Action games

I’ve been playing a lot of high-mobility action games recently. Some notable ones are Vanquish with its boost system and Devil May Cry 5 with its many movement mechanics such as Trickster and Vergil’s teleport. I’ve also been looking into mech games recently like Armored Core 6, Zone of the Enders 2, and the upcoming Mecha Break. They all have flight and a really fast dodge.

As much as I love the Batman Arkham games, I don’t consider Freeflow to be its own independent movement mechanic. He just zips to the next enemy like a magnet.

They also don’t have to be really fast. Dante’s Trickster doesn’t reach the speeds of Vergil, mechs, or Vanquish’s boost. Dante’s is special because of how versatile it is. Dashes, air dashes, air jumps, and teleports.

Other games I’ve heard of, but aren’t too familiar with, are Sakuna of Rice and Ruin where the main character can grapple almost anywhere, including enemies, and reposition herself mid battle. Then there’s a pixel platformer called Sanabi where your main tool and weapon is a mechanical grappling arm.

Suggestions, please

Edit: I’m talking about mid-combat movement tech, not overworld traversal, though they can overlap.

I've played the hell out of Lies of P, Lords of the Fallen, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Sekiro. What other games should I be checking out?

Isa sa mga tinuturo ni BES dati at pinanatili ni KDR is yung tungkol sa paglalaro ng video games, masama daw yun. As of now, not only my story but most of the parents na nakulto basta nananalig padin sa turo ni BES, they tend to see these games coming from Satan. "Sa demonyo yang larong yan, wag nyo yang gagawin, o mas mabuti pa wag na kayong mag LARO." I see evidences in media na people seem to struggle in addiction and sometimes fatally come to their end just to be on top of their gaming. Pero we can't rule out that it's just a deduction made through a minority of people. Most people doesn't play games to be on top, they just play games to go through with their loneliness, depression and other mental issues since the same family that wants them to stop gaming can't also listen to them. If walang mapuntahan or sinuman na makikinig sa kanila, they go MMORPG. If they think lowly of themselves and feel like there is no challenge in this life, they go MOBA and SHOOTER games. If they feel like reality is suffocating, they will play FANTASY/Adventure games. If they feel stuck in a loop they numb theirselves with all of these games.

How can you believe this teaching about gaming if the church who says this also invalidates depression and related mental illnesses? Fyi these mentally struggling people use these games to COPE. They help us BETTER than this wicked excuse for a church does. They simply don't listen, they don't want to understand, just like our parents na nakulto.

As Apple continues adding Capcom games, I’m wondering if these games will be added to Arcade to make it a competitor to services like Xbox Cloud Gaming and Luna. It also appears I haven’t really paid much attention, but it appears that AC Mirage will also be available on newer iPads and Apple devices. What do you guys like playing with Arcade, I’ve got an Apple One subscription and I use Apple TV and Music but Arcade, I kind of struggle with.

I know many of you hate the soulslike influence, but hear me out. We all know about the interactive movie videogame trend of the ps4 era, and how straight-up boring it can be. Luckily though, I think we're just now seeing a resurgence of gameplay-based titles. Part of it is thanks to all these new Chinese and Korean studios doing pretty cool things, but a large part of this new wave of action (often RPG) games is due to the success of Elden Ring, I think.

And yes it's not a CAG by any means, but it proved that there is a big audience for challenging and gameplay-focused videogames, which can go on to include many CAGs. Even if you don't like Fromsoft games specifically, I think their recent success is more of a good thing than you might think.

It wasn't soulslikes who killed CAGs. It was this obsession over hyperrealistic, movie-like games, and the newest God of War games fell victim to it.

Maybe we are seeing the start of another boom in action games though, and even if you don't like some of these games specifically (due to their soulslike influence), I think it's still a good thing for the general market. Plus I'd happily take Sekiro or Stellar Blade over The Last of Us or Detroit Become Human, but you do you.

Each action game I played has multiple games within them: Crowd Control and Combo games mainly. And different titles/entries do them differently so it's exciting to learn how they work. Combo games are obvious appeal of the genre, and personally, I am huge fan of crowd control in action games, both decently easy (DMC3) and hard (GODHAND, started it and it kicks ass).

In DMC3, every melee weapon has strong CC properties besides Beowulf: typically in form of a wide attack or a stunlock move like most crazy combos, pretty simple. It's very rewarding as well, cause with good positioning you can trap enemies near walls/corners or catch many of em then destroy with a single attack with crazy combo finishers / devil trigger explosion. Besides fast/consistent kills, killing multiple enemies with a single attack also nets you fast and consistent way to get SSS, plus tons of devil trigger (if you didn't use DTE cause you don't gain DT back in DT transformation).

Godhand's crowd control is tough, understatement for sure. Your standard attack hitboxes aren't as big as in DMC3, and decently big ones are balanced with slower startup frames while other, highly desirable moves like the forward launch kick are contextual moves you need to earn. Enemies block, roll to escape your powerful contextual moves, and attack relentlessly. CC is your survival, and enemies are designed to challenge you in this regard.

BONUS:

How do your favorite action games handle crowd control?

I'm a big souls fan and I always thought it would be cool to have a game set entirely in real life medieval castles or other historical locations. Are there examples of action games or action rpgs (no shooters) with such settings?

So i have a problem that i noticed about myself today. i type of feature creep where i tried really hard to make my combat so deep and intricate. only to realize i'm not there yet. but this does ponder the question in my title. Just how? Some of my inspirations are Hollow Knight, DMC, Dark Souls, and Hades. I love their fast paced combat where you have to make quick decisions on what to do in any given fight in order to survive. but i now that i'm here in this space making games i wonder how they manage to keep these simple options of gameplay so fucking fun despite them being so....simple at times.

Many action games have some sort of parry/counter attack that require proper timing and I absolutely love that mechanic. In most cases the attack comes out after a slight delay: in Metal Gear Rising, you technically "block" first before you perform a counter, same goes for Bayonetta and Ninja Gaiden.

But there are a few games where you can retaliate the very moment an enemy's attack hits you. You can do that in Nier Automata with the Counter chip, Ghost of Tsushima have something similar with Standoffs. And by far the most satisfying ones for me are Royal Release from DMC and Flourish from Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae. They are so satisfying to pull off I wish they were in every game.

I get that you need a certain style of game to have such flashy moves, but... feels like we don't have enough of those.

Hi, I was wondering if there are any 2d games with great combat, excluding viewtiful joe and dead cells, because I've played viewtiful joe and liked it, and dead cells is in my top 3 games of all time. Also, I'm not a huge fan of beat 'em ups, but I'm open to anything.

I’ve noticed a lot of action, combat based games these days only study each other, instead of older games or related genres like fighting games. As a result they follow trends. They do everything their competitors and colleagues are doing, and if no one is doing it, no one will try.

By modern I mean anything I can buy on the PS5, released between ~2015-2024. If none really exist feel free to suggest games I could get on Xbox One Backwards compatibility.

Preferably running at 60fps but we can’t have everything, so not required.

I don’t mean like in GOW 2018 where I “Grab” someone as a special finisher, I mean it being one of my basic moves.

What I mean is like how in LEGO Batman 1 you could use B/Circle or Y/Triangle to grab a dude and throw him or check him. Or in Shadow of Morder/War where I could use a shoulder button to grab an orc and use him as a human shield.

In talking about the combat. The combat in the games are pretty good. I personally like Zero's and Kiwami's combat cause you can change fighting styles.

Disclaimer: This is not meant to be a critique of shooters - if you enjoy them, I'm not suggesting you stop. This is just about my own personal experience with them :)

Over the last year or two I've found myself starting to actively avoid games that involve guns and shooting. At 30 years old I find I've now played so many variations of the shooter over the years, that I simply don't get much enjoyment out of the concept anymore. I've seemingly had enough virtual shooting for a lifetime.

Yet, all this being said, Melee action games I still can't get enough of. Why is that? In terms of volume I've probably played roughly the same amount of both kinds of games. So why do Melee games still feel as fresh as ever?

It occurred to me today, that its not because whacking things with a sword is inherently better or worse than shooting at things with a gun. It isn't about how you attack your enemies at all - the difference comes from the experience of getting hit.

The way getting hit is communicated to the player in a shooter is inherently a highly approximated experience. You see a muzzle flash, hear a bang, and maybe your screen flashes red or your controller vibrates. That's about all the dev's can do: bullets obviously move fast enough that it wouldn't make sense to have the player see themself get hit, so they do the next best things they can.

By comparison, in a melee action game, you get to see every part of the hit, which is absolutely crucial. You see the enemy wind up, swing, connect. You see exactly how your own body is affected/moved by the hit. You see the enemy follow through, pause (giving you a chance to counter) and then they prepare for a second attack.

For me, this adds a tactile sense of real, visceral danger to these kinds of games that I don't know if it'll ever be possible to match in a shooter... At least until we get those haptic feedback VR vests.

Thank you for reading my Sunday morning wall of text and I hope you have a great day :)