playing as V it felt like the winning strategy was just buttonmashing
How are we still making these criticisms in 2025 😔 This is why discussing action games in mainstream spheres sucks balls because half of the criticisms are as lazy as this. Y'all should do better.
Agreed, but extend that to cover action games in general. One playthrough is not enough to understand why everyone else is praising them.
OK, so I'm gonna say this about action games: if you approach them like you do every other game—one playthrough and you move on—most are gonna disappoint you. DMC5 in particular is possibly the worst culprit; however, if you're willing to commit to exploring their depth and play on the highest difficulties, holy shit some of the best gaming you'll ever experience.
This is why I cannot take casual reviews of action games seriously because any action game fan knows the first playthrough is the tutorial, while for most people it's the whole game.
I can't really fault people for wanting to move on after one playthrough, but when they say stuff like "I played DMC… and it's not that good" I just wanna say: yeah, no shit, because you didn't stick around to explore why everyone else is praising it—you played the tutorial and moved on.
We could argue whether this is bad game design, but the truth is not only does it work, I don't believe there's any way for a game like DMC or Bayonetta to feed all of its combat depth to players in one playthrough. Hell, it's not enough for the muscle memory to kick in to get even close to mastering everything, so I cannot really blame devs that much.
Don't custom ROMs also push Google's software updates anyway?
Well, damn. Go Kirkman!
Hmm… for me, it's less about memory and more about helping myself see a pattern of what I like and what I don't, which eventually helps me make better purchasing decisions.
Like, when I look at a list of my favorite games, I can conclusively tell you: I like challenging, replayable games with real-time action, synergy among their mechanics, and mechanical variety.
For me, this knowledge would not have been attainable if I didn't sit down and put together a list of what I like/what I don't like.
I use Gamebrary because it's FOSS, so I suppose you could in theory clone the repo and self-host it, but IDK how self-hosting ready it is.
This game is just Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Mega Mix+ with extra steps 😂 I cannot take it seriously. The combat is so silly.
You can do 1/10th of what you can do in any action game. I can only assume people who call it the best action game of all time either haven't played many action games or just picked it because it's their favorite.
Ima give Sekiro another try. So I admit the first time I maybe didn't give it enough time (stopped at the snake bit) but that's because the rhythm-based, parry-focused gameplay felt boring and too one dimensional.
Ima play a bit longer this time and see if unlocking new techniques makes any difference. I'm not optimistic, but I wanna explore something new for a change, and Sekiro can't be the worst option.
Fuck From Software's offense though… it's boring as shit. I hope Sekiro eventually ends up feeling different.
Just hand this IP to the Hi-Fi Rush devs already…
Looks like you'll to need to wait and see what the GrapheneOS team will recommend until they come out with their own phone. Maybe Pinephone for now? Or older Pixel, perhaps.