Monthly Archives: May 2017

Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada: The Last Sengoku Hero


The “One vs. Thousands” model that the Musou franchise has utilized for years continues to be entertaining to me. There are folks that think it’s boring, but I can’t even imagine why. What’s more gratifying than obliterating thousands upon thousands of soldiers as you save the day, complete objectives, and in general, be a badass? Though it has been a while since I’ve played a Samurai Warriors title; I bought SW 4-II for Steam, only to find that it was not optimized for my PC. It was lag city forever, it would not play, so I gave up, got my refund, and went on my way, admittedly disappointed. But that’s not what we’re here for. Today, we’re here for the latest installment, Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada! Yukimura Sanada has long-since been the posterboy for the Sengoku Musou series, the main villain being Oda Nobunaga. Since Samurai Warriors 3, I’d wager, Yukimura has been one of the most important figures in the game. But what did we know about the Sanada clan as a whole? Outside of historians, it’s likely that we only knew that the Sanada clan rose to prominence with the Takeda clan, and Yukimura himself dying on the battlefield around the Summer Siege of Osaka. The story is rich, and Tecmo Koei focuses just on the goals and desires of the Sanada clan in this title.

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They’re dead, and they don’t even know it.

But it’s not all about him! You spend a fair amount of the game in command of Yukimura Sanada’s father, Masayuki Sanada. Eventually, he passes on, and Yukimura takes his place as the titular character. Every important battle, every time the Sanada took the field, it’s likely that you will as well! This is a more historical title than we’ve seen in a while [outside of the Strategy games that Koei produces]. The timeline makes a lot more sense, and there are lots and lots of things players might not know, understand, or be familiar with. There are hotkeys that will pull up a pair of encyclopedias to tell you about key terms, people, battles, etc. I love this. Most of it I already knew, thanks to my time spent in the series/the Nobunaga’s Ambition franchise/general love of the era, but it’s nice to see some time being spent on just one faction/clan. Though if I were being honest with myself, I’d rather see focus on one of the larger or more notorious clans. Yes, like the Oda. Come on, they were way more interesting! However, there are more new characters than Masayuki! Also added were:

  • Chacha: Toyotomi  Hideyoshi’s concubine. Oichi/Azai’s daughter.
  • Sasuke: Yukimura’s assistant/ninja. Loyal servant to Yukimura.
  • Katsuyori Takeda: Shingen Takeda’s son and successor.
  • Hidetada Tokugawa: Ieyasu’s son and heir. Younger and Adult playable.

The game takes place over roughly 50-54 years, and everyone ought to be aged, born, and died in their appropriate place. Instead of using “game modes” that you select from the main menu, your Castle Town is where you start, and it has one main mode that branches off, to exploration and the actual battles. This is a very straight-forward title, but there are still quite a few things to do in the game. You might look at it and say “Well, this is just gonna be playing as Yukimura forever, that sounds awful!” but that’s not the case at all. While yes, you mostly play as Yukimura Sanada and Masayuki Sanada, they brought over the Samurai Warriors 4 system of playing as two characters in battle, and swapping between them at will. Lots of favorites from previous games will be playable and visible, such as Takatora Todo, Kotaro Fuma, Goemon Ishikawa, Tadakatsu Honda, Sakon Shima. 61 characters in total! And once you’ve built your relationship with characters in the Castle Town Hub, they can go on exploration missions with you as well. You can invite them to the Tea House [when it’s unlocked] or simply go to them and give them items. Giving them what they want the most helps the most, but that’s no big shock. But once they cap [and it’s not hard to], they’ll join you in battle.

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Fishin’ ain’t easy.. well, okay it is.

The Hub is where you talk to your family members/clan mates, upgrade your weapons, add skills to them, perform missions, and do a host of side missions. You’ll farm, you’ll fish, you’ll brew potions for people. All sorts of stuff to keep you busy! Many of these will give you benefits after your next battle, such as planting seeds in your garden and sacrificing something at the shrine. If you’re lucky, you’ll get great resources to put to use elsewhere in your gameplay experience. The shrine was really frustrating to me because it’s a Shell Game, where you might get something good. But the farming was where it’s at for me. It was simple, and the better you mash the X button/the higher quality seed you used, the better your crops were. Simple as that. So the Hub is where you spend your non-battle time. You progress the story here, watch the Castle Town grow, and more. You also have the Dojo there. As the game goes on, you’ll accrue exp, which is stored. You can use it on other characters, such as storing exp for Yukimura when you inevitably play as him, or as the character you want to take with you into exploration missions. It’s also where you increase your combat powers, your Rage, Musou Bar, etc.

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Friendship is Magic. Or so I’m told.

Let’s talk Exploration. As the game goes on, there will be “Exploration Missions” or maps, that are open, without real objectives. They have “bonus objectives” like “find resources” or “kill this guy”, and so forth. This is where you farm exp, resources, items, and things of that nature. These are not historic battles, and you can take whomever you have earned a relationship with onto them. There is a time limit, so explore as much as you can, get what you need, and head off back to town! These are very cut and dry, but you’ll probably find yourself doing them every few battles to make sure you are keeping your weapons up to date. As you grow in power, you can add new skills to your weapon, and add levels to it. The more levels of a skill, the better it is! You can add reach, shockwave blasts, elementals [several of them], attack speed, and that’s just the beginning. The historic battles are much different. It’s a grind, but it didn’t feel like a hateful, terrible grind where I had to play forever just to keep up.

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There is a new system for Tactics, and for each important objective you complete, for your grade in combat, you receive Coins of Sanada. They represent the symbol of the clan, the Six Coins of Sanada. You can also gain them from talking to certain people in the Castle Town. They’ll have the clan symbol over their head. There will be times in battle where you need to use them by pressing a button [within a time limit], to get your Strategies going. Such as lighting the field at night, healing an injured comrade, and using the Strategem burns one of the coins. So it’s important to do as many of the objectives/bonus objectives as possible. These are key to success in battle! Sure you can just swap people, obliterate thousands of troops, but using these tactics are imperative. However, if you don’t talk to people and don’t focus on objectives, you will find yourself not having enough coins to make these key battle decisions. Speaking of which, the stages still have timers, but now they use a Day/Night feature, and many battles require you to get things done in short order [before nightfall/daybreak]. Not to mention at night, you face perilous ninja attacks and a seriously decreased lack of vision.

 

In the Land of the Rising Sun: ⅘

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I had to include this. Of course. Get those kills, son.

I love the more historic approach, and the focus on one character/clan. Though I enjoy the main games approach of being able to play the same story from several different perspectives, playing just one family line and all the important battles they took part in? That’s wonderful. You can also take part in battles they weren’t in, in little side missions! These are how you unlock characters they don’t normally interact with. I do wonder if this is going to lead to other games like this, from say the Toyotomi, Oda, Takeda, etc. That could be perceived as a cash grab though, and I understand that. I’m still interested in it though. This is a compelling story that we’ve already been at least partially familiar with. We’ve always known that the Sanada fell in battle to the last, but never before did we see the early battles, the hardships, and decisions that Masayuki Sanada had to make in order to see his clan not only survive, but thrive in such a harsh world. I got lost in this game and found myself playing for hours and hours at a time. The multi-stage battles are fantastic and challenging and all told, this is a nice change of pace and the new way to experience the Musou series. The only serious criticisms I had were that I can see where people might not be interested, that it might be seen as a niche game. I highly recommend any fans of Samurai Warriors or Dynasty Warriors give it a shot though and it can feel a bit repetitive, going back to town, going into a multi-tier battle, exploring, rinse and repeat. I still found it incredibly enjoyable, being quickly wrapped up in the story.

Kritika Online CB Preview – High Action, High Speed, High Fun

By Michael Sagoe (mikedot)

 

Have you ever wanted a game that had the flashy action of Dungeon Fighter Online, the combo craziness of Devil May Cry and the rocking beats of Guilty Gear? If so, your prayers have finally been answered as All-M and En Masse Entertainment are joining forces to bring Kritika Online to the masses.

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Kritika Online is a 3D MORPG that focuses on fast-paced action and lots of it. While previously released in South Korea in 2013, it’s finally making its way stateside in 2017 with the same PvE and PvP combat that it’s been known for. I’ve known about this little title ever since it was announced at Hangame Ex 2011 and have been dying to give it a try ever since, so of course when En Masse approached the OnRPG/MMOHuts team about giving this game a try, I was practically the first one to say yes and jumped right in.

While the game does have a storyline to go with it, this preview will be covering my time spent playing the game in a handful of dungeons, with and without a party.

Starting things off: players can choose between one of four (genderlocked) classes: The Warrior, The Rouge, The Gunmage and The Reaper. The warrior uses brute force to get up close and personal with his enemies, the rouge uses agility and quick attacks to either launch or set up enemies for long combos, the gunmage uses pistols and other abilities to fight from a distance, and the reaper enjoys using her long scythe and chains to outrange foes while staying in melee distance. With my love of close range combat and big blades, my choice was obvious.

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After picking my character, I was kind of expecting to just input my character name and jump right in, but surprisingly, there is a small amount of character customization available. Players have a choice between a few hairs and face types while having access to several different color options for eyes, hair and clothing. While it isn’t much, I was able to make a pretty fly looking guy that was to my liking. Not bad!

Kritika Character Cutomization

After that, I was then able to jump into the action, and after a short cutscene explaining that there’s a huge war going on in the Kritika world, I was dropped off into tutorial zone with several skills available right off the bat.

This game wastes absolutely NO time with getting your attention. Within the first 30 seconds of the tutorial, you’ll know exactly what Kritika is all about. You can perform attacks and skills that can launch enemies into the air, juggle airborne enemies and close gaps on enemies that you’ve already sent flying halfway across the screen. If you can do all this within the first few seconds of the game, just imagine what you can do later on…

(Well, you don’t have to imagine that since the game has already been out in other regions for a while and you can just watch a YouTube video or two on the game, but PLEASE don’t think about it and just keep reading…!)

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After completing the tutorial zones, you’ll be dropped off into a war torn town that serves as a player hub for gathering quests, buying/selling equipment, gaining enhancements for your equipment and meeting up with other players. If you’ve ever played similar titles like Dragon Nest or Vindictus, you’ll know how things work around here. Of course, since I was playing by myself for the time being, I was merely grabbing every quest I could find and heading off to the next dungeon (known as Danger Zones). Each danger zone has four difficulty options to choose from including easy, normal, hard and insane. The cool thing about these difficulty settings is you’re free to select any difficult you want, rather than having difficulties unlocked after beating the danger zone on a lower difficulty first. The game will warn you ahead of time when you’re stepping into a zone that may be too well beyond your equipment rating, but if you believe your skill will take you far, you’re free to step right on in.

And so I did, for the next few danger zones. I played on a harder difficulty and for the most part, things were a breeze. It wasn’t until I went face to face with this jetpack touting boss that truly wrecked my ass due to my overconfidence and cockiness that I started to respect the difficulty recommendations.

Still, after getting knocked down once, I got right back up and took him down.

After a few hours of playing solo, it was time to meet up with Colton and the executive producer Brain Knox US for some dungeon crawling action, now equipped with LV20+ characters. Sticking with my warrior class, this character was also spec’d with a subclass called the Berserker, which can sacrifice his HP to increase his attack speed, gain super armor and high damage buffs for his attacks in the process. That sounds all well and good, but it’s pretty obvious that a berserker isn’t as cool as the almighty Doom Blade subclass, which I and 90% of the warrior population will be playing as. But it will have to do for now.

Kritika- Review 4

Let’s be real: Who doesn’t want to be a Vergil wannabe from Devil May Cry?

While playing in a team of three, this danger zone was filled with various trash mobs and enemies that were pretty easy to take down. While not much of a challenge for the combined might of our team, it was fun to see so many attacks and abilities being thrown on the screen all at once. Once we got up through all the trash, the boss was a crazy punk looking demon called “DeathWalker” who uses a handful of electrified attacks against us. Sadly for this demon, it was no match for our juggle skills. Danger zone complete, and Colton managed to get MVP on this mission. Surprising considering it was his first time playing as a Gunmage.

After that, the executive producer talked more about what kind of changes they’ll be making to the US/EU release of Kritika as well as talking about the cash shop. To my surprise, En Masse and All-M actually have plans to INCREASE the game’s difficulty, rather than making it easier for casuals. Usually, things would work the other way around for the western market, but they’re really concerned about it and do not want to make the game feel like a cakewalk. While it sounds good, I do have my concerns on what they mean by “difficulty.” Does it means that they’ll make enemies smarter and more aggressive, or that they’ll just tweak their damage numbers and give enemies more HP. I’m certainly hoping it’s the former rather than the latter.

Then they discussed their plans for the cash shop… in which case they’re looking for as much feedback on the functionally and pricing of the shop in general. Whether the shop has too little things to buy or if the pricing of stuff is too low or high, they’re planning to adjust everything based on user feedback, truly living up to their motto of putting the players first.

Kritika Online - Warrior_Action_1

To end things off, we entered another dungeon, but this time on an insane difficulty. Here, enemies can take quite a beating and a single hit from enemies can drop your HP down by 25%, so there’s very little room for screw-ups. On the plus side, though: With enemies taking more damage, it gives players a lot more time to attempt their juggle combos and see which moves chain into each other.

Last boss in this room was a crazy looking wolf demon who could dash around the battlefield and shoot fireballs from its mouth. It took us a while to get the attack tells from the boss down. Luckily Colton was there to play as the guinea pig and show us all when to move in and when to back out. I, on the other hand, attempted to play it safe through the entire battle, dashing in and out of the monster’s range while getting a few cheeky hits in here and there…

Turns out that it paid off, as we took down the boss AND I got MVP. Nice.

So the preview event ended with me feeling energetic and excited to play more of this when it goes into closed beta soon. There’s so much speed and hype coming out of this game, and I can’t wait anymore to see Kritika go full steam once the betas are all said and done.

And if YOU are feeling the hype for Kritika right about now, check out Colton’s full on coverage of the game over at our official MMOHuts YouTube page and grab yourself a beta key (or two.)

Stay tuned for more info Kritika here our site.

 

 

Crossout Review: Mad Max Beyond the Danger Zone

By Jason Parker (Ragachak)

 

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I had a hard time quantifying exactly what Crossout is. It’s a free-to-play MMO, but it’s also a team-based shooter where you create the vehicle in which you offer destruction to your enemies. I did not expect to have as much fun as I did, and it’s due to a variety of reasons. So let’s talk a little bit about what the game is. In Crossout, you build a tank, or a jeep. Or whatever you have the parts for, and enter battle against another team who has done the same. The matches are blissfully short, and you have fairly standard objectives: Destroy the other team, capture the enemy team, two teams, one objective, go capture it. However, if you obliterate the other team, they can’t get that objective either. I have seen some absolutely remarkable builds though! In fact, there’s a button on the main screen, Exhibition, where you can show off your work to be praised by others. I mean, someone built a train, a Delorean, a school bus, even a damn refrigerator! With enough matches, time, and effort, you can literally build anything your heart desires. You can also save the blueprint of these designs, to change them, or to utilize them yourself, if you have the parts for it.

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That’s the key, having parts. So that leads to the big question that every free to play asks: “Is this going to be pay to win?” and I’m honestly not sure. The vehicle I’m using is from one of the packs, and it’s pretty damn strong. But I’ve been absolutely smashed by rocket builds, machine gun builds, shotgun builds…and I think I hate melee builds the most, especially ones that can tip you over. More on that in a bit. Let’s talk acquisition though, and consider the “pay to win” aspect. To get coins you can sell stuff on the marketplace, items you win in battle that you aren’t going to use, rewards from crates, et cetera. Or… you can buy them on the in-game store. It doesn’t say that I can yet, but I assume that will change in the “open beta”. Will being able to purchase better weapons through money put you on a higher playing field? Sure, that is if your rig can afford the energy drain of it. But with enough money, I’m sure that won’t be an issue. However, these don’t offer you more skill, or stop you from behind wedged upside down in between a series of rocks, that even a jack can’t get you out of. If your team can reach you, they can help you out, but odds are, they’ll get stuck too… I do think it’s pay to go faster. On the other hand, I do think it’s pay to win, but that’s because of the grind. The endless, relentless grind to acquire new weapons.

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The best part of this game is the actual in-game action. It all falls apart, if you will, when you consider how long you have to play to get ahead, short of having coins. So how do you get coins without spending money on vehicles to break down and sell the rare parts? You have to craft them. And crafting takes forever. You have to win, and win, and win. You have to join specific maps to get wire, or shotguns, or electronics, or whatever you need. For example, to create the Rare Shotgun “ST-M23 Defender,” you need 450 Scrap, 50 Copper [Mostly gained in raids], and certain parts: LM-54 Chord Machine Gun, two Small Wheels, and two Dockers. God help you if you want to build Legendary parts. The grind can take days, but most likely will take weeks to get this stuff normally. Unless you’re lucky enough to get whole armaments in some of the crates you can acquire, it’s rough. Which is unfortunate, because this game is immensely fun. I think the simplest fix is to lower some of the costs of building, or increase the amount of parts you gain from wins by a decent factor. Only the most hardcore are going to work that grind without going insane. Now thankfully, the matches are very fast. Typically no longer than two or three minutes. Missions can be won, lost, or drawn in about two minutes; raids are even shorter, if you fail them. I think this is the biggest drawback to Crossout. If you stand your ground without paying, you are up against a monumental mountain of a grind. Sure, you can buy one of their pre-built pieces of vehicular destruction. Or you can group with people and they can help you get the parts you need, while you do the same for them. Winning certain types of matches can grant you DIY kits which can give you rare parts, and some other stuff. Personally, my advice is to build what is comfortable for you, but to also find parts that give Reputation Bonuses. I have a few of them strapped to my tank. The more you do in battle, the more Reputation you gain, which gives you levels with factions. Receiving X level will unlock more Factions, which is more stuff to acquire. You can also gain Blueprints from these factions, which can be built from their parts. So there’s a bit of help there, but you have to level up to get those, which requires a lot of wins. The rep grind is pretty slow as well. These are minor things that can be fixed without ruining the game or changing it.

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But what is it doing right? The rest of the game! The actual gameplay is incredible. Once you have a decent vehicle, you have a few options. First you have Missions. These have no cost, tend to have incredibly fast matchmaking times and each queue offers a different reward. Shotgun, Wires, Electronics, Cabin, Cannons, etc. You can win a certain amount of these, and the limit resets after a fixed moment in time [about a week]. These are simple: Queue up, get in there, kill people. Like I said earlier, there are a few possible match types here, and the actual battles won’t last longer than five minutes. I love this. You also have Raids, which are PVE missions with generally low match times as well. But completing conditions adds time on, to help you get it done without taking a loss. These require Fuel, which refills every day, or you can buy it on the player-run market. Or.., you can attach a fuel barrel to your ride! Sure, if it gets hit, you can die from the explosion, but if you win with it on, you gain 25 units of fuel! High risk, high reward. Then you have Brawls, which reset after a certain amount of time, and the winner gets scrap and a DIY kit, that I discussed earlier. Despite the amount of matches you need for worthwhile items [that’s if you win, mind], it’s still crazy fun! You can play with all kinds of damn vehicles! Insanely fast, turbo-charged light-weight machine-gun wielding maniacs, or you can be like me! I prefer heavy, slow, thick armor, with a gigantic cannon on top. It’s got a crap rotation/aiming function because the actual gun doesn’t move, but damn if it’s not effective. I paired it with twin machine guns that actually can move, so I can pelt them with bullets while I get into position for the game changer.

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That’s another thing that I love about this game. As you fight, you can blow off pieces of your enemies’ vehicles. Knock the guns off, blow up their fuel tank, destroy their main source of damage. This doesn’t mean you’re out of it though. It’s only the end for you when you explode. Teamwork and strategy wins games in Crossout, so what do you do when you lose all of your guns? Body block for your team! Take a few bullets for them, or ram full-speed and tip someone over/push them off a cliff, into some rocks, anything! Just because you don’t have guns doesn’t mean you can’t get work done. That’s why you should also consider having a build that has a melee weapon on it, spinning blades, a ram, whatever! This is definitely a tactical game, whether it seems like it or not. Just because you are out of ammo, out of guns, or out of health, doesn’t mean you can’t be an effective part of a team. I won a match for my team with no guns, because I just hauled ass to their base, where no one waited for me. I just did donuts and watched out for the other side, claiming the point. It’s only over when time runs out, or you die. Building your vehicle, and doing battle are really the selling points of this game. I think that if they just adjust how you get parts, it will increase the general joy of playing this game.

 

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Welcome to the Wasteland
Conclusion: Great

I do love the concept of Crossout a lot. It’s a new look at squad-based combat/team shooters, because there are no classes, really. Each player can have something unique and special, whatever their heart desires… as long as they’re willing to put in the time and/or money. You don’t have to spend money, but it sure will help. But based on the actual gameplay mechanics, it’s phenomenal. If they just consider adjusting how you acquire stuff, I think it will be one of the best free to play games I’ve encountered in years, and that’s not hyperbole. The stages are gorgeous, the possible customization is literally endless, the more power you can get to that monstrosity, the more ludicrous things you can do with it. This is the best post-apocalyptic game I’ve had the pleasure to come across, and it’s very “Mad Max” in the best way. I appreciate that they’ll fill the PVP mode with bots if there aren’t other players queueing, and I love that it’s a strategy/tactical game. Playing this with friends could be one of the most fun experiences you have on the Internet.