that point vs starting from the beginning.
Yes, tunnel vision can be a thing but often this isn't the case. Take another example of Crash 4: There are a few boxes to break before a hard section starts. You gotta break those boxes every time you attempt the hard part. This isn't difficult, they're sitting right there but you gotta do it every try. This gets tedious without adding much challenge at all.
Could you elaborate on the optimization part because I don't think I understand what you mean.
Another way to get around this would be quick saving/loading I guess but that comes with its own pros and cons and the design needs to fit it.
@@HighLanderPonyYT A good example would be something like a really deep racing game - there might be a hard turn at the end of the track which always gets you, but it rarely makes the previous parts of the track unimportant because any miliseconds you get from them can then compensate for any losses you have on that one hard turn. And if you do win, you will win with a bigger margin/beat your pb.
The reason trying to do better doesn't matter to you is cause that's not your goal. You're trying to beat the boss, and whether or not you clear that level quickly, stylishly, efficiently, that's all meaningless details.
So devs can either leave you alone with your goal by giving extra checkpoints/practice modes, OR they could try to align your goals in a way where you'll actually care about whatever small gains you get during the level. This already sorta exists in some ways like having more healing items/lives/health for the boss if you do well on a level, but it's minimal.
Ofc this probably doesn't apply to Crash 4's boxes if there's really just no way of doing it faster/better in some way.
@@boghogSTG Aight, I think I get it now, thx!
This seems to boil down to designing around perfection vs designing around just (stage) progression.
I do like when the difficulty or tension asks you to engage with the game more and interact with its mechanics more intensely. I like that part. I already explained the part I dislike. lol
A lot of this affects and has to do with level flow and pacing probably, too.
@@HighLanderPonyYT Yeah ideally the perfection element could feed into the progression element, so time spent repeating the same stuff would feel fruitful.
But yeah it requires games with depth, there's only so much optimization you can squeeze out of a retro Castlevania game, or one of those fucking Dark Souls elevators :|
From my perspective, basically what you're describing here is akin to the weapon-switching mechanic in Doom Eternal. For those who aren't familiar, switching weapons in DE cancels the reload time, making you basically unstoppable against even the most high-level enemies. When that game launched, everyone was whining about the Marauder and how cheap he was (myself included), and if you follow the tutorial verbatim, he IS a pain in the arse to fight. However, set up your quick-switch correctly (typically ballista/super shotgun) and he becomes one of the most fun encounters, so much so that they doubled down in the DLC with a dual Marauder fight.
Oh that s awesome! I love reload tech! Another fun one that no one cares about is that you can cancel the reload animation of guns in read dead revolver too, makes shotgun and rifle so much better
@@TheElectricUnderground That's a new one on me, need to go back and try it!
A major update dropped a few days ago that reworks the entire skill tree along with some of the moves and weapon balancing. Any plans to cover it for your channel?
I pulled an all nighter for maybe 4 or 5 hours, then apparently the next day I boot up the game and I face the final boss right away, this was one of those games where I was like "okay next checkpoint I'll sleep." Nope, kept going and just happened to stop near the final boss xD
Lol did the same thing myself :-) I was supposed to just play a bit of my 2nd playthrough but sat down and cleared the game again ha
I don't read IGN, but this was one of the worst games I have played in ages. Every aspect of Wanted: Dead was so poorly presented and executed I was shocked anyone thought it was fit for release. The game ran like mud at odd times, the camera was from 2003, with frequent crashes, tons of enemy and object clipping, cutscenes that crashed frequently, and the worst voice work I have heard since... well, 2003. Nonsense story and cinematics as well. I'm here for the gameplay, but if you charge full price and present your game in this market as such, shame on you. Never mind the fact the AI was super buggy, braindead often (if I stopped moving or stood on certain objects the AI would stop working), and it was piss easy to get permanently stuck in geometry. The game isn't even consistent with its hitboxes and you can slash through walls at enemies at times and other times geometry messes up the radius of explosions hitting you. Such a technical mess and sloppy, low-budget execution. Hard disagree on this one, my brother. Very hard. It borders on insult & irresponsibility for a developer to release a product such as Wanted: Dead when $10 games on Steam are better considered and executed.
Love me some IGN bashing, but this game I just don't like the modern warfare style enough. Is there a tutorial at all for it? Seems like the type of game that needs one, as your guard cancelling after the first slash certainly didn't 'look' like it was how the game should be played. Would be interesting if they held your hand but only in teaching you the game first, and I wonder how game journalists would knowingly be able to play it like bayonetta after that. Keep up the great reviews!
You get a really basic tutorial at the start (that you can skip :-) ) but other than that you are thrown right in. I don't mind that so much but yeah some type of advanced tutorial would probably be really useful. The guard canceling the first attack over and over isn't necessary, as you can guard cancel combos and so forth as well, but I must say it is effective ha. Much like when you play final fight and do a bunch of turn around cancel jabs :-)
Can't be IGNorant without IGN lmao 🤣.
Thank you for your review Mark!!!!
I can't believe I never saw that before ha, now I can't unsee it XD
Lmao 🤣 glad I could open your eyes to that!
Well, you've definitely sold me on this game. It seems like the type of game that's gonna be $20 within the year though, and with Wo Long coming out in a couple weeks and Metroid Prime in my Switch right now....think I'll hold off till then, lol. But I've wishlisted it! We need more games like this! ....just not at this price point, haha
very understandable my friend, I think a nice price point for it would be in the $30-$40 range but I am sure it will drop to $20 during sales and stuff.
I still see this as somewhat of a failure of the game's design. Shouldn't the game be fun even if you don't dig extremely deep in the combo lab? Why didn't the developers make it clear that guard cancelling was so important? Why isn't it in the tutorial?
Even the best shmups are still at their base form fun to credit feed or play for survival without digging into high level scoring mechanics.
Not that I'm trying to defend an IGN review, just that I know a lot of people bounced off this game fwiw.
There is a valid critique there that the game could help communicate it's design more for sure. However, that should not be considered a fatal error of the game and result in a 4/10. Otherwise the review standard would be if a game doesn't immediately spell itself out completely in five minutes, it's a bad game ha. This is why I think reviewers need to be somewhat skilled gamers, so that they know how to analyze aspects of the game that might not be completely obvious at first - isn't that the job of the reviewer? The approach IGN takes though is very closed off: "I want the game to be a certain way, and if it doesn't immediately tell me what to do at all times it's bad design." That's essentially how IGN looks at things and that's why we have games now with so much handholding that there is no room for players to need to experiment and try new things. I think you could play the game and beat it without guard buffering, but it's just a very helpful technique to open up the gameplay.
@@TheElectricUnderground sadly that's how most people approach video games nowadays. First sign of actual challenge or a requirement for some level of mastery and they drop the game... Like you said, God Hand all over again.
There needs to be a balance between the player putting in effort, and the devs communicating well.
I love this game, so happy you're on board with it.
I cannot wait to play this game. It came across my radar out of nowhere and the marketing (to me) was stellar! The setting also makes me miss Katana Zero for some reason.
I found myself pretty charmed by the setting and the vibe ha. I dug it
Really excited for this. One thing I’ve noticed recently with reviewers who hate more action oriented games, if you watch their gameplay, they’re doing very poorly in the game. Like with a couple of my favorite games I saw reviews saying “it’s way too hard” or “there’s no flow in the combat”, but as I watched the gameplay, they were playing the game in a very miserable way lol like if I was that bad at the game I also probably wouldve hated it. Like in the gameplay for IGNs review of this game, the person is playing in such a frustratingly horrible way lol
absolutely crow! I talk about that a lot in the review actually ha. Because I think it's very unfair and poor practice how these games are just getting so casually dismissed by larger outlets
I bought the game yesterday on ps5 and getting used to how it plays is key to getting good. Still trying to figure out it how to guard cancel and the parry timing but the satisfaction of kicking butt makes up for it.
Hell yes you ll catch on for sure
I think you focus too much on IGN they're just a symptom there are also tons of "independant" reviews tearing this game apart. Steam's gamers reviews are mostly bad as well. It's just that most people aren't accustomed this type of games anymore. People have forgotten that some things are an aquired taste. It's not because you don't like something at first sight that it is necessarily bad. In general games that are rough with you won't work anymore, unless you're called FromSoftware you won't get a pass and the average gamer will drop it in the fist couple of hours or get through it not trying to explore its gameplay.
Regarding the Steam reviews: I think there's also an aspect of groupthink going on there - many people will just follow along with whatever the public consensus appears to be rather than think critically themselves. Which is what makes platforms like IGN so problematic, as they reach a huge amount of people that think like that by default, who then go on to spread that negativity, which then eventually takes on a life of its own and dooms even the most promising of underdog projects.
They're effectively narrowing the playing field on what games are allowed to be from a creative standpoint by their sheer existence as rapid-output, low-quality reviewers with massive reach at this point.
I focus so much on IGN because they are the actual embodiment of the issues I find with gaming journalism. They are obviously not the only reviewers that I disagree with, but they set the tone for all other reviewers. They also get their reviews out before anyone else can because of industry connections. They are the kingmakers, plain and simple. For example my brothers, both very casual gamers, completely rely on IGN to know if they should buy a game or not. There is also no alternative to IGN, all the other outlets are just IGN juniors. There is no alternative in the mainstream really. They all agree and IGN is clearly the top dog. I think we live in an interesting echo system where IGN are basically able to steamroll or glorify any game they want, but there is no alternative press that disagrees with them at all. And what you might consider possible alternatives, like my channel, are little mice in comparison when it comes to influence. Larger channels are not going to go too hard at IGN or other reviewers because that would be too risky career wise, as that channel would lose out on industry connections. It's all very insider trading stuff. I'll talk about this more in my ign 7/10 response video I'll do in a month or two.
@@HansAlRachid Group thinking also affects RUclips reviewers who claim to be independant and in touch with the "real gamers". They just repeat each other, or worse say exactly what they think their audience wants to hear. If one tears the game apart the others will follow the same direction, and their communities altogether.
I also realized something about modern arcade games. It's almost impossible to make an arcade type of game with a modern 3D presentation anymore, the only way to get a pass is to make 2D pixel art. Make it a "2D throwback" and then all the complains about writing, difficulty, check points etc. disapear. It's like people are unable to see beneath the presentation and adapt their expectations.
@@kathleendelcourt8136 Absolutely! Though I'd argue that even then, stagnation in counterculture, or in niche fanbases, is inherently less destructive on the industry at large than stagnation in the mainstream, but that's neither here nor there.
(Personally I happen to be a huge fan of _good_ pixel art - which very few 2D throwbacks actually have - but I totally see your point and I absolutely agree that that style should never give devs any more leeway than any other and also that people should be more open to lower budgeted 3D projects. Especially since figuring out 3D visuals is a learning process and without iteration, it's hard to get anywhere with that style. And in order to iterate, it needs to be financially viable.)
@@HansAlRachid Of course, I wasn't throwing a jab at modern 2D games, just pointing out that their 3D counterparts weren't benefiting from the same tolerance in the eye of the public and reviewers.
Nice video title! Bought the game after watching this. Hadn't even hear of it but love most Itagaki involved titles and this looks to have the feel of Devil's Third, which I also loved..
Yes that's what I'm hearing a lot :-) Now i feel like i need to try out devil's third :)
Awesome. This is the review I've been waiting for. Didn't even bother looking through the general publications since they predominantly have a scrub mentality. Like you said Mark, if all mechanics aren't all apparent from the get-go, they'll automatically call it a bad game.
Yeah it's shocking how industry "professionals" literally do not know how to play video games that present challenges or are mechanically different. They just assume it's bad design and call it a day.
8:27 The game also does not allow customizable touchdown celebrations. Heck, it doesn't even have touchdown celebrations, because it doesn't have touchdowns! As a football game, it really fails.
You can't steal cars either, no driving mechanics, 4/10
"Its not hard and its not Call of duty 👎👎👎👎👎👎"
-IGN probably
What made me interested in the game (got it yesterday and played until the first boss then wandered around the police hq) and subsequently falling in love with it, was how it reminded me of Deadly Premonition. It's goofy and surreal and I'm all for it. Also, the second time the ninja showed up (Japanese garden outside) instead of using the chainsaw to kill all the knife soldiers, I saved for the ninja and it was a one hit kill ❤️ oh, and subscribed!
This review is so good. What a great breakdown of the current state of games and game reviews.
I will 100% pick this up and talk about it on The Loot Bros Podcast. Subbed and glad I discovered your channel.
When people say tthat you should go to youtube if you want actually useful game critiques and reviews, videos like this are EXACTLY the kind of stuff they mean. +1 sale of Wanted Dead and +1 sub to you.
You aren’t kidding about the check point system. That checkpoint system and high stakes is why Raiden kicks my ass.
Oh no joke, raiden takes no prisoners with it's checkpoints
I know it might stray a bit from the usual games covered on this channel, but I'd be very interested in a review of Rollerdrome from you, very few RUclips reviewers take score attack games seriously and just about every video on the game right now is just "hurr durr Tony Hawk with guns"
Oh I ve never heard of that before :-) this year I am going to dive into some off the beaten trail stuff with my PS2 games series
The state of mainstream reviews right now is just awful. Your review and calling out IGN is brilliant and is such a microcosm of everything wrong with reviews today.
I'm glad you enjoyed it CD! I found myself talking about it more than I expected, but this is such a clear example it had to be mentioned I think.
So many good points made, earned a subscriber!
Subscribed! I really appreciate that you dig deep and give the a game a proper chance, especially with a game like 'Wanted Dead' that is a little unconventional. IGN could use a journalist like you. It would be a breath if fresh air. They are hurting developers with their superficial reviews.
Any opinion on the YEAR 1 Update that just released?
I haven’t tried it yet, but the notes says that they made some balancing changes