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Forums - Gaming - Playing Nier Automata makes me sad for the sad state of combat in Western games

Louie_86 on 25 December 2016

Yeah, Witcher 3 has a simplistic combat, but the game is an amazing experience from begining to end. The characters, world design, lore, everything is incredibily detailed and fantastically done. Don't get me wrong, I agree with the combat being too simple for a game so elaborated, but a game is the sum of its parts, not one of them alone. And I insist, your judgement is exagerated. A game doesnt win over 250 goty awards by being terrible in something so important.
For me Nier's looks great, but japanse games usually dont elaborate as much on all the details, and thats what usually loses me. Even franchises that used to do it, like FF, have lost it. So for me it could go either way, I have to play the game to judge it.



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REDZONE on 25 December 2016

The witcher 3 combat was God awful,clunky as fuck even ride the horse was shit.



KingofTrolls on 25 December 2016
BraLoD said:

I know you are trying to show me something, but it just don't look interesting to me, and those pictures just keep confirming it.



Acevil on 25 December 2016
Libara said:
Western combat is usually more strategic and requires more skill/forethought whereas Japanese games usually have combat that just requires button mashing.

Honestly this is how I feel, I rarely these days have to think in Japanese games, while I actually use defense and parry in western games. If I am not getting gameover from button mashing, I feel the sad state of Japanese games is more apparent. 



 

Turkish on 25 December 2016
Hiku said:

Western titles probably don't want to have aerial combat as a design choice, so that takes out a big element from Nier's combat.
However, you could compare Ni-Oh to Witcher 3 instead, and I think even there, Ni-Oh's combat looks a lot more refined and fluid.

I still have Heart of Stoen and Blood and Wine to finish, I'll get to them around February, which means Ni-oh month. I'll probably be ranting then as well lol...

Jpcc86 said:
Yeah, Witcher 3 has a simplistic combat, but the game is an amazing experience from begining to end. The characters, world design, lore, everything is incredibily detailed and fantastically done. Don't get me wrong, I agree with the combat being too simple for a game so elaborated, but a game is the sum of its parts, not one of them alone. And I insist, your judgement is exagerated. A game doesnt win over 250 goty awards by being terrible in something so important.
For me Nier's looks great, but japanse games usually dont elaborate as much on all the details, and thats what usually loses me. Even franchises that used to do it, like FF, have lost it. So for me it could go either way, I have to play the game to judge it.

Yeah everything else about W3 is a 9/10, but the combat is a huge part in a game like this, and it drags the other parts down which makes the sum not as good as it should be.

BraLoD said:
Turkish said:

Most sword/melee combat in Western games look like derivatives of each other, they all go for that scripted, automated feel. There 's a terrible lack of variation. There was a Western pc game from early 00s which had a distinct combat system, forgot the name. The devs did their own thing due to the lack of AAAA titles to copy from.

It's such a shame becuz W3's quests are the best in business.

Some side quests are so good they can be their own game.

And I disagree about Scalebound, it'll turn out good, trust Kamiya.

Scalebound was once Lost Odyssey to me, a game that truly interested me on XBO, but differently from Lost Odyssey, as they keep on showing it, they keep making me less and less interested, sadly.

I hope it turns out well, I just platined Okami and ffs, what a beautiful, amazing game, so yeah, I want to believe it'll still be good, but it doesn't look likely to happen, but hopefully the delay is exactly for that.

Yeah the E3 showing this year was bad, maybe it's just becuz of the drab color palette of everything in that boss fight room. I liked what they showed last year. The delay means it'll get the necessary polish.

Btw, Nier Automata is different than the brown games of last generation, in Nier's case it just works. Try out the demo!



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Goodnightmoon on 25 December 2016

And I don't understand why critics are so permissive with bad combat systems, one of the best examples is Shadow of Mordor, how did that game got such high praise with such a completely broken combat system? Is ridiculously bad and you spend most of the time doing it, I'll never understand it.



KingofTrolls on 25 December 2016
Turkish said:

I still have Heart of Stoen and Blood and Wine to finish,

Heaths of Stone has IMO the best boss fights in W3,  but sadly there is a few of them. I wish next game ( if there will be any ) will copycat that boss fights mechanisc into basic combat system.



VGPolyglot on 25 December 2016
Acevil said:
Libara said:
Western combat is usually more strategic and requires more skill/forethought whereas Japanese games usually have combat that just requires button mashing.

Honestly this is how I feel, I rarely these days have to think in Japanese games, while I actually use defense and parry in western games. If I am not getting gameover from button mashing, I feel the sad state of Japanese games is more apparent. 

If you try to button mash in Ninja Gaiden you'll get destroyed.



Boutros on 25 December 2016

I'm surprised no one is talking about Batman: Arkham Asylum. It introduced an incredible melee combat system.



Acevil on 25 December 2016
VGPolyglot said:
Acevil said:

Honestly this is how I feel, I rarely these days have to think in Japanese games, while I actually use defense and parry in western games. If I am not getting gameover from button mashing, I feel the sad state of Japanese games is more apparent. 

If you try to button mash in Ninja Gaiden you'll get destroyed.

Ninja Gaiden might be the only exception, but I haven't played on since early Gen 7. However all Musuo Games, DMC (Most recent pure hack/slash action game I played), Final Fantasy 15, and I imagine this being no different. 

I just don't get the whole sad state of combat in western games comment when the east does just as poorly. (I typically buy both east and west, but to act like one is really better now a days is a joke to me.)

Souls/Monster Hunter is the only games I feel are outside of this bubble.