Heavenly Sword (wow)

Quality is not quantity and pure variety probably won't help, but you do need good pacing. God of War was a very well paced game. You have straight fighting sections, then your quiet puzzle solving sections platformy (avoiding traps, pushing around blocks) sections, then mini boss sections. You didn't feel like you were just mashing buttons in the same repetetive pattern for hours on end.

The enemy in GoW was excelently varied though. How you took on a medusa was very different from how you took on minotaur etc. Of course if killing the plain foot solider types was not fun, just adding other monster types would not have fixed it.
 
Pacing has another form as well. It's the difficulty curve.

Examples: Metal Gear Solid & Final Fantasy X

I like these examples because detractors assert that these games are more appealing in their narrative aspects, while the actual interactive gameplay is shallow and repetitive.

These are also good examples because the gameplay of both are in fact relatively shallow and repetitive. However, the gameplay of both are very good, even if you strip away all the narrative trappings.

It's because both have snappy control (yes, FFX's turn-based combat is "snappy"), good feedback and consistancy. That's what makes good gameplay.

All that's needed to add longevity to that gameplay is an appropriate difficulty curve. One that can keep players of different skill levels challenged for as long as possible. Good gamplay -no matter how repetitive- matched with a satisfying challenge will allways have legs.

Non-varied/repetive games: Wipeout XL/2097, Poker, Street Fighter 3, Daytona USA, Devil May Cry, Katamari Damacy, Lost Planet, Pants Puppet, Geometry Wars, Diablo, Gauntlet, NBA JAM, Tetris

None of those games have "box puzzles". Thanks to Allah for that.
 
Crayon said:
Succesful examples: Lost Planet, Devil May Cry, ZOE2, Contra.
Click to expand...

DMC is very much varied in the overall pace of the game.. You spend alot more time working your way through puzzles (of the "take this key to here, take that object to there" kind rather than the "push this box" kind of puzzles we all kno and love from the days of yesteryear..) than you actually do fighting.. The pull is that fighting is a means to break up the puzzling and vice versa..

Also with various strategies required for combating the various enemies, added to that the amazing mini-boss & boss battles, make the overall flow of the game a joy to behold..

The same can be said for ZOE 1 & 2, Ninja Gaiden, God of War, Primal and alot of action games out there..

Maybe HT won't have "puzzles" in the traditional sense but I would be hard pressed to imagine a game whereby the "only" element of gameplay was the fight mechanics.. In my personal oppinion there's alot which can be done to mix up a "pure" action game in terms of diversifying the fight mechanics; whether it be having a vast number of interesting and different enemies to fight, having different fighting styles and weapons at your disposal, having different classes of attacks ranging from standard moves to supers (a la street fighter), having a depth and breadth of combo, attacks and counters to play with, having multi-tiered battles ranging from 1-on-1, 1-on-a-few to 1-on-a-thousand..

But unless there's something more.. something to give point and purpose to interactivity outside the fighting, the whole system may not just feel right..

Any action games developer will tell you that no game can have the player fighting "all the time".. Even in Dynasty warriors the player gets some relief during combat prep where he can attend to character development, configure his forces and do other things to break up the action a bit..

If you have a game driven by a strong narrative then there must be parts of the game where the character is expected to perform so task which doesn't involve violence and without any non-fight mechanics the game forces such events to be either scripted or represented to the player in a cut-scene.. This would hurt the overall experience in my oppinion as it would push the player to feel like he is permanently on the rails, unable to take the helm of the main character until the game has finished working its way through the narrative and when another battle is ready to wage..

I don't think either NT or there publisher Sony would allow the game to follow such a path to be fair..

(I disagree with Crayon on MGS and FFX being Shallow and repetitve experiences but that's another debate for another time..)
 
Undercover Cop said:
If you're gonna ripoff God of War why not rip off the puzzles, platforming or exploration as well? This game is basically going to be: run to this room, trigger cutscene, fight small group, cutscene, run up some steps to another area, cutscene, fight large group,, run outside, fight stops to trigger cutscene with boss's entrance, contextual button press boxx battle with boss, cutscene, explaining plot... fight... cutscene... fight... cutscene.
Click to expand...

I'm not really sure you're being very fair with that. You're simplifying a game down to it's most basic actions -- any game would seem derivative if you simplify it that much.

For example, God of War was merely: Fight some guys.... trigger cutscene... fight more guys... trigger cutscene... run to another area, while fighting some guys... trigger another cutscene... push a couple boxes, fight some guys... trigger cutscene... fight some guys and push a button after they die... trigger cutscene... fight aries... trigger cutscene.

The game still sounds like a blast to me. The fact that the story starts similarly to God of War doesn't really matter to me... I liked the usage in GoW and if they can tell an interesting story in HT then I don't see it as a negative at all.

This game can't come out soon enough, if you ask me.
 
archangelmorph said:
Hi-quality reply.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. Here's my part:

The way I look at it just because you are taking action and moving the character, it's not neccesarily "gameplay". For example: You get to a door in DMC, it's locked. Screen flashes to the button down the hall, and returns control to you. You run down the hall, push a button, and run back up the hall to where the monsters are and you can resume playing DMC proper. The game is shooting and slashing. That's it. It's flawlessly executed, and wouldn't cut it if it weren't for the well implemented difficulty curve I described before. While it does have cut scenes and key fetches, they serve as padding and breaks between the gameplay.

Contrast with something like Zelda, where they hide the button. And you have to explore the world, experiment, and use a pinch of critical thinking to find it. And when you do, you will kill a few monsters and maybe start looking around for another button. Or perhaps be presented with a unique puzzle to figure out. Maybe it will frustrate you and you'll leave to go goof around in the overworld while you ponder the riddle of the dungeon. That's varied, non-repetitive gameplay.

And MGS was a bad example. I have a pretty unpopular opinion on the game. My opinion is that it's a statement by Kojima about the importance of narrative in games. You see, Pac Man was the first game character. And Snake is the Pac Over Man. Because MGS is just a hyper-evolved game of pacman. Remember looking at the radar half the time in MGS1? You lived and died on that radar. The radar, if you remember looked alot like a game of Pac Man. They chased you, you chased them.... Anyone with me on this? I've been saying it for years but managed to convince few.
 
If you allow a similar comparison for Zelda: The "riddles" are easy enough to solve, there is really no problem that aint laid out perfectly for you. The only problem is that you have to press the button at the right places and remember the effect. Solving "riddles" simply boils down to a game of memory, search and remember the right spots and "trigger" them.
Do this over-and-over, fight a bit in between and there you got your highly repetive gameplay ;)
Just for the record, the last Zelda I played (albeit not very long) was "Ocarina of Time", but I`d surprised if the newer ones are different in that regard.
 
You know if Gears of War did so great with such a simple gameplay concept which was executed well involving running and gunning down enemies, and if God of War was acclaimed globally as a great fun game and won awards I see no reason why Heavenly Sword wont be reckognised for its complex and potentially deep fighting system on which Ninja Theory have been working for years before they even showed it at E3 2005 for the first time in public.
 
I think this gameplay discussion is good, and I'd be happy to continue it if it was slpit off into another thread. Don't want to derail too much here.

But I must say, after some thought, FFX and MGS are terrible examples. My bad!
 
Possible reasons:
- game needs more polish
- game needs larger installed base to break even (rumored development costs are 20+ million USD according to Edge and other sources)
- Sony needs a good game in the autumn more than now

Or it could be just wrong info.
Although a marketing campaign with lots of screenshots should be at full speed by now, look at Motorstorm and F1...
 
Paul said:
Hey.. A question for Deano/nAo, Does HS support 1080i? I hope so because I unfortunately am the owner of a gimped 26" samsung widescreen 'HDTV' which supports 480p/1080i..
Click to expand...

While not promising (cos there are still so things to be worked out), its looks extremely likely, tho we at NT can't take the credit if it does happen... so i won't but I will say i expect it will be okay (scaled from 720p rather than native 1080 tho if thats a big issue...)
 
DeanoC said:
While not promising (cos there are still so things to be worked out), its looks extremely likely, tho we at NT can't take the credit if it does happen... so i won't but I will say i expect it will be okay (scaled from 720p rather than native 1080 tho if thats a big issue...)
Click to expand...

scaler issue fix coming confirmed ;)
 
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