Since writing about Yak 0 (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio), I have not gone back to it. I feel like I should and I have had several people tell me that I need to get through chapter four before making a decision. I read on the Google that Majima shows up in chapter three and he’s the other playable character. One guy said that if I didn’t click with it by then, probably wouldn’t at all. Which, fine, but I barely made it through one chapter, let alone four. Ian told me that the chapters vary in length, but I have not felt a pressing need to go back.
I bought Steelrising (Spiders) and Judgment (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio) during the autumn steam sale because I was really intrigued by the former and Ian suggested the latter by the same company that does the Yakuza games.
Steelrising is a soulslike set in revolutionary France. The novel concept is that you are a sentient automaton programmed to take care of Marie Antoinette. Protect her, I mean. Not rub her out. I realized that ‘take care of’ could mean two very different things. The protag’s name is Aeigis and she’s great. I made her look as Asian as possible and chose Armoured Fans because let’s face it. I’m always going to choose fans if I can as my weapon.
There is no shield in the game, but you can block with the fans. There is a parry/deflect that if you get the deflect perfect, you stun the enemy for a brief moment. There is a mechanic of the automatons (all the enemies are automatons, too) is that they overheat. You as the protag overheat. So you have to hit Y at the moment of peak overheating in order to bring it back down. Or, at least that’s what I think is going on.
I’m not exactly sure because as I fought the first boss (th e tutorial boss), I could not get it to reliably work. Even when I hit Y, Aegis would refuse to attack for several moments. I had no idea why this was or what the point of the system was, but I found it very frustrating.
In addition, the whole combat system is too floaty. I felt as if I was fighing the camera the whole time. With a soulslike, the combat has to be tight as that’s the whole point. THis was not. At all. It felt loose and janky, and I never knew what was going to hit and what wasn’t. I will say that the stealth attack, I appreciated. If you managed to sneak up on an automaton without it noticing you, the reticule would turn red and you could hit RB for a stealth attack. That would immediate take out the enemy if it was a weak one or a huge chunk of health of a more stalwart enemy.