#MVC Infinite and Beyond

[kinghijinx22]

Credit queer creators and fuck anyone who tries to steal credit for their hard work

Was watching @wooliewoolz.bsky.social and @patstaresat.bsky.social talk about the brilliant overall mod for Marvel VS Capcom Infinite, MVCI and Beyond and not once did they mention WistfulHopes while piling all the praise on Maximilian because of course they did.

Actually fuck @maximiliandood.bsky.social for taking the hard work of a queer creator and plastering his name all over it. I never see anyone mention @wistfulhopes.bsky.social when talking about MVCI and Beyond because of course the fgc and *GAMERS* wouldn't want to credit anyone who is a woman and/or trans.

You know, the fgc that is so dementedly bigoted that they throw a tantrum whenever a trans character exists in the game they play like they did with Bridget. So this isn't really surprising, but it's still fucking annoying to see. Again, fuck Max and the people who credit him and not Ryn for all her hard work.

[videocookieseng]

The next installment of Marvel Vs Capcom is here!

And it’s made by fans!

…Wait, what?

It’s been quite some time since the last game we got from the series. As many know, Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite left much to be desired; however, despite this slight stumble in the history of these games, everyone continues to enjoy the saga. Yes, everyone, there is not a single person who doesn’t love the MvC titles.

Due to this undeniable fact and the lack of new VS games, it was only a matter of time before a group of (super)heroes took control of the situation. Thanks to their great efforts and dedication, one of the best things that could happen in recent times manifested itself: mods! But not just any mod, these are for the favorite of many: Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3.

It hasn’t been easy to get to this point. Unlike other games, UMVC3 had too many restrictions, and creating a mod seemed almost impossible a couple of years ago. The tools were few, the options limited, and at most, only small aesthetic changes could be made, nothing that would catch the public’s attention outside of the most hardcore fans; not to mention that the PC version was released in 2017, six years after the original on consoles! Today, words are lacking to describe how much these dedicated modders have achieved.

In this post, we will review the timeline of UMVC3 mods, a task that started as a dream and is now a reality, and what a reality it is. Grab some popcorn and keep scrolling, there’s a lot to see!

For a better experience, I recommend reading and watching the videos in the order presented.

Level 1: Cool!

The first mods were simple. Not many changes could be made. As expected, the most basic was to change colors, textures, and music. In the following images, we can compare the original alternate colors of Akuma versus the colors modified by user BruicidalBleathMetal on Gamebanana, on April 13, 2017.

(Akuma, original alternate colors. Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3).

(Akuma, modified colors. Source: BruicidalBleathMetal, Gamebanana).

————————- 0 ————————-

Level 2: Great!

During this time, it was believed to be difficult to do anything beyond colors. Extra characters? New modes? Yes, sure… modifying the game was almost impossible. But then a light began to fall from the sky and it looked closer and closer and closer… No wait, it wasn’t a light, it was Doom doing a FOOT DIVE.

This is when it was discovered that some VERY small edits to movements could be made; as small as saying that if a projectile went to the right in the original game, now it could be changed to go in a random direction, wow!

(Arthur’s projectiles here should go forward, but they were changed to be launched in any direction).

This discovery was important; being able to modify movement statistics meant making them better or worse. Where does this lead? To balancing the game! (something that Capcom didn’t seem too interested in, cough cough). UMVC3 is notorious for having very powerful characters. This inevitably resulted in the first major mods focusing on balance, such as UMVC3 Arcade Edition, Project Mahvel, UMVC3EX, among others; different mods with the same goal: nerfing Morrigan, Vergil, and Zero (lol).

(UMVC3 Arcade Edition gameplay).

————————- 0 ————————-

Level 3: Awesome!

Well, we’ve modified movements, can we do anything else with them? Yes! We can alter their properties, swap them between characters, compile them into one. We can give Doom’s missiles to Chun-Li…

Chun-Li with missiles? That sounds familiar…

Here’s how the first “original” characters appeared: Shadow Lady over Chun-Li, Lilith over Morrigan, Orange Hulk over Hulk, and Evil Ryu over Ryu. Unlike previous mods, these characters were not the originals with balance alterations; no, these were unique characters and functionally different from their counterparts, a concept seen in earlier games in the series like Marvel Vs. Capcom 1. These became known as “palette swap” characters (or PS from now on).

(The first developed Palette Swap characters).

————————- 0 ————————-

Level 4: Wonderful!

The beginning of greatness. Let’s get straight to the point; finally, we see our first completely original character*: Captain Marvel, created by Tabs, one of the most important modders in the scene.

*IgnoringthefactthatsheappearedinMVCInfinite,sonotTHAToriginal.

(The first look at Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel, using the Phoenix model as a base).

This could be considered the true beginning of the scene. The importance of Captain Marvel was considerable, as it would lead to the discovery and development of techniques that resulted in the creation of other original characters like Ken, Cyclops, Thanos, and more.

These techniques involved taking animations and movements from other characters and putting them in one place since creating them from scratch was impossible. You can clearly see how we could have new characters, but still using resources from the same game:

(First look at Cyclops, using C. Viper as a base).

However, by only being able to use these resources, some… interesting results occurred. C. Viper was used because she already has a movement in reference to Cyclops’ “Optic Laser.” After editing the model and some textures, this is how our favorite laser pointer turned out:

(Cyclops… your arms…).

But hey! If you squint your eyes, it kinda looks similar, right? (coping).

I can’t help but mention one of the most iconic side effects of this experiment: a hip movement that is quite…*sweats*.

(Shakira who?).

————————- 0 ————————-

Maximum Level?!: Viewtiful!

Cyclops and the others can now shed their old skin and show off their glorious designs they’ve always had. This is thanks to a model importer that was developed. Gone are the days of taking and editing existing models; now, everyone can look as we know and love them.

(Model importer announcement screenshot).

Here’s a trailer of how the game was looking at the time with all the aforementioned improvements:

(Gameplay trailer of PS characters with their new models).

————————- 0 ————————-

Level 6: Uncanny!

Okay, okay, I know seeing these characters in this way is amazing, but calm down; we’re not done yet, there’s something very important missing in this journey.

Because the modified characters replace their original counterparts, pairs like Cyclops and Viper or Frank West and Ultron couldn’t exist on the same team. Is it because these pairs are enemies who secretly love each other and that’s why they can’t be together? Yes No, the PS characters use the space of an original character, meaning both cannot coexist within the game at the same time. Even if you wanted to have them together, it’s simply impossible.

Or it was! At this point in the timeline, modder Gneiss developed a tool called the “Clone Engine,” allowing him to create new spaces independent of those used by the original cast. Now you CAN have Frank West and Ultron together, the pair of your dreams.

A fun fact about this section is that YouTuber Maximilian Dood, known for his fighting game content, put a bounty for anyone who could develop this tool, and as you can guess, Gneiss was the one who claimed it. Here’s Max offering the reward and here awarding it to Gneiss.

(Gneiss showing that it’s possible to have two characters using the same space on the same team).

————————- 0 ————————-

Level 7: Crazy!

We have everything we need, what more could be missing after so much?

Well… the PS characters are still based on movements from others. Believe it or not, the animations you’ve seen in the previous videos are still not created from scratch by the modders but continue to use the technique of taking animations from the base characters and combining and editing them to create new ones. In their early stages, this resulted in what happened with Cyclops, but after much trial and error, it was hardly noticeable that this wasn’t official game content.

This video from CaliKingz, another important modder for the scene, shows the immense progress made as months passed. He has created characters like Gambit, IceMan, Captain Commando, and many more.

(Gambit gameplay).

However, now it’s no longer necessary to do this only, and the process is much simpler (at least in comparison), as we finally have:

(First trailer of PS characters with custom animations).

————————- 0 ————————-

Level 8: Unstoppable!

FINALLY! We’re almost at the end of our story, for now. The last thing to mention is that people are working on the next big barrier: creating a stable online mode using Rollback netcode.

Did you play UMVC3 online? Or maybe other games like Smash Bros. or Street Fighter IV? If the answer is yes, then you know that playing them online was like trying to fight underwater, unless maybe you lived near your opponent. That’s what this mod is trying to change.

If you don’t know, in very basic terms, Rollback is a system that makes playing online feel the same as playing offline, without delay when pressing a button, no matter where your opponent is. The system instantly handles latency between both players, making “predictions” of where the characters are when a button is pressed. Yes, it’s somewhat complicated, but the important thing is that it results in a much smoother experience. Games like Mortal Kombat 1, Street Fighter VI, and many more use this system.

Not everything goes as one would like, however. Twitter user HkHaan96 was working on this mod, but then gave us the latest update on this project in November 2023. Despite having successful tests, he announces that he will no longer work on it, and other people would take his place. To date, we haven’t had any news about this, but let’s hope that someday we can have something that gives UMVC3 the online mode it deserves. We thank Hk for his dedication!

(Demonstration that both versions can be synchronized with Rollback).

————————- 0 ————————-

And thus, we arrive at the present, quite a long journey, isn’t it?

Now we can enjoy something that was only fantasies years ago. Remember in the ‘90s when you played MVC1 for the first time in the arcade, and that made you think, “What if in the future I could make Doctor Wily fight against Doctor Octopus?” No, just me? Well, but now it could happen!

It’s a matter of waiting and seeing what more these dedicated and hardworking modders do. Who knows, maybe you can become one and create that dream character. The possibilities are truly “Infinite.”

Thanks to:

- Tabs, for their help with information about the first PS characters. Subscribe to their YouTube channel or follow them on Twitter to see their latest mods.

- Marvel Modded, for their help confirming the mods timeline. Follow them on Twitter to stay updated on the biggest mod “Community Edition,” a project that aims to unite all mods made by the community.

- All modders in the scene, for their great efforts that will keep this game alive for many years to come. The list would be endless if we included everyone, but please know you are all extremely appreciated!

[ohthehypocrisy]

Marvel VS Capcom 4EVER - The Perfect Dream Game

(This is going to be something different from my blog's usual content. I don't just love pokemon, I'm also a really big fan of crossover fighters. My very first fandom was Super Smash Bros. and it was where I started writing fanfics. I may not be all that good at 2D traditional fighting games, but I enjoy the time I spend on them. As such, I will be talking about Marvel vs Capcom and what I would want the 4th game to look like)

-

The Marvel VS Capcom series is a franchise founded on hopes and dreams. When an unlikely collaboration spawns one of the most fantastical crossover events in history, well before Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was conceived, you can imagine that it is fondly remembered and well regarded in its popularity and gameplay.

And yet, with such powerful Intellectual Properties populating the series, the games are rife with copyright power struggles and negotiations. So much so, that the game had been in limbo for as many years as it had been played competitively. The demand is there, the problem is that no one can decide how much money both sides should be making to allow for a character to be put into the game and to get punched in the face.

To put it into perspective, Marvel VS Capcom 2 came out in 2000, and it pulled a Masahiro Sakurai and included every character from the past games plus a little extra. The game was entirely 2D with mostly reused sprites, which is how it got away with a whopping 56 characters on the roster right out the gate. This also created some balancing issues as the top tier characters from previous games were also top tier here as well, though that topic of discussion is beyond my area of expertise. All you need to know is, there's a reason all the top level matches have the same 5 or so characters.

Now, as for Marvel VS Capcom 3, that title came out in 2011, a whole 10 years after the arcade experience was brought home. The hype was still there, but the series would run into some licensing issues in the background. It's how we got Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 less than a year later, and how Marvel VS Capcom Infinite came out the way it did. Though perhaps it would be best if you, the reader, looked into that yourself, as I'd rather talk about Marvel VS Capcom 4, or rather, what it could potentially be.

Since the Marvel VS Capcom Fighting Collection was announced, I have been ecstatic about finally owning these games that I would rarely see. I didn't go to arcades all that often, but I always liked going to look at all the cabinets and all the games I've never seen before. Remember, arcades were a big deal back in the day, and the internet wasn't, so this is where you would discover games you haven't heard about. This is how I learned about Marvel VS Capcom, and how I fell in love with crossover fighters in general. I was a 90's kid growing up, so these quarter consuming cabinets were like a vivid dream to experience. And being on the autism spectrum meant that a strong first impression would consume my waking thoughts for years on end. It's my hope that a rail shooter collection comes out soon so that I can reexperience 'The Ocean Hunter' in all its glory.

Back to the topic at hand, the rerelease of these games would imply that relations between Marvel and Capcom have mellowed enough that all the licensing headaches for this collection passed like a mild flu. It's a bit of wishful thinking, but the door might be open for a potential new iteration of Marvel VS Capcom. I mean, everyone has been talking about it lately, so I figured I'd put in my own two cents.

Before we begin, we do have to go over why MVC Infinite isn't being given the honorary title of number 4, and there are a few reasons. One of them being the confusing order of titles of the franchise. Marvel VS Capcom 2 is actually the 4th in the series, starting with X-Men VS Street Fighter, though it could also be the 6th of you started with X-Men: Children Of The Atom. So what would that make UMVC3? It was an updated rerelease sold less than a year after MVC3, so does it count or should it be a separate thing? MVC Infinite didn't use a number in their title, though if you tilted the ∞ sign you would get the number 8, which is the exact number of games in the series if you count UMVC3 as a hefty DLC bundle.

The other reason is because of all the executive meddling that poisoned the roster. What is a Marvel VS Capcom game without Wolverine or any of the X-Men? Well, you get MVC Infinite, that's what. On top of the squandered roster, there were loads of criticisms over the models looking the way they do. I'm not gonna dwell on this bit for too long, but don't be surprised when you hear people boldly claim that Infinite isn't a true MVC game.

So, what would a Marvel VS Capcom 4 look like? Everyone has their own ideas, but it seems that no one can decide on a concrete roster for Launch Day. I specify 'Launch Day' as it's to be expected that a big game like MVC4 will have DLC, it's how you keep a game like this alive for as long as there is work to be done. I mean, I've yet to hear anyone complain about DLC for this series, except for when UMVC3 was announced, but that is the exception that proves the rule. As long as it doesn't happen again, you can do no wrong.

Well, what do I think? After all, this is my post, my idea. As such, I'm proposing a base roster of the best of both worlds, the absolute pinnacle of popularity for the birth of the best beat 'em up game ever made. I'm talking the top picks like Cyclops, Ryu, Wolverine, Chun-Li, Captain America, Mega Man, Deadpool, Dante, all the fan favorites that would guarantee a Day 1 buy for everyone.

But I'm also proposing a massive DLC roadmap for the game's foreseeable future. With a plan of releasing new characters for the game as time wears on, the starting roster and number of characters don't really matter that much. Granted, there are some characters who are nonnegotiable for the starting roster, like Spider-Man and Morrigan, but as long as everyone understands that there will be loads of DLC characters coming down the line, you can guarantee that Launch Day sales will go through the roof.

Think of this potential game to function like Fortnite, or more specifically, like a live service. Now, I know that live service games have performed very poorly, but that's usually because of bone-headed executives making the decisions for the developers. There are live service games that do very well, like Splatoon for instance, or the aforementioned Fortnite. Since the plan is to gradually release new content, it'll pay to make everything accessible to the players by turning it into a live service.

Of course there's the issue of what the base price for the game will be or if new characters will be paywalled. You have to charge SOMETHING to make a profit, especially if you want to pay your team to make new characters. In a perfect world, the game and characters would be free and all the monetization would be made through cosmetics. But the fairest asking price would be between $60 and $70, with the promise that all characters released through DLC will be free. Of course, the developers and the company won't leave the money on the table, they'll probably whip up a battlepass or something to engage daily play. Again, as long as the characters are free and everything else is cosmetic, we can't complain too much...

In order to keep the game fresh, however, new character releases should be released in bundles. Even with the starting roster of about 30 or so characters, fans will always want something more out of the game. But the developers are only human, and crunch time is one of the worst things you can do your workers. As such, the DLC shall be 'seasonal' with each release period being named after a Marvel VS Capcom title. For instance, 3 months after the release of Marvel VS Capcom 4, the first seasonal DLC will be called 'X-Men VS Street Fighter' with 6 new characters from these Intellectual Properties, and more coming later down the line. The seasonal DLC will last until a sufficient number of X-Men and Street Fighter characters have been added to the roster. That might get stale quickly, though, so maybe the rest will come out later in between seasons.

Following this trend, after 'X-Men VS Street Fighter' we'll get the 'Marvel Super Heroes VS Darkstalkers' DLC pack. And then following that, we can get the 'Clash of Super Heroes' pack, which is the subtitle for Marvel VS Capcom (which is the fifth game). Then comes 'New Age of Heroes', followed by the 'Fate of Two Worlds' pack, then the 'Ultimate' Pack, and finally the 'Infinite' pack. The idea here is to cram this $70 game full of characters so that everyone who bought it will have their money's worth, and all the fans get all the characters they could ever want. Masahiro Sakurai, the Lead Developer of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, left the industry with one of the most ambitious crossover games of history. A dreamed up version of Marvel VS Capcom 4 has to meet and exceed this insurmountable expectation of crossover greatness. Even if I'm not all that familiar with either Marvel or Capcom properties, I would want nothing less than to make as many people happy as possible.

So that's the plan, but what about the gameplay? I mean, you can't just release Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 again with more characters and expect everyone to be happy, right? I mean, no, but the ironic thing is that a lot of people would love to have that. In fact, there's a massive mod scene behind UMVC3 right now and they're adding in loads of characters. If you're comfortable with tinkering around a bit in computer files, I highly recommend giving it a look. (It's also extra apparent at how apathetic people are about MVC: I, though that game is also getting its own mod update).

Anyway, as for gameplay, if we HAD to add something, I had the idea of throwing in something called the 4EVER Assist. It's why I titled the post the way I did, as this is how you add even more characters to the game. See, back in Marvel VS Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, there was a random assist feature that you could pick along with your two main characters. This is where a majority of the games new sprite work came from, aside from newcomers like Venom and Captain Commando. Basically, you technically had a team of three characters, though the assist varied in strength and usage. The weaker and less effective assists could be called more often, but the stronger and better assists had very limited calls.

This assist system had very little risk to the player, which is why each one was ratioed with different number of uses. In other installments, each chosen fighter could be called for an assist, but summoning them recklessly could leave them vulnerable to combos from the enemy. But if you got clipped along with the assist you called, well, expect the crowd to start singing 'Happy Birthday', if you know what I mean.

Anyway, for my idea of Marvel VS Capcom 4EVER, both assist systems are combined, turning what was traditionally a 3v3 fighting game into a 4v4. The 4th character cannot be controlled, but they offer some benefits over regular fighters. For one, the player will never be out of assists if they are brought down to their last character, making comebacks a lot more feasible. Secondly, all characters on the roster can be delegated as the 4EVER assist and allows them to use exclusive moves when called as an assist. And thirdly, since it is only one move, you can have new characters exclusive to the 4EVER assist list that otherwise wouldn't make the cut, like Nick Fury or Cut Man. Not to say that these characters can't be promoted to fully fledged fighters down the line, but it'd be nice to have them around otherwise.

I've also got the idea of adding something called the 4EVER Ability, a passive effect unique to each fighter. This is closer in execution to Pokemon Abilities but tailored to the team fighter combat system. Basically, each fighter offers a different boon that affects the whole team, and since you can choose three fighters and a 4EVER assist, you can have four passive abilities active at once. However, if a fighter gets KO'd, their 4EVER Ability is negated for the rest of the match, leading to a structural degradation of team synergy. Of course, the 4EVER assist cannot be KO'd, so a player can make a last stand with at least two active 4EVER Abilities in play.

Here's a short list of 4EVER Abilities that would be in the game and their function:

Cyclops - "Dreams don't die!" Super Meter Generation is increased by 1.5x (Hitting and getting hit generates Super Meter, which can be used for Super Attacks, so an ability to hasten that generation is useful.)

Ryu - "I walk the path of a true warrior!" All 🡳🡶🡺P attacks deal 2x more damage. (This boon is restricted to Punch attacks, but all attacks, Supers, and Assists that use this motion get the power boost.)

Wolverine - "I'm the best at what I do." Your combo is more resistant to Damage Decay. (The later installments of MVC have a Damage Decay system where the longer the combo drags on for, the less damage you'll deal overall. Other fighting games have this. Wolverine's ability caps the damage drop-off much earlier.)

Ken - "Here's to a good fight!" All 🡺🡳🡶P attacks deal 2x more damage. (Same as Ryu's ability, but for 'dragon punch' motion attacks.)

Spider-Man - "With great power, comes great responsibility." Damage increases by 2x for each bar of Super Meter you have. (With you being able to control 3 characters, the Super Meter maxes out to 5, meaning a potential 10x damage increase for your combo. The damage is instantly reduced when you spend some for a Super, however.)

Mega Man - "Mega Buster, Power UP!" Super Attacks deal 2.5x more damage. (Super Attacks cost Super Meter, but they hit very hard, can fill the screen with damage, or even be used to counter other attacks. However, Mega Man's ability is still susceptible to Damage Decay, which Super Attacks tend to generate quickly.)

Hulk - "Hulk is strongest there is!" Damage is increased the more HP you have. (This ability grants a massive power boost in the first minute of the fight, but it wavers later on. Tagging in other characters is also risky if they are brought in recklessly and lose some HP during their assist calls.)

Captain Commando - "Let's go, Commandos!" Assists deal more damage the more HP they have. (Because of how integral Assists are to making combos, dealing more damage through assists is a powerful asset. But it can only scale up with how healthy you keep your teammates.)

Captain America - "Freedom prevails!" Reduces damage taken while blocking. (This one is self-explanatory, given how strong Cap's adamantium shield is. It's also crucial in avoiding chip damage during critical moments, as most attacks will still whittle down your HP bar, even while blocking.)

Mike Haggar - "The Mayor of America!" Throws deal more damage and it is easier to Tech Throws. (In contrast, working around blocking means knowing how to throw your enemies. This boon also increases the damage dealt through command throws. When you get grabbed, you have a very short window of time to input a grab to negate the attack, this is called a Tech Throw. This ability widens the window by a few frames, but keep in mind that command throws cannot be Teched.)

Doctor Doom - "Defeat is beneath Doom!" Damage increases gradually the lower your team's HP is. (MVC3 and UMVC3 had a comeback mechanic called X Factor, where activating it increased your speed and power drastically. But the less teammates you had, the greater the boost, functioning as a divisive comeback mechanic. I'm not sure if MVC4 will have a similar mechanic, so I'm a little hesitant to put something similar as an ability.)

M. Bison - "This place will become your grave!" Damage dealt to the enemy increases the more Ichor they have. (In nearly all versions of MVC, there is an HP mechanic called red HP or something to that effect, I don't think it was ever officially named. Anyway, when you get hit, a portion of your HP lost turns into red HP, which you can recover later through healing specials or by tagging out and waiting. In MVC4, this will be called Ichor, meaning this ability deals gradually increasing damage to the enemy as the combo continues.)

Ghost Rider - "Feel the weight of your sins brand your soul." Counter Specials and Super Attacks deal 3.5x more damage. (In MVC, Counters in general are rare and rarely used due to how team supers function. As such, this ability grants a massive boost in damage to those specials if they land.)

Dante - "Now it's a party!" Attack and Speed increase a little bit during Installs. Also extends the duration of Installs by a little bit. (An 'Install' is traditionally a temporary transformation into a slightly different character, but they typically add in buffed stats and extra moves. You can call it a temporary self buff that may or may not cost Super Meter. It should be noted that Installs do not run out when the character is tagged out and is retained when the character is called back in for an assist, which this ability will continue to boost the damage of.)

I have more examples but I think that'll do for now. The idea of a 'passive ability' system in a tag team fighting game is a bit foreign but since this game will have loads of characters, it helps to give each one a bit of personality.

I'll leave it at this for now. The irony here is that, if a Marvel VS Capcom 4 were to be in the works right now, I wouldn't be able to play it, owning only a Nintendo Switch right now. Maybe if the Switch 2 is real and can run more graphically intensive games, and that MVC4 gets a Switch 2 port. But this is all a dream for me, so it's time to wake up.

Thank you for reading this far. And remember, only two things last forever, diamonds, and MAHVEL.

[bahamutgames]

AFTERTHOUGHTS - ROUNDUP ROUND 17

January 2025

Hey hey, new year, new games to play! I took a break from playing stuff in December because I was feeling particularly down and wanted to enjoy my next big RPG in a better mood (it was Fantasian, I'm currently feeling better and playing it right now and enjoying it a lot!)

Ultimately it was the right choice, and now I'm really back with a desire to play a bunch of games! And I got some good gaming done in January, and now it's February... Soooo... Let's talk about what I played!!

Marvel vs Capcom Infinite & Beyond (December 21, 2024) - PC

OH MY GOD!! DID YOU HEAR, MARVEL VS CAPCOM IS IN THE NEWS AGAIN!!! I feel like I don't talk about it much, but even though I'm not a huge Marvel (or comic in general) fan, I AODRE Marvel vs Capcom. A genuinely lovely and incredibly fun fighting game series that's become very near and dear to my heart over the years (I just recently came to the conclusion that UMVC3 is one of my favorite fighting games of all time!) And you may also know I ADORE mods! I love modding and got really attached to it through Brawl mods and my love for Project M and have recently dived into TONS more Smash mods like P+ and Akenia Build!

So... imagine Project M... but for Marvel...

I'm sold. I actually LOVED Infinite, I thought it was a really underrated game in terms of its gameplay, a lot of its newcomers are AWESOME, the power stones are fun, I even like the story (though I dont remember much of the specifics, it's just a great idea for a plot with Ultron Sigma and X being the protagonist.) But when Beyond was announced I was BEYOND excited (ha) for it!! MORE MvCI? And they're fixing the admittedly pretty nasty graphics? YES PLEASE!!

I haven't played it an insane amount but I've played it a bit and so far it's WONDERFUL, the game genuinely looks AMAZING. The new OST rules (I particularly love the remix of the MvC theme in the menu and Zero's new theme rules! I also find it funny that they gave Gammorah She-Hulk's theme. It's a great song and I love playing as both of them lol). The new stages are awesome, the new costumes and colors are nice, and it's cool they're trying to change some balancing and moveset stuff. I'd love to see them add in AT LEAST 2 new characters from both sides of the battle, but I imagine something like that is WAAAAY down the line. No rush, they're already doing amazing work with this!

My only issues is that the Onslaught stage makes the game CHUG like crazy, just becomes unplayable for me. And also GOD DAMN THAT FINAL BOSS IS A PAIN IN THE ASS AND I WAS PLAYING ON NORMAL MODE!!

But other than those tiny nitpicks, nah MvCI:B rules! And I can't wait to see where it goes from here! I hope it shows that there's still an audience for the VS series, even if Marvel isn't the next foe for Capcom to take on. But in the mean time, I'm cool with an insanely high quality mod.

Side note: PLEASE MAKE MODS FOR FIREBRAND THAT ADD THE OTHER DEMON'S CREST GARGOYLES TO HIS MOVESET, I DON'T CARE THAT THEY DON'T ALL HAVE WINGS, DESIGN SOME CUTSOM WINGS FOR THEM!!

Panzer Dragoon (March 10, 1995) - Sega Saturn

And next up, for my first brand new game I beat in 2025, we have Panzer Dragoon! A series I have been LONG overdue to play! I love Dragons, I love Starfox and general Shmup/On Rail games, I love lowpoly graphics, I love tropical settings, and I love mixes of ancient/scifi technology. Panzer Dragoon is TAILOR MADE FOR ME. And yet, I haven't given it a chance yet. Mainly because Saturn Emulation wasn't that great for a long time, and Panzer Dragoon isn't super cheap (though not as bad as Saga.) But I decided to give it another shot this year, and found an emulator that takes a bit to understand, but works PERFECTLY! And so, I finally got to dip my toes into this series!

And uh... honestly?? This game was okay. Like, it has a COOL story and world. Like, people having to fight the strange experiments of a bygone civilization while the powers-that-be are constantly trying to resurrect them for their evil gain. And dragons are there? That RULES. I LOVE that shit. I love the graphics, and the music, and the design of the Blue Dragon are wonderful. I particularly enjoy the kind of odd design the Blue Dragon has, with it's big horned helmet, it's unique! And the fact it has fully animated cutscenes is pretty impressive I feel like, especially in a pre-starfox 64 world. The game is very compelling.

But honestly it just wasn't really the most exciting game for me. In fact, I felt like it was pretty lackluster from a gameplay perspective. I know I shouldn't compare it to Starfox 64, its one of my favorite games ever and Panzer Dragoon came out before it... But maaaan, there's just not much you can do in this game. No real movement techniques, movement is kinda stiff in general and I felt like I could barely dodge ANYTHING and instead had to rely on shooting it down. No bombs, no laser upgrades, no upgrades of any kind. Even lock on feels a little impactless to me? And it makes the whole game a little boring at best and frustrating at worst. Like, the main gimmick is that you can look in 360 degrees all around your dragon to fight attackers on all side. Cool! But when you're looking at another angle you lose the ability to dodge all projectiles. Not so cool. It's a neat idea but it's not really as exciting as I feel like it could be if you made more use of the buttons to give the player more techniques and tools. Maybe it's just me?

Gargoyle's Quest II (July 17, 1992) - NES

Speaking of Capcom series I don't talk about nearly enough. Did you all know I LOVE Firebrand? More specifically, Demon's Crest! It's one of my all time favorite games ever made!! But I hadn't really tried any of his other games until GQ1 was added to the NSO. It was fine, but not exactly what I want out of the series and not nearly as good as DC (an unfair comparison for sure). And then, GQ2 just never came to the service! So I forgot about it... UNTIL TheSeventhForce did their Firebrand video and it reminded me I never played it (one of my favorite channels atm btw you should totally watch their stuff!!) And now I finally made the time to play it and complete the Firebrand trilogy! How did it stack up compared to the other 2?

Eh, it's tough to say. Obviously it's not as good as DC again, but that's still an unfair comparison. And when compared to GQ1 it's get a little trickier. It looks way nicer, the NES sprites are actually very good looking. It's faster cause there's no random encounters this time. And it probably controls better and the plot is maybe more interesting? But idk, it was just a little more boring maybe. I don't remember any of the music or anything and sad to say, it just didn't leave the most impactful impression on me. But it was fine! Like, it wasn't bad or anything. Just kind of unremarkable in the grand scheme of things. However, if they ever do that Firebrand Trilogy Remake they mentioned in the Capcom Survey, I think they could totally make this and GQ1 REALLY nice with some improvements and mechanics pulled from DC. But in the mean time, it is nice to have finally played this whole trilogy :)

I will also say, now I have a better understanding of what I think a new Firebrand game should be if the series ever got a reboot of some kind. I won't go into too much detail but I think they should just fully embrace the RPG inspired parts of the Gargoyle Quest games and make the next one a full blown JRPG. And since the series never really had turnbased stuff, and even GQ1 used platforming in its combat, you could totally make it an Action RPG! And what I'm getting at here is that the Tales of team should make a Gargoyle's Quest / Demon's Crest JRPG Reboot.

Panzer Dragoon II Zwei (March 22, 1996) - Sega Saturn

Speaking of Panzer Dragoon... Did you all know there was a sequel to it? I actually don't think I was aware of this game until recently (I thought Saga was next). But I was never one to not be thorough, so, I had to give the sequel a shot too!

Zwei is more of the same, cool world, cool plot, cool cutscenes, you ride a dragon. But this one improves on the first a LOT in my opinion. For starters, you can actually maneuver your dragon in a more meaningful way, allowing you to actually dodge enemy fire. The game on the whole just feels better to control and play, like it's considerably more polished. And while they didn't add a ton of upgrades or techniques your dragon can preform. There is now a bar at the bottom of the screen, and when it's full you can preform a screen wipe / deal massive damage to the boss. It's small, it's not really groundbreaking, but it's COOL and makes the game feel that much more engaging. But I think the most interesting change is the fact your dragon can mutate based on how well you play the game!! This is REALLY cool and I can only imagine how interesting it could've been if different mutations allowed for different control, blasters, or sub weapons you could use in levels. However, I'm not sure if this mechanic will return in the future games. We'll have to see. In the meantime here's what mine looked like by the end of the game, again a very interesting and unique look for the dragon. I like their use of oddly shaped helmets for them.

And building off that concept of lost potential, yeah the game still isn't perfect. Once again looking around you isn't used that amazingly, and some of the bosses are real damage sponges this time around. Similarly, what was UP with that final battle? The camera for the first time ever is jumping all around the arena and it was genuinely a little stomach churning with the way it's snapping all over the place. It certainly was an improvement over the first, though. No question about it, and I hope to see some big improvements on your options in Saga and Orta.

And yes. My Saturn emulator works like a charm. I've played Panzer Dragoon AND Zwei... That means it's finally time. Next time I return to the world of Panzer Dragoon... It's finally time to play Saga. I can't believe it.

Bombing!!: A Graffiti Sandbox (May 18, 2021) - PC

Next up is a really tiny game where there's not too much to talk about. But it's an indie game so I still wanted to give it some attention and love. Bombing is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, a graffiti sandbox! You just walk around small areas and do some graffiti! It's simple, but it's a lot of fun. There's no goal, you just take your time drawing stuff in quiet night time locations in a city. Listen to music, experiment with different tools. The works.

I don't have too much to say except it's really cute and you probably own it if you've bought any of those big relief bundles, cause it was in a few of them! If you're looking for something small to play and draw with for a bit, it's a good time!

BUT, I have to give it one point of criticism. It's unnerving to me. IDK WHY!! But for some reason cozy first person games where there's NO NPCs while you just do your own thing in silence freak the FUCK out of me. Power Wash Simulator is genuinely so unnerving to me aha. And this one takes place at night so it's even worse. But it's still cute.

Bayonetta 2 (September 20, 2014) - Wii U

ITS FINALLY TIME FOR PEAK ONCE AGAIN!! I played Bayonetta 1 back in 2023 and was blown away by just how amazing it was. And so I went into Bayo 2 with high expectations. I've heard it was just better from my friends and also, I prefer her character design in this one a lot more! I just like the short hair over the bee hive lol.

Overall I'd say Bayonetta 2 is more of the same but clearly much more polished. Combat feels nicer, movement in general feels nicer, and those graphics. GOD DAMN THIS GAME LOOKS GOOD!! I was seriously blown away by how amazing the cutscenes looked, I dont think I've played anything this hyper realistic made for Wii U, and I'm genuinely impressed it was able to do graphics that look this stunning. I also liked the new story, it's nice seeing Bayo adapt to her new life and hanging out with Jeanne. I thought the whole plot with her saving Jeanne from hell was really cool and it was nice to fight some demons this time. I like teaming up with Bayo's parents, I'm shocked this series has had 2 child main characters and neither of them were annoying, Snake within was SO COOL I can't believe the animal transformations aren't in smash, Bayonetta pole dancing on the ISS before shooting it at the final boss was AMAZING! The whole game is just as exciting and over the top as the first, and I'm SO glad they didn't tone anything down! In fact, it felt even hornier and even more violent than the first, I'm blown away Nintendo let them do all this stuff lol. I liked the new summons like the frog, and I loved do boxing matches between the giant summons. Bayonetta is still awesome!

But, I still have a lot of the same problems with it as I did the first. Easy is too easy, hard is too hard ect ect. Like all character action games I just cannot be bothered to care about combat when it's stuff like X,Y,X,X,Y,Y,Y,X ect ect. But for me. I do just feel like this one dragged a little bit towards the end. Like, it wasn't as exciting in the final moments as the first one was? I'd argue the plot was easier to follow than the first, but I still found myself more bored by the ending than I did the first one. However, it certainly did pick up for the final boss. Maybe I would've liked it more if it had focused on fighting Hell's forces the whole way through, cause I can't help but feel like the Loki stuff almost got in the way of it and Jeanne's revival felt a little rushed? Idk

Over all though, yeah it's more good as fuck Bayonetta fun. Bayonetta rules, and I'm... interested to find out why everyone hates 3 so much. Oh well, even if 2 maybe wasn't as life changing as 1, I still think it was probably over all a better game. Maybe... Maybe I just think she's hotter in this one... Idk. Bayo is cool.

Fatal Fury 2 (November 26, 1993) - SNES

They put Fatal Fury on NSO. I pay for the damn thing so I'm gonna play some Fatal Fury!! I've played my share of SNK fighting games in recent times, but I still feel like I haven't played enough of their stuff. So any excuse to try more is always appreciated.

Not much to say on this one cause I'm a coward and played it with super easy settings, but yeah Fatal Fury 2 was neat! I'm actually still really impressed with the graphics and music in this game, I don't know if it was higher quality on the arcade cabinet but it looks pretty damn good even if it was compromised in any way to get it on SNES. I was particularly really thrilled when I saw it had a light day/night cycle where the time of day changes between rounds. More fighting games need that NOWADAYS, but this game was doing it on the SNES. Also while I couldn't really get the hang of the lane system (something I remember struggling with when I tried FF1 when Terry was announced for Smash, and also struggled with in Guilty Gear Isuka lol) I feel like the idea of having a fighting game take place on multiple lanes COULD be really cool. Especially if they were to make attacks that traveled between lanes or could be angled? Idk.

Another random small detail I have to give this game some love for is that the final boss music is actually being played by a band in the background. Such a cute detail. Neat game :)

[doamarierose-honoka]

Marvel's media frenzy fire appears to be cooling off at the moment, especially when it comes to video games.

One comic book insider is claiming that the company is "painfully aware" their games haven't been performing well and are looking to overhaul that, but what could that mean for Marvel vs. Capcom 4?

According to CanWeGetSomeToast, Marvel may be shifting harder to focus on games moving forward with Black Panther and Iron Man kicking off a new initiative to make them more successful.

It's looking more and more like an environment for a brand new MvC title to be made is developing and appearing more possible than before.

You may not have realized it yet, but we're now as far away from the release of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite than MvCI was from the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

If you recall, MvC3 was delisted for years, but unlike Marvel's Avengers that just got pulled down too, you can still buy Infinite no problem.

https://x.com/canwegettoast/status/1708157675694120973?s=46

Any real bad blood between the companies for that failure have more than likely dissipated at this point, especially when Marvel's faced other gaming disasters much more recently.

We already know Capcom and Marvel have some sort of relationship right now after their Marvel vs. Capcom 2 Arcade1UP machine last year and then allowing Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on the Evo mainstage this year with record-breaking attendance.

There is at least communication there, and all it really potentially takes is a few people on the inside pushing really loudly for something to happen.

Peter "Combofiend" Rosas is now a Senior Producer and Manager for Marvel games, and we can't really imagine a world where he's not first in line trying to nudge something forward.

Capcom is the most successful they've been since at least the '90s with their stocks reaching record highs in 2023, so they're in a much better spot than they were 6–7 years ago when Marvel Infinite was being worked on and still trying to regain their stride.

Couple that with the success of Street Fighter 6's launch, and Capcom is looking like a much sweeter potential partner now than much of what Marvel's been dealing with lately.

It's not exactly apples to apples, but Marvel Snap has done extremely well for the company too, which shows people still have an interest in recognizable characters and fan service in a smaller, arcadey experience — that they hopefully realize can apply outside the mobile market.

Setting up a new MvC today may be even more complicated to get both sides to agree on what to do, but we have at least seen some through the MvC2 cabinet release.

We still expect, however, that a renewed partnership wouldn't immediately lead to a new game, but more likely a release like MvC2 or Marvel classics collection, which could be sweetened up beyond fighting games with other old Capcom arcade titles like The Punisher.

As fighting game fans though, we know those Capcom collections don't always actually lead to something new, so a Marvel vs. Capcom 4 isn't a guarantee even if we eventually get that.

If they have the staff for it now, Capcom would also probably like to be able to compete with Bandai Namco and Arc System Works better in having multiple fighters out in the wild at once.

Although a Marvel vs. Capcom collection could conceivably come at any time, MvC4 is still probably multiple years away from fully materializing.

But the stars finally seem to be realigning to where that's a legitimate possibility again.

Until then, we're probably going to have to deal with at least a few more ridiculous Marvel vs. Capcom 4 rumors though.

[cm-top-10]

C.M. Top 10: The Most Powerful Villains in the Universe

Every hero has a sworn enemy that they have to face to the bitter end. But there are some villains so powerful or relentless, that even the greatest heroes could never stop.

There are even foes that've proven to be too cunning for them to face alone or head-on. & other villains who have acquire a power beyond a god itself.

& not many heroes manage to defeat them. Or most of the time not many heroes live to tell about it...

This features the most ruthless & powerful villains on Earth & throughout the entire multiverse.

Which villain do you know is the strongest foe? You be the judge on that.

1. Power Rangers - Lord Zedd

2. DC: the Death of Superman - Doomsday

3. Marvel's What If...? - Infinite Ultron

4. Transformers Prime - Megatron

5. Zelda: Hyrule Warriors - Ganondorf

6. Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2 - Lucifer

7. Thor: Ragnarok - Surtur

8. Mortal Kombat - Shang Tsung

9. SDBH - Dark Broly

10. MVC: Infinite - Ultron-Sigma

[agent-42]

What I still think Marvel vs capcom infinite should have been

Have Beyonder take the mvc universe apart when put it back together wit pieces of the marvel universe and capcom games into a new battle world. and the story is Beyonder is sending 4 teams ( marvel heroes, capcom heroes, marvel villains and capcom villains.) to search for the infinity stones scattered cross battle world have the roaster even between marvel and capcom. with more legit bosses not background characters while you fight Henchmen.

maybe even I subplot about umbrella bringing spiderman back to live.

but near he end of the game an Amalgam planet with marvel and capcom characters fused together. with possibilities like

Iron X ( Ironman and X)

Ultron sigma

Sir Thor (sir Arthur and thor)

Mayor America (Haggar and Captain America)

Captain Li ( captain marvel and Chun li

T. Bison ( thanos and M.Bision)

Demon Rider (Dante and ghost rider)

Doctor Morrigan (Doctor strange and morrigan

Agent Spider ( chris hadfield, and spiderman)

venomous (Venom and nemesis)

Ryulk ( ryu and hulk)

mischief brand ( fire brand and loki)

Jedmommu (Jedah and dormammu)

[synapsesolutionsau]

Enhance Your Business Prospects with Web Design and Development

In today’s internet-driven world, when websites are competing in the race for visibility, attention and engagement, no business can sit idle. In fact, designing a website has become just as important for a business as hiring an architect to design your office building or dream house.

Take Your Web Presence Seriously

The importance of a website can be understood from the very fact that it can be seen by billions. It means a website has immense potential to promote a brand and generate revenue. As a business owner, you should consider the magnitude of these numbers and take your web presence seriously. Once you cross the threshold of web design you will find yourself in a world of infinite choices, which are only limited by your budget. The question is: will you make the right decisions at right time? There is need to choose a professional Web Design and Development Company to create your own website. They will make your clients stand out by going beyond the straightforward conventional ways. Keeping users as the prime focus, they will feel them from their perspective to make sure all the efforts are directed towards engaging them. From keeping a creative touch to color, messaging layout, iconography and the UX, they will layout the UI design that brings on board a sea of users. 

Opt for Dot Net Application Development to Boost Business

It is a well-known fact that dot net application development is undoubtedly one of the best platforms for building robust, secure and scalable web or desktop applications. This popular platform is used by a majority of Fortune 500 companies based across the globe. Dot net application development is quite good for creating large-scale applications for businesses. It offers numerous advantages to both developers and end clients.  Clients get fully functional and feature rich applications with intuitive user experience whereas developers and designers receive flexibility and dynamic features to build websites with simplicity and ease.

You Will Get a Lot of Brilliant Features:

● Better UI Controls

● Highly Secure Environment

● Integration with other Microsoft Applications

●MVC Architecture

●Quick Development

To end with it can be said that dot net is a modern, innovative, open source development platform and most importantly, developers love it. Dot net is indeed the most competitive option when a business requires a reliable application with superior performance.

[asiplaythem]

Devil May Cry: Series Retrospective- "DmC: Devil May Cry"

At long last, I sat down and played DmC: Devil May Cry. Well and truly, the dust has settled, the dead horse has been beaten into compost, and the reactionary rages and defenses have died down. And, for myself, I think my fanboy passion for the series has subsided.

A weak Special Edition, a pachinko machine and a bad MvC model later, I hold out no honest hope for the Devil May Cry franchise now. We’ll always have the Temen-ni-Gru Dante...but we’re not getting back together, lets face it.

So now, when I look at Ninja Theory’s protagonist, who I will still refer to as Donte, the fresh insult that he used to be is now replaced with a genuine, tryhard, grittiness that just seems cute in an “ah, bless” kind of way. He’s no longer the sour white whale that ate my favourite character and franchise, he’s just a little fish who flops around in a harmlessly funny way.

....before the massive flaws of the game come forth.

This review is based on the PS3 launch version and does its best to criticize it on its own merits/failings, not merely on fan insult or in comparison to the previous games. But it is after all called “Devil may Cry”, so its existence as part of a wider franchise isn’t ignored either.

Also, fair warning, this is going to be long as hell. Which is suitable, because it feels like hell sometimes...

Technical Qualities

The engine/optimization is dogshit.

Ninja Theory infamously rejected Capcom’s offer to translate their wunderengine, MT Framework, into English so that they could use it. Instead the team built DmC: Devil May Cry using Unreal Engine 3, which was already starting to look dated by 2010 when the game was announced. For perspective, Unreal Engine 4 was revealed to the public before DmC even came out. The likely reason Ninja Theory chose to stick with Unreal was because of a  developer kit popular with young game creators. Unreal 3 was a ubiquitous engine in the last gen of consoles, being the backbone of games like Bioshock: Infinite and the Batman: Arkham series. But you’ll be hard pressed to find any games using it that were as fast paced as the Devil May Cry series.

Off the top of my head, games that use Unreal 3 usually have collision and texture pop-in problems. This is less of an issue in first person or isometric games when player movement and camera angles/viewable space are restrained, but it’s disastrous for something like DmC with its wide angle camera, large open areas, dense enemy count and fast player movement.

On the very first mission, in no more than 2 minutes of having control, Donte got stuck in a wall as I tried to go through the level like a normal player. This was followed by hideous amount of texture pop-in, audio glitches that muted parts of the soundscape, a couple of attacks that didn’t connect with enemies when they should have, and loading times out the arse.

A nasty little secret I only found out from replaying it first hand was that many of the mini-cutscenes (like when Donte looks at the Hunter demon hop around buildings, or does a backflip as he collects his guns) are secretly loading screens, unskippable until the loading operation is completed. All of which are frustrating to have to sit through in such a fast paced game. The way they make such a deal out of the same, generic enemy spawning in by giving it a dramatic close-up every time feels patronizing on repeat fights. “OOOH look! It’s a flying thing again!”. Yeah, no game, these things are easy to kill and I know you’re covering up something with this. Nice try.

Without seeing the development build firsthand, I can’t say for certain why it ran so badly. The release of the Definitive Edition for PS4/XBONE implies that it was a hardware limitation...but....like....that’s what optimization is for; making games run well on older hardware. More on this later, but design choices in level layouts, for instance, can remedy this. You can, for instance, segment levels in a way that stops you from seeing large areas at a single moment, reducing how much the consoles needs to render and thus cutting down load times.

Instead, what we largely got were huge foggy rooms and camera lens flares there to hide unloaded textures. The problem then is that it just, in my opinion at least, doesn’t look very good. Think of how Silent Hill 2 and 3 manage to still look so good due to how they segment rooms with doors you can’t see beyond. Or how the use of fog doesn’t cover up anything that you’re supposed to be looking at. And how they manage to have shorter loading times for it, a whole generation of consoles in the past.

Another trick is to “hard bake” lighting effects into the level’s textures themselves, rather than relying on extra shader operations. It’s more taxing on hardware to emulate, say, the actual light physics of a red spotlight instead of just making the textures of the walls and floor red, using trickery to make it seem like there’s a functioning red light there. Open world games generally don’t have this option, but with Devil May Cry, which is a linear series with rarely changing environments, you can use trickery like this effectively. Instead, DmC has more shaders -many of which look terrible in cutscenes- than it can handle.

Ninja Theory did a bad job of optimizing their game for their primary hardware. Even with the update there were visual problems, audio glitches and collision bugs throughout the entire game. It’s far from unplayable, but it’s ropey for a AAA game.

Level Design

Before I get into the artistic choices, I want to take a moment to look at the more technical, grounded aspects of how Ninja Theory designed levels.

Most of the previous Devil May Cry games are economic with their level design, reusing areas multiple times over with remixed enemy layouts and the occasional change in lighting, music and even textures. This cuts down on development time, saves disc space, and allows the designers to really put care into each individual location. Resident Evil, the Souls games, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution are other good examples.

DmC had potential for this with its “living city” concept. The best use of this concept is with Mission 2: Home Truths, where Donte visits his and Vurgil’s gigantic childhood home. As you backtrack into familiar hallways and foyers, the corruption of Mundus’ influence causes walls to crack open, pathways to change shape and different enemies to spawn. It’s a great (re)use of assets that trip up your expectations as a player the first time around. It also uses some Metroidvania style locked doors and obstacles which you need certain abilities/weapons to traverse. The unfortunate limitation of that is that you can literally fly through some levels and skip entire sections of the game upon a replay; Mission 3 requires you to unlock the Air Dash move in order to clear a gap that appears early on, but you’ll already have it on a replay, turning a 20~ minute level into a 3~ minute one.

Sequence breaking like this doesn’t happen in any huge way though, due to how each level is an entirely separate area of its own. Likewise, most of these ability/weapon barriers lead to optional bonus areas that are slightly off the beaten path.

Linear level design isn’t inherently bad, but in this case I think it was a huge missed opportunity. Not only is there a parallel real world vs Limbo premise that has Donte shift from a greyscale, mundane city into a colourful, chaotic image of itself, that Limbo dimension has the ability to change in real time. If the level designers allowed players to shift from dimension to dimension in-game, a la Soul Reaver, or if they had just played up the “living city” concept in a more interactive way, the city would have been much more interesting and, ironically, feel much more alive than it does. Instead we got a linear, albeit pretty, collection of corridors with very little off the beaten path. DmC incentivizes exploration by hiding collectables, but “exploration” ultimately means turning left where you should turn right to find a Lost Soul behind a bin.

One place where they ALMOST got it right is the first Slurm Virility factory level. After a cutscene showing a mixing room, Donte and Kat break from the tour, slowly jog down some empty, boring hallways in to an equally empty and boring warehouse. Dante can’t attack or jump in this section, and there is absolutely nothing to interact with. It’s an unfortunately uninteresting forced walking section, only one small step above being an unskippable cutscene. Kat then sprays her squirrel jizz magic circle on the ground, Donte enters the Limbo version of the level, the room expands and the crates become platforms, and the level really begins from there. For reasons I never understood, Donte then has to take a huge route up sets of boxes and across dozens of different rooms to circle back on the way he came in. On the way back, he backtracks down the Limbo version of the boring hallways of before, except now they’re slightly less boring, with a few enemies to fight and moving walls and floors. Then you get to the mixing room (which is only shown in a cutscene) for a brawl, before moving on.

The reason this didn’t work as well as it could have are twofold. 1: You only see the real world version of a tiny portion of the level, and 2: said portion is boring as fuck and you don’t interact with it in any meaningful way. But hey, at least the idea was there.

Moments where the living city concept is pushed to the side for more one-off but more effectively done ideas can be found in the upside-down prison, the short prelude to the Bob Barbas fight and Lilith’s rave.

The upside-down prison starts off fairly strong, tapping into one of those childhood ideas we all idly wondered about; what if gravity suddenly shifted? The level starts off strong and has moments throughout that give a trippy sense of vertigo. Mostly this is with car and train bridges, but unfortunately loses the point as it progresses. Because the prison isn’t just upside-down, but is also in Limbo, gravity is already unreliable and the bottomless pit below the floor already looks like the sky. Similarly with the lead up to the boss fight with Poison that has you run “down” a vertical pipe, it all looks floaty and weird by default, making further attempts to be floaty and weird just seem...normal. Likewise, the prison is mostly comprised of bland, urban and industrial textures, completely interchangeable with any old warehouse. You quickly forget that you’re upside-down at all.

The setting also well outstays it’s welcome, taking up 4 entire levels to itself with not enough ideas to justify it. There’s even one moment where, after meeting Fineas, you’re told you need to follow a flock of harpies to find their lair....even though their lair is a completely linear set of halls...That says it all really; there was a fun idea in here, but it was executed without the same creativity.

Following that is the tragically short Bob Barbas prelude. THIS is one of the single most interesting concepts in level design I have ever seen. Seriously. I cannot think of any other game that took news graphics and idents and turned them into platforming sections. Even moments during the fight where Donte is dropped into news chopper footage manage to do something brilliantly original, stylish and funny. But as quickly as it came, it’s gone before you know it. It’s a fucking crime that the previous 4 levels didn’t use the same concept to break up the monotony of their urban corridors. They could have had Donte teleport around chunks of the level using the various TV screens with Bob Barbas propaganda on them, hopping across idents until he got to the other side. Shame.

Next up, almost in a moment of clarity from the designers when they realized that could do digital environments and cheesy tv show graphics in their game more than once, we have Lilith’s nightclub. Again, much more interesting than the living city stuff, albeit a bit harsh on the eyes with its lighting effects. There’s not much to say about it beyond “it looks cool”, but it’s worth mentioning that it feels much more focused and fully utilized than the upside-down prison. All in all. the level design in DmC is at odds with itself, marked by its lost potential. The concepts are interesting, but the execution is almost always lackluster, favouring hand-holdy linear hallways with “cinematic” qualities over more interactive, open spaces with a sense of place. For a game that, pre-release, seemed to want to show us a more fleshed out world than previous games, it winds up as little more than a flat backdrop.

But oh well, DMC is all about the action happening center stage, right?

Combat

Combat in DmC is a mix bag.

The number of different attacks available and Donte’s versatility at chaining moves across 5 different weapons is pretty great. I’m a fan of how you can swap special pause combos across your alternate weapons; two quick hits with Rebellion, a pause, then a final triple smash with Arbiter takes a little extra skill to pull off but rewards you with a faster combo than if you just used Arbiter alone. Likewise, little tweaks like how fast Drive can charge now and how it does actual damage unlike Quick Drive in DMC4, or how you can hold Million Stab for longer, are all mostly fun changes. I tend to have a lot of fun with Osiris and find it to be the most versatile weapon for pulling off different combos. Its ability to charge up the more hits it delivers is a good incentive to hook in as many enemies as possible too, even if it means its uncharged state doesn’t do enough damage. Aquila is a fun supplementary weapon, mostly good for distracting one enemy with the circle attack and pulling the rest into range for Osiris. Eryx, however, is rubbish. Its incredibly short range, long charge times and weak damage output really throw it onto the trash pile when Arbiter is right beside it. Also, personal taste, but it just looks stupid. It’s like a slimy set of Hulk Hands. And they don’t even yell “HULK SMASH” when you attack. Previous DMC gauntlets all include a gap-closing dive attack to put you in enemy range, but the Demon Grapple doesn’t work the large enemies you’ll want to use it against. More on that in a bit.

Guns are mostly pointless. Donte can move laterally so much easier than before that long range combat is redundant. Charge shots with Ebony & Ivory are like Eryx in that they take too long to charge and don’t do enough damage to be worth the wait. Also, because you need to be in a neutral, non-demon non-angel, state to fire them, charging them up while you wail on someone only works if you limit yourself to Rebellion. Switching to Demon or Angel weapons resets the charge and limits you to a grapple move.

Which leads to another problem; 4 of your 5 weapons disable the use of guns. I mean, you’re not missing out on much by the end anyway because the guns are boring and ineffectual to use against all but one enemy (the Harpy), but it feels like a mistake. They literally give you guns in cutscenes as an afterthought. Like when Vurgil goes “oh yeah, have this, it’ll kill the next few enemies really quickly then sit in your back pocket for all eternity thereafter”. Donte never feels like he’s earning these guns like he earns the melee weapons, and they never seem to be worth a damn in gameplay.

The grapples are more useful but, again, having two different types feels redundant in combat. Large enemies can’t be pulled towards you, so why not do what DMC4 did and have one grapple that does both jobs; pull small enemies towards you, pull yourself towards larger enemies? The end result in either scenario is to get in melee range, so it shouldn’t make that much of a difference. Considering Aquila has a special attack to pull enemies in, why not offload those moves to the other weapons too? If you want to keep both pull-in and pull-towards moves in combat, why not give, say, Eryx a special pull-in attack so you can swap back to guns easier?

In short; while the combat is versatile and very satisfying to pull off combos with, large parts of it feel badly thought out. The moves and weapons that end up being useless most of the time have enemies spawn after you unlock them, just as an excuse to show how they work.

The infamous “demon attacks for red enemies, angel attacks for blue enemies” gimmick actually wasn’t as bad as I expected. Until I had to fight a Blood Rage and a Ghost Rage at the same fucking time. I don’t think I need to get into it due to how many other people have complained, but it was just fucking infuriating to say the least.

Okay, so.....Devil May Cry 3 did it better. Most people don’t seem to know this, but DMC3 gave you damage bonuses if you used the right weapon against the right enemies, signified by a subtle particle effect. Nowhere in the enemy or weapon descriptions does it explain this, but if you use your head (or just experiment) you can generally figure it out. Beowulf is a light weapon, Doppelganger is a shadow monster, using light on it does extra elemental damage signified by a flash effect with each hit. Cerberus is an ice weapon, Abysses are liquidy enemies, so using ice on it freezes them, signified by an icicle effect. etc But most importantly; it never STOPS you from using the “wrong” weapon against enemies. I don’t think I need to go into how annoying it is when your combat flow is interrupted by your angel weapon PINGing off a red enemy, but god damn it.

Credit where credit is due; Ninja Theory did emphasize the right part of DMC’s combat when they opted to focus on combos over balance. Both 3 and 4 had broken combos and attacks that skilled players could easily pull off, but they would make combat boring and the games all emphasized an honour system to prevent abuse. If you were good enough to use Pandora to break enemy shields in 4, you were good enough to not abuse it.

Then again, a games combat is only as good as its enemies.

Enemies/Bosses

So it’s a real shame then that enemies and bosses don’t push you hard enough.

The AI is atrocious. NO hack n’ slash should have two hardcore enemies accidentally kill each other without you noticing. The mixing room in the Slurm levels pits you against two Tyrants/the big fat dudes who charge at you. There’s an easy-to-avoid pitfall in the middle of this room. Once, on hard mode no less, they spawned in as usual and one accidentally nudged the other into the pit, insta-killing him while I literally stood still and watched...

Most regular man-sized enemies (Stygians, Death Knights, and their variations) have a common problem of just not attacking first, opting to side step around you forever until you run at them. Luckily there usually is one aggressive enemy mixed in there, like the flying guys with guns or the screamy-chainsaw men, so you’ll be forced to dodge into their range, but it’s embarrassing when they’re isolated. You’re left standing there, charging a finishing attack with Eryx like you have your dick in your hand, and these things are just strafing around you, doing nothing. So you miss with Eryx, step forward, and anti-climatically twat them about with Rebellion just to get it over with.

At first I thought this combat shyness was a design choice, but then it happened with the final boss, revealing it to be a pathfinding bug. But more on that later...

So yes, the red/blue enemy gimmick is bullshit and breaks the flow of a room-sweeping combo you have going, but it actually works really well with the Witch enemy who hangs back, projecting shields onto other enemies while she snipes at you from a distance. She’s annoying to hunt down when you’re dealing with 10 other enemies, so you have to prioritize whether you want to plough through them first or clumsily chase her down first. It’s a nice dynamic to fights, adding that extra layer of strategy to mix things up in a less punishing way.

The main difference with the Witch and the other colour coded enemies is that the Witch gives you options. Blood/Ghost Rages do not, and make fights involving them feel like complete chores. You’ll find the one tactic that works, then rely on it every time.

No, the most egregious enemies were the bosses.

All of them, every single one, was terrible. Not including the Dream Runner mini-bosses, there was a total of 6, less than any of the other DMCs, which makes how sloppily designed they were all the more horrendous. Every single boss is formulaic, partitioned out into “segments” cut up by mini cutscenes that have Donte do something sassy when he works them down enough. But each of those segments tend to have Donte repeat the same, boring, tired tactic until the fight is over. Bob Barbas is the worst example; jump over his beams, use that one Eryx attack to slam into the nonsensical floor buttons, wail on him for a third of his health bar, kill 10 minor enemies in his news world, repeat two more times.

No matter what difficulty you’re on, these bosses never manage to be a challenge due to how placid they are. They will always accommodate their little “formula” you need to solve to beat them.

It’s baffling, because the previously mentioned Dream Runner mini-bosses are great. They’re aggressive, reactive, open to almost any combo you can outwit them with, and don’t force you to repeat the same set of steps in every encounter.

Vurgil on the other hand....

So, here we are, the grand finale. The ultimate evil has revealed itself, and it’s your own brother! You’re clearly a badass because you just took down Satan himself along with his army, so surely the only thing left that could challenge you is your more experienced twin.

Well, he would, if his AI didn’t start the show by consistently suffering from that same pathfinding bug that makes minor enemies interminably strafe around you. So far so good for my first playthrough. So I attack him, maybe hit him 5 times before a min-cutscene rears its head because I’ve suddenly made it into the next stage. Same thing happens once or twice. Then, somehow, Vurgil’s model freezes in the air during one of his attacks. He hangs there indefinitely until I attack him again. Then, at the end of the fight where he’s summoned a clone (because he can do that apparently, not that he’s ever so much as referenced the fact) so his real self can take a knee and heal, I’m supposed to use Devil Trigger to move him out of the way and finish the job (though, I don’t understand why the real Vurgil isn’t also thrown into the air). I do so, but the clone lingers on the ground for a moment, trying to attack me before just zipping into the sky; another bug. I attack the real Vurgil, but nothing happens at first. I keep wailing on him, hoping that one of my attacks will eventually collide and then, -Scene Missing-, the final cutscene of the battle plays.

Do I need to say any more? Do you see what a fucking mess the boss fights are? The final battle for humanity, the emotional crux of the story, the update to the final unsurpassed boss fight of DMC3, reduced to a buggy, embarrassing slap fight that gave me four glitches on my first playthrough.

The whole thing bungled the climax of its story. But, then again, was the story really that sacred to begin with....

Concept and Story

I promise I will not use the word “edgy” here.

Satire and social commentary, no matter how cartoonish, is a weird fit in a Devil May Cry game. DMC2 had an evil businessman too, and 4 ended with you punching the Pope in the face, but neither seemed to say anything substantial against capitalism or religion. They existed in a much more fantastical place, where any sort of commentary was aimed at a more philosophical target. “What makes us human? What makes us into demons? What is hell like? Is family more important than what you feel is right?” The previous games are all centered around a much more personal, individualistic identity crisis, and not any sort of populist, society-wide problems.

DmC brings up surveillance states, the most recent economic crisis and late-capitalism, soft drink addiction/declining nutrition, news manipulation, the prison industrial complex, conspiracy culture, populous revolt, some scant mentions of mental institutions, hacktivism, and the Occupy Movement. These topics, all of which are pretty damn serious and warrant long discussions, are simply decoration for a story about fantasy demons secretly running the world They Live style. Hell, it basically IS They Live, only the aliens are demons and the tools of control are more contemporary. (somehow there’s nothing about the internet in there though...)

All in all, its treatment of modern issues is childishly simple at best and cynical at worst. Sure, the game presents itself as defying capitalism and social engineering via advertising, but it then goes on to launch an ad and hype campaign bigger than any of the previous games, spanning across billboards, phone apps, social media promotion, the usual games media rounds and expensive pre-rendered television commercials. Hell, they even had an ad for their ad! All of this amid a gigantic fan backlash and in-fighting with games journalists on whether people were mad about Donte’s hair colour of if they were just outrightly entitled.

The fact that lead designer and writer Tameem Antoniades responded to this backlash and feedback by tweeking Donte’s design and adding in a random moment were a wig literally drops out of the sky onto Donte’s head for a jab at this “controversy” says something about the intent he had with his story; There is no real political statement behind DmC, it simply pulls from what was in the news at the time, and uses it as fodder for an otherwise archetypal plot.

The problem is that it tries to do this while also talking about hellish demons, heavenly angels and earthly humans. Well, mostly demons, because the angels are absent from the plot and Donte doesn’t seem to have any sort of Angel Trigger, and the only named human character is Kat, who doesn’t have much ploy within the story; she’s there to be rescued, and provide minimal help with a pat on the back from Donte. So demons rule the world, the angels are absent, and the people who suffer are us lowly humans. But it’s a half-demon, half-angel who “saves” us all/reduces the city to rubble, while all us humans can do is post about it on Twitter. Doesn’t sound very empowering to me.

The main villain should say it all. He’s some sort of businessman/oligarch/banker/economist/military commander/mayor/Satan, but he makes the undeniable point that he gave human civilization it’s structure. He has a wife he at least somewhat cares about, and a child he has high hopes for. He (and his wife) shows more emotion than any of our protagonists, and they have more at stake than anyone else, with a genuine vision for the future no less. So, when he very reasonably asks Donte what his goal is, all Donte can say is “freedom” and “revenge”, then continue to childishly taunt him when pressed further. I could go on about how unhealthy the obsession with the post-apocalypse our generation has is, but suffice to say; Donte is not someone to look up to.

Donte himself, and by extent his story, has no real ideological motivation behind him despite being dressed up as an anarchist. His motivations and arch as a character are no less two dimensional than the original Dante, but now manage to be over-stated and hamfisted, with an added veneer of “politics”. Vurgil points how much he’s supposedly changed right before the final boss fight, but how he changes doesn’t include a strong statement of intent. What does Donte want? Fucked if I know! Fucked if he knows.

All of this says nothing about how...well....plain bad the writing is. The dialogue is famously cringeworthy and the plot has more holes than a sponge.

If Mundus was hunting Donte to kill him this whole time, why can’t he find him despite having multiple cameras aimed directly at this house? Why didn’t he just kill him when Donte was in the orphanage run by “demon scum”? Where was Vurgil this whole time? Why does Kat need to hit the Hunter with a molotov? Actually, what the fuck is she doing in the real world while this is happening? Are people just ignoring this pixie girl throwing bottles around a pier? What’s that weird dimension Donte goes into to unlock new powers? If it’s his own head, why are Mundus’ demons in it? And why would it change his weapons? Why doesn’t he have an Angel Trigger? If Vurgil can do all that cool shit he does in his boss fight at the end, including opening a fucking portal to another dimension, why does he need to rely on Kat to hop dimensions earlier on? Or rely on anyone for that matter? Why does he have white hair when he’s born, but Donte has black hair until the end? If Mundus is immortal, why does he need an heir? Why does time randomly slow down after Vurgil shoots Lilith? How did Kat know the layout of so many floors in Mundus’ tower? Surely he didn’t give her a tour of the whole building, right? Did Donte and Vurgil fuck the entire planet by releasing demons into earth and destroying world economics and governments? Or are there pre-existing governments anyway?

Seriously, I could go on forever.

Beyond basic plot, logic and diegetic continuity (the rules of DmC’s world, and how it suspends your disbelief), you get into more subjective questions like “is Donte a likable character?”

I, perhaps surprisingly, think he is. He’s such a tryhard asshole for the majority of his game, never stopping to think about what he’s doing or to engage with the They Live world he lives in that he is, honestly, a bit adorable. He’s not someone I’d ever have the patience to hang out with in real life, but he is at least consistent. He’s a total lughead and he almost blows up the planet, but it makes sense that a nihilistic, “act first, think later” bro would do that.

And I think that sums up his story too; dumber than it thinks, but entertaining all the same. It’s a different kind of dumb than the original games, a kind of dumb that stares at the camera wall-eyed instead of with a sideways wink.

Conclusion

As of writing, I consider Devil May Cry to be dead as a series. With no solid news from Capcom on further projects for 7 years now, DmC: Devil may Cry is the swansong of the entire franchise. Well, beyond shitty cameo costumes in Dead Rising 4, or pachinko machines or whatever.

Likewise, more recent hack n slash series like Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising and Nier: Automata have risen to challenge Devil May Cry for its crown, and without something better than Ninja Theory’s efforts to stop them, they’ll probably get it.

DmC is not a complete trainwreck. It’s enjoyable, worth the second hand price and 10+ hours of your time. It’s entertaining in a similar way a bad film is; so long as you don’t expect too much from it, you’ll have a laugh. Let go of your bitterness with Ninja Theory and Tameem and you’ll poke fun at it in a less mean-spirited way then your fan rage wants you to. DMC deserved to end on a better note than this, but.....honestly....fuck it. Capcom probably couldn’t make anything much better themselves these days anyway.

Treat DmC like a pug; malformed and lumpy, probably should have been neutered a generation ago, but funny to look at and play with, even though it’s covered in its own slobber.

[smlpodcast]

The SML Podcast - Episode 358: The Anniversary Reunion

Download Episode 358

Been a while since we've had a monster show, but when we have a reunion of an Anniversary, things get long and dumb.

The whole gang is here with Cole Martin, Kris Huber, Grant Henry, CJ Greenwood, and Pernell Vaughan all on board as we finally discuss how our February game selections went. Everybody did pretty well, except for me because I didn't do anything. We also cover news like Crackdown being playable on Xbox One and getting X enhanced with some other games, Game Pass additions, MvC Infinite, game rumors, mistakenly uploaded demos, and the ESRB weighing in on loot crates and microtransactions. After most of the gang leave, Cole and I (days later) tackle MORE news like the fantastic PS Plus lineup for March, even more game rumors including Blizzard teasing Diablo on the Switch, a Fumiko! giveaway, and reviews!

Kingdom Come is a stellar and unforgiving story driven open world RPG from Warhorse Studios & Deep Silver. Immortal Redneck mixes Egypt, rogue-lite, and first person shooting to great results from CremaGames. Moss is a gorgeous and must own PlayStation VR action adventure from Polyarc Games. Tim Ekkebus reviews Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, a game of traveling and sharing stories from Dim Bulb, Serenity Forge, & Good Shepherd Entertainment.

Jacob Garner reviews Mulaka, an action adventure based on the Tarahumara from Lienzo. DarkMika covers Beyond the Invisible: Darkness Came, a hidden object adventure from Graphium Studio. Jacob also covers Riftstar Raiders, a co-op twin stick space shooter that will wreck your face from Climax Studios & Vision Games. Tom Miller reviews Wartile, a cool-down based strategy game from Playwood Project, Deck13, & Whipser Games as well as While You Are Downloading, a bite sized shmup from Alien Nude Ltd.

Symmetry is a stylish survival game on an abandoned planet from Sleepless Clinic & IMGN.PRO. Turok brings the N64 classic to Xbox One with a shiny new coat of paint from Nightdive Studios. Finally, Little Nightmares: The Residence DLC is the final chapter in the Little Nightmares DLC trilogy from Tarsier Studios & Bandai Namco, but does it answer all of your questions?

We end the show with three songs from Ryan Ike off of his stellar soundtrack for Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, released in partnership with Materia Collective!

This episode features a handful of tracks from Crypt of the NecroDancer: OverClocked, a brand new remix album from Brace Yourself Games, Danny Baranowsky, and OverClocked ReMix!

Ryan Ike - Rail Hoppin' Ryan Ike - Vagrant Song (Apalacia Guitar Version) Ryan Ike - Soulsucker Blues

https://www.kingdomcomerpg.com https://warhorsestudios.cz http://www.deepsilver.com http://www.cremagames.com https://www.polyarcgames.com http://www.wherethewatertasteslikewine.com http://serenityforge.com http://www.goodshepherd.games https://www.lienzo.mx http://graphiumstudios.com http://www.climaxstudios.com http://visiongamespublishing.com http://www.wartile.com https://www.deck13.de http://store.steampowered.com/app/749730 http://sleeplessclinic.com http://imgn.pro http://www.nightdivestudios.com http://tarsier.se https://www.bandainamcoent.com https://ryanike.bandcamp.com https://www.materiacollective.com https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-sml-podcast/id826998112 https://twitter.com/theSMLpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/theSMLpodcast/

[zecafeine]

Torréfaction #40 : MvC Infinite gratos, Veer, Wormwood et Spotify escroqué

Torréfaction #40 :

Au menu de notre revue hebdomadaire de l’actu, cette semaine :

Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite gratuit sur PS4

le kickstarter de System Shock va dans le mur

Mod pour Dragon Ball FighterZ

Warcraft III s’offre un patch et un tournoi

Elite Dangerous: Beyond – Chapter One

Veer

Black Panther cartonne, ça ne fait pas marrer la ville de Wauconda

Wormwood

Rumeurs sur les Airpods

Spotify : une escroquerie à 1…