A few missions in, this feels...wrong. On a few levels.
Mainly, the fighting mechanics feel unfinished: I've yet to encounter a single enemy type that would give me any grief if I just continue wailing on them, and dodging or parrying is strictly useless. There are a few combos you can input, but their effect feels homogenous, and doing them seems pointless, in part because the style system doesn't seem to understand what made Devil May Cry special. There it feels 1-1 with your actions: many cool and varied moves = good, a few repetitive moves = bad. Your rank changes every other second in direct response to your gameplay, and, especially in DMC 5, it feels good to maintain a high rank. In Slave Zero X, I can't figure out what even effects rating, because the only thing that I can always reference is the combo counter, which depletes WAY too quickly. Other than that, I'm not sure what's so different between my E-rated battles and my S-rated ones (the only two ratings I managed to get).
The second big "wtf" thing is the story. I don't know if I'm dumb, or shoud've beaten the game, or listened more closely to radio chatter, but I'm not sure this narrative makes sense. After a scene where two Guys talk about Things You Don't Know About and then Do Things You Don't Understand, you just take control of this guy with his sentient exo-sceleton acting as comic relief. The game doesn't try to establish...anything, really? All dialogue feels like exposition, and yet nothing is stated concretely. I almost felt like my (admitedly pirated) version was fucked up, until I looked up some playthroughs and no. It's just incomprehensible.
Looks good, doesn't work.
Mainly, the fighting mechanics feel unfinished: I've yet to encounter a single enemy type that would give me any grief if I just continue wailing on them, and dodging or parrying is strictly useless. There are a few combos you can input, but their effect feels homogenous, and doing them seems pointless, in part because the style system doesn't seem to understand what made Devil May Cry special. There it feels 1-1 with your actions: many cool and varied moves = good, a few repetitive moves = bad. Your rank changes every other second in direct response to your gameplay, and, especially in DMC 5, it feels good to maintain a high rank. In Slave Zero X, I can't figure out what even effects rating, because the only thing that I can always reference is the combo counter, which depletes WAY too quickly. Other than that, I'm not sure what's so different between my E-rated battles and my S-rated ones (the only two ratings I managed to get).
The second big "wtf" thing is the story. I don't know if I'm dumb, or shoud've beaten the game, or listened more closely to radio chatter, but I'm not sure this narrative makes sense. After a scene where two Guys talk about Things You Don't Know About and then Do Things You Don't Understand, you just take control of this guy with his sentient exo-sceleton acting as comic relief. The game doesn't try to establish...anything, really? All dialogue feels like exposition, and yet nothing is stated concretely. I almost felt like my (admitedly pirated) version was fucked up, until I looked up some playthroughs and no. It's just incomprehensible.
Looks good, doesn't work.