LET IT DIE

[Haunted Dishwasher]

Holy shit I just remembered there was a Let it Die 2, but it was called Deathverse. That was a game that went into direction of battleroyales and tried to capitalize on the already-saturated genre, hoping some twitch streamers would latch to it for a while.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1149560/DEATHVERSE_LET_IT_DIE/

Deathverse fucking DIED without lasting a full year

 

[I'm Retarded?]

Holy shit I just remembered there was a Let it Die 2, but it was called Deathverse. That was a game that went into direction of battleroyales and tried to capitalize on the already-saturated genre, hoping some twitch streamers would latch to it for a while.

lol wow, this one passed me by. Supertrick is the sole developer credited on that game, as with this new game, so its prospects are not looking good, lol.

 

[The tired cat]

I love Suda51, he makes crazy shit, but gameplay design is usually his weak spot. so the actually correct way to play the original LET IT DIE was to fuck around until you saw all the wacky content, do the grinding until you got bored, and then uninstall it and walk away. the whole microtransaction thing was 100% for suckers and I hope he made some bank off of it so he can make more cool games. unfortunately it appears that Suda is not involved in this sequel at all, only the studio he co-developed the original with, and so I imagine it will be substantially less interesting. Suda's studio, Grasshopper Manufacture, is currently working on a game called ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN, which looks fucking wild as usual.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ldZVo2qHwg0

I'm also pretty Suda and Sweary are working a sidescroller game called Hotel Barcelona.

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN, which looks fucking wild as usual.

I'm guessing it would be totally unreasonable, but I'm kinda disappointed the whole game doesn't have the rotoscoped looked of that cutscene.

I don't really like Suda's games even just from hearing people explain them to me, and I tried Killer Is Dead but I ended up not enjoying anything about it.

But with Romeo, nothing stands out as being an instant turn off, so I'm gonna wait till in-depth reviews that show and explain the gameplay of Romeo come out before I judge it.

 

[I'm Retarded?]

I'm guessing it would be totally unreasonable, but I'm kinda disappointed the whole game doesn't have the rotoscoped looked of that cutscene.

I don't really like Suda's games, I tried Killer Is Dead and I ended up not enjoying anything about, but with Romeo nothing stands out as being an instant turn off, so I'm gonna wait till in-depth reviews that show and explain the gameplay of Romeo come out before I look further into it.

Killer Is Dead is definitely one of his more unapproachable ones. Suda's games are generally pure head trips with serviceable if somewhat mid gameplay. try No More Heroes, that's the classic. if at all possible, play it with an actual Wiimote, cause it does some funny shit with the controls. Killer7 is also a great game if you can vibe with the crazy ass gameplay. Shadows of the Damned (collab with Resident Evil/Dino Crisis creator Shinji Mikami) and Lollipop Chainsaw (collab with former Troma screenwriter James Gunn, before he became a soy capeshit director) are extremely PS3-era action games but have an undeniable charm.

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

try

I know about them, I've seen about them, Killer7 is the only one I'm even slightly interested in, but that's for the premise of the main character and his alternate personalities, not the gameplay.

I'm just gonna put it bluntly: I don't like anime tropes. E.g. I see things like Travis's flatmate who cosplays for him, and who Travis is as a character, and I immediately don't wanna be anywhere near any NMH game.
I'd have to really struggle to think of exceptions, GodHand is the only one I can think of as I type right now, and that's because of the gameplay.

Not saying they're 'inherently shit games' or anything like that, but those kinds of tropes are a HARD filter for me - that's a large part of why I'm gonna wait to see more in depth stuff about Romeo before I get excited.

 

[I'm Retarded?]

Travis's flatmate who cosplays for him, and who Travis is as a character,

Travis' only flatmate in the first game is his fat cat Jeane, and "who Travis is as a character" is a parody of you, the loser playing the game. the whole game is essentially a self-aware shitpost, frequently funny, sometimes stupid, sometimes genius. it is tropey in parts, sometimes intentionally, sometimes because that's just the cultural effluvium it exists in. Grasshopper Manufacture refers to themselves as a "punk videogame band" and No More Heroes is a pretty definitive illustration of what they mean. it's far from the best game ever made, but it's certainly more than the sum of its parts, and has far more soul and passion and artistic vision than most games did in the awful era of the late 2000s. but you either vibe with it or you don't, and if you don't, you're just not gonna like it, end of story. however, I personally think you should try to vibe with it, because that game hides a surprising amount of juice underneath its often relatively mundane surface.

an example: before the last boss, there's a cutscene where they drop essentially the entire plot of the game, which has been largely missing up until that point. but the joke is, players just want action, not story, so the game fast-forwards through the cutscene for you at like 10x speed. but it's not just a throwaway gag. if you play the scene back at normal speed - there's no way to do this in the original game IIRC, you have to do something like use a recording device and alter the video - they really did write a full story cutscene, fully voice acted, fully animated, with an actual intelligible plot and everything, just to fast forward through it as a joke. it could have just been a stupid little scene, and it kind of is (breaking the 4th wall isn't exactly revolutionary comedy), but Suda's unique commitment to the bit really brings that one up a notch

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

-snip-

Okay, I promise you: I really did read all that. But I definitely do not 'vibe' with it.

"Punk" sounds like a very good descriptor, but that ain't me. Sounds like I'm not going to relate to Travis, honestly I would probably just consider him an annoying douchebag, and the cutscene fast forward thing would just piss me off for a couple reasons.

It might've appealed to me when I was like 15 (I mean that genuinely, I'm not saying that to be a prick), but I'm over 30 now. I want sincerity and gravitas, not edgy teenage rebellion.

Sure, I'll watch some shit like Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood and enjoy it, but those are very rare exceptions that sort of prove the rule.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

sincerity and gravitas

Suda has cited Kafka as a major author of influence in his work, and everything about the KILL THE PAST series (which includes K7) points to him not making it up. So you're really not going to find sincerity or gravitas in his work: his earlier titles are all puzzle-narratives with pretty juicy socio-political commentary baked into crazy shit, and his latter titles are all him alchemically spinning obnoxious self-indulgence into keeping the lights on at Grasshopper.

I'm not a huge fan of modern SUDA, and I'd say all his games are pretty skippable if you don't immediately click with his fondness for burying the lede in zany bullshit.

 

[Deus Exica]

They really seem to hate the fans that just want a pve game like the first LID.

You make more money with a competitive component. Retention rates are much lower with PVE. People who like Let it Die are weird to me because it is soulless slop trying to wring money out of you but doesn't even have the caveat of being especially fun to play.

he makes crazy shit

I feel like his crazy shit is markedly less interesting than when he actually takes himself halfway seriously and gets introspective. Travis Strikes Again was fantastic for this, compared to NMH 3 which felt like he was hard phoning it in. Romeo looks like it is trying a bit too hard as well.

I'm also pretty Suda and Sweary are working a sidescroller game called Hotel Barcelona.

Swery is an even bigger hack than Suda. He straight up scammed people with his Kickstarter game that sucked ass and Deadly Premonition 2 was beyond awful. The Hotel Barcelona demo is apparently also atrocious and plays like ass. People should stop putting these Japanese punk auteurs on a pedestal.

Killer Is Dead but I ended up not enjoying anything about it.

Killer is Dead was trying to take the gameplay of No More Heroes and blend it with the esoteric borderline nonsensical storytelling of Killer 7 and thus had none of the charm of either.

but I'm over 30 now. I want sincerity and gravitas, not edgy teenage rebellion.

Funnily enough No More Heroes 1 and 2 are arguably the most sincere games he has ever built. The punk aesthetic is paved over what is actually a sometimes rather somber and thought provoking series, up until 3 anyway, where he clearly just made it out of obligation and rewrote the original concept while adding as much winking and nudging to the audience as possible.

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

puzzle-narratives with pretty juicy socio-political commentary baked into crazy shit, and his latter titles are all him alchemically spinning obnoxious self-indulgence into keeping the lights on at Grasshopper

That sounds very Hideo Kojima, and I've made no secret on the Internet that I don't fucking like Hideo or his games (except MGSV which I really really enjoy despite its Kojimaisms).

thus had none of the charm of either

I fucking burst out laughing at that

up until 3 anyway

I could be blurring together details of 3 with 1+2 and it's lowering my opinion of all 3, but yeah I do remember even fans shitting on 3. And hey, Kafka as an inspiration certainly makes me want to give the guy some credit. But that's still just one small element I could be interested in, in a sea of things I'm definitely not.

Like I said though, I'll keep an eye on Romeo and see what happens with it, because I am sometimes able to ignore what I don't like if there's enough of what I do: ADACA is a game made by a retard gender-furry, but it has so many nice touches and a fucking fantastic STALKERy sandbox mode to the extent I can ignore the time they mention the character in the main story is "Nonbinary" and that one optional conversation where a Red Faction negress says some stuff you could choose to interpret as the developer's political opinions. Still wanna make a machinima-review movie thing using that game someday.

 

[The tired cat]

Swery is an even bigger hack than Suda. He straight up scammed people with his Kickstarter game that sucked ass and Deadly Premonition 2 was beyond awful. The Hotel Barcelona demo is apparently also atrocious and plays like ass. People should stop putting these Japanese punk auteurs on a pedestal

1. What kickstarter game and B. Hotel Barcelona didnt even have a demo, so you're kinda talking out of your ass.

 

[Flying Meat Wagon]

People who like Let it Die are weird to me because it is soulless slop trying to wring money out of you but doesn't even have the caveat of being especially fun to play.

I would have to disagree on the whole soulless slop point. It's a free to play game with microtransactions, yes there is some slop energy since that's inherent to that payment model. But 90% of the game is divorced from payment, you literally can't progress unless you play they same way a free to play would.

The game world and art style is interesting enough and the gameplay loop is quite addictive. But I can see how it might be a hate it or love it game. I think most players would find something interesting about it if they actually played the game the correct way instead of getting filtered because they don't get that it's a much slower game than they though. In the beginning you should want to run back to your base more than you push for progression in the tower. I find the gameplay unique in a way, nothing has scratched the same itch since I 100% the achievements and stopped playing. But I also like the manga Dorohedoro which is very similar to LID in it's style and tone, so I might be a slop enjoyer in that case.

 

[Cucktry Roads]

I had 196 hours in Let it Die, remembering quitting around the endgame cause it felt like there was no point. Unless the gameplay is interesting, I don't feel like playing a 2nd game. First game was all about knowing the meta. Drill grinding since it had extreme durability. Assault rifle for damage. Machete for general melee. I remember the season where they had the throwing fan with poison which was the best fucking weapon in the game and everyone had it. Main problem was with all the weapons in the game, there was no balancing ever done that I saw to make more weapons viable.

Not to mention how much of a slog the final floors were Enemies were hard as fuck and you were level capped, then they'd throw you against that fucking boss with the huge tail that could 1-2 shot you, so you pretty much had to use a guide to figure out its patterns. Was just a way to get you to pay to progress.

Game had a great ascetic, charter design, and ideas, but just failed to really make it work.

 

[Deus Exica]

What kickstarter game

The one about the photographer in a small London town. I forget the name.

B. Hotel Barcelona didnt even have a demo, so you're kinda talking out of your ass.

Wrong. Maybe it got pulled at some point but it definitely did exist.

 

[The tired cat]

The one about the photographer in a small London town. I forget the name.

That was a Kickstarter game? Huh, didn't know that.

Wrong. Maybe it got pulled at some point but it definitely did exist.

Fair enough, I stand corrected then.

 

[Flying Meat Wagon]

I had 196 hours in Let it Die, remembering quitting around the endgame cause it felt like there was no point. Unless the gameplay is interesting, I don't feel like playing a 2nd game. First game was all about knowing the meta. Drill grinding since it had extreme durability. Assault rifle for damage. Machete for general melee. I remember the season where they had the throwing fan with poison which was the best fucking weapon in the game and everyone had it. Main problem was with all the weapons in the game, there was no balancing ever done that I saw to make more weapons viable.

Not to mention how much of a slog the final floors were Enemies were hard as fuck and you were level capped, then they'd throw you against that fucking boss with the huge tail that could 1-2 shot you, so you pretty much had to use a guide to figure out its patterns. Was just a way to get you to pay to progress.

Game had a great ascetic, charter design, and ideas, but just failed to really make it work.

There are a lot of issues with the game, most of them related to the end game when you are climbing Tengoku and rolling stews for random stickers.

Yet again I have to say it, you were playing wrong. If the tailed boss(U-10) on floor 32 is destroying you, you are either too weak and need to farm or you aren't using the game mechanics. Stacking slowmungus and other buffs before the fight will let you beat it naked. It's NOT a souls game, the focus isn't on learning boss patterns it's to get armor/weapons/consumables strong enough that you can win.

The base game is stupid easy if you abuse the shit out of your ability to level gear and use buffs from consumables. Only in the endgame do you need to focus on learning skills related to boss patterns.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

That sounds very Hideo Kojima, and I've made no secret on the Internet that I don't fucking like Hideo or his games (except MGSV which I really really enjoy despite its Kojimaisms).

In the sense of being pretty sharp, yes. The Selection for Society Sanity line from MGS2 is really Kojima's peak and pinnacle, with the rest of the game also being a salient commentary on the nature of sequels and entertainment more generally. But I would say that Kojima's messaging tends to be very on-the-nose, with any degree of subtlety in his work coming from the editors he had on MGS1-3. 5 saw him basically pruned from the creative process in its development, and the Death Strandings show him totally unfettered - and I'm not really a fan of the writing in those.

By contrast, SUDA's messaging is extremely cryptic and laughably easy to miss. Killer7 is one of the most salient political treatises about the post-cold-war world and in particular the skewed power-relationship between the US and Japan, but it's buried in subtext and traipsed through weird, bizarre shit like a Luchador headbutting a bullet. Like - all the shit in this video, and more, are in the game. But there actually is a serious political analysis baked in there, which discusses the inevitable power struggle between an aging US and a resurgent China through the lens of Japan's uncertain future.

Basically, none of SUDA's games are satisfying. I think the closest one would be No More Heroes, which taken on its own (as I find its sequels to be overindulgent and vacuous) is a satisfying-enough little story about breaking out of the clenches of consumerism. But even then, it's still the sort of thing where if watching goofy cutscenes like this doesn't immediately catch your interest, it's not going to hold you through. Captivation is the name of the game for SUDA, because you need to really give a shit to make it through his bullshit.

Particularly since SUDA thinks that games impressing boredom is a valuable thing: No More Heroes has chores you have to do to grind out the actual meat content (minigames that are mostly boring), Silver Case has one of the most convoluted maze sections I've ever seen in a game where the instructions are given to you in a fly-by gag textbox that's impossible to read, and 25th Ward has a segment that takes about 30 minutes if you do it without looking up the solution in which you just knock on doors in an apartment complex. He's one of those guys. (Well, or he was, I should say. His new stuff has lost that spark, frankly.)

...of course, none of this really is part to LET IT DIE anymore, as far as I can tell. I wouldn't be surprised if he consulted with them a bit, though, which is probably the best way to get the SUDA flavor without the baggage.

 

[I'm Retarded?]

another underscoring element of Suda's style is his pure aesthetic wack, little touches like the No More Heroes boss transitions or the monochrome freeze-frame executions in Killer Is Dead are a lot of fun IMO, he does a great job with stylization when he's trying. I don't consider Suda's work to be High Art or anything, in fact I get the sense that he's deliberately avoiding that territory, but I'll take a 7/10 kinda clunky game with genuinely interesting aspects over a perfectly smooth 9/10 that's well-constructed all-around but is otherwise totally uninspiring. I think that's what draws a lot of people to guys like Suda or Swery or Kojima, it's a brand that represents Something Different(TM) rather than just the same old grey gruel, even if it's not exactly expertly made.

I'm over 30 now. I want sincerity and gravitas, not edgy teenage rebellion.

lol. speaking as an oldfag myself, I often find that the most sincere and serious media has the least interesting things to say. I've played thousands of games and the ones that are trying to Make A Point or Create A Fascinating World tend to be the most banal. art is experimental communication, and in gaming media in particular, most projects get lost in trying to be something that somebody else has already done, or fulfill some grand artistic vision that's ultimately pretty shallow and stupid (Clair Obscur lol), or being a Viable Commercial Product, or a vessel for the creator's retarded opinions. creating in general, and creating art in particular, is an imprecise and mercurial discipline, and I respect and enjoy far more the creators who are willing to throw themselves at lands unknown even if they get lost on the way, rather than the ones who stay comfortably in the foothills while retards lavish them with praise for their Bravery and Vision. by which I mean, it's important to have the courage to break the mold and be Weird. for this reason, guys like Suda and Kojima, thecatamites, Mortis Ghost, Mason Lindroth, etc have a special place in my heart.

 

[Deus Exica]

Particularly since SUDA thinks that games impressing boredom is a valuable thing: No More Heroes has chores you have to do to grind out the actual meat content (minigames that are mostly boring

While they are boring in concept, I actually think they have a lot of value as one of the few game concepts that work really well for the wii motion control gimmick.