Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance review

There are some parts of the game that are insanely frustratingly difficult, I'd add that. But the parrying system is only "unreliable" for around 30 minutes.

Are you playing it on hard? I'd hope so. And well, are you seriously complaining about difficulty, you of all people? :P

There's a difference between difficulty and luck-based trial and bullshit. Many of the boss fight sections fall to the latter. Also this is probably Platinum's worse offender of nearly breaking my controller by needing to QTE button mash so goddamn hard.

Oh boy, I guess we'll see. Never really had issue with QTEs in the past, hopefully this won't be the first one.

If it's like the demo, the parrying system was not really bad at all once you got the hang of it. I found it quite satisfying when pulled off correctly as well.

NEAT

Watching the video review.... RAYDEN? RYEDEN! IT'S PRONOUNCED RYEDEN!

So how long would a single playthrough take? I understand it has enough replay value but if I see the credits rolling after 5 or 6 hours I usually feel robbed. A little head's up would be nice.

It takes about 6-8 hours to finish

I'd say that an essential part of the game (the parrying system) being completely unreliable is a serious flaw, and the fact that it's visuals (aside from the pre-rendered cutscenes) are utterly outdated, means that this game in no way deserves anything above a 7. Just because it's Platinum doesn't mean it's good. Look at the shitty job they did with porting Bayonetta to the PS3. I'll be avoiding this on the basis of the mainstream gaming press, yet again, ignoring serious issues in favour of giving the game an undeserved high score.

The parrying system's problems were adequately addressed - it's unreliable, but not game breaking. As for the visuals, Revengeance looks great even out of cutscenes.

...And you say this without playing the game yourself, so how the fuck do you know if it's deserved or not? Your entire comment screams that you haven't even touched the demo, yet you're making assertions left and right as if you had already beaten the game.. Obviously, you're just hellbent on not liking the game, but it frankly sounds like it stems more out of irrational prejudices rather than actual experience or facts, don't blame the press for your own idiocy.

YEAH. TELL 'EM MEANWHILE GUY! BIAS PRESS.

Ok, I have played the demo, and if it hasn't changed from that then I'd say it's not worth buying. And you absolutely can't say i didn't play the demo; I wrote a VERY lengthy analysis of it, which I would link to, but I don't want to risk the wrath of the moderator gods. Besides, I did find the parry system to be really aggravating, and incredibly cumbersome to use. Plus if you take a look at the textures at even a remotely close distance, they look incredibly flat, and certainly not up to 2013 standards. Compare the game to something like Uncharted or Halo 4, you'll see what I mean. All I meant by the press thing was what I always say: form your own opinions instead of taking reviews as dogma. I found that some areas of the game had serious problems, which I was hoping would be addressed by the professionals instead of having to write it on my blog. You can't say that the lighting for the game isn't flat, and that the urban environments (at least the bland corridor presented in the demo) weren't almost empty aside from the scripted enemy encounters. The entire thing just felt like a funnel, which MGS simply isn't known for. I'm simply trying to present a reasonable response as to why I felt the game fails on a couple of fundamental levels (seriously, would a dodge roll or dedicated block button have been that bad?), I'm not attacking the game or the review (this is my favourite gaming site, as the reviews are usually absolutely spot on), so I wouldn't expect to be attacked in return. It's simply my opinion, and to me the game needed a bit more dev time, just to get it closer to what we saw at E3 2011, because that looked like a great game.

Yes, a great game of which you saw only a couple of seconds of, no one ever actually got hands on on it, and was SO Fundamentally flawless, that Foxhound team didn't totally scrap it because they couldn't figure out how to make an actual, functional game out of it *rolls eyes* And I'm glad you played the demo, and yes, forming your own opinions is the best way to go about it, and it's exactly what I've done as well. Yes, the game isn't the prettiest nor the most detailed graphically, but it's not meant to be an exploration game, it's meant to be an ACTION game, which means the focus is in the actual combat, making sure the flow is fast and accurate, and that the enemies gets sliced satisfactorily when cut by a blade. You're not meant to stop and watch if the light pole nearby has detailed rust textures or not. And so, the parrying system. The game is trying something different, but instead of adapt and try to actually get the system, you instead bitch and moan that they didn't fall back on the usual tropes they used in the past. Obviously, they could have added a dodge button if they wanted to, but decided not to because they wanted the player to actually try and master their new system. I CAN understand if you don't like it, that's fine. But again, as someone who HAS played the demo numerous times, and has formed his own opinion, I actually heavily disagree with the review here, for me, the parrying system not only does work just fine, it's can be actually very forgiving once you get the hang of it. And I like the feeling of it. Bottom line, yes it's fine to form your own opinions, but when doing so, then be careful with how you say it because then, you risk sounding like a pompous ass. " I'll be avoiding this on the basis of the mainstream gaming press, yet again, ignoring serious issues in favour of giving the game an undeserved high score." This quote, by the way, definitely sounds like you're attacking the review, and making it sound like it's not trustworthy, it also makes it sound like you know what games actually deserve more than everyone else. Is what I'm getting at.

Platinum didn't port Bayonetta to the PS3.

Well obviously I'm not a professional journalist, but I like to think I know what a decent game looks like (though personal judgement is obviously subjective. Example: I can't stand Gears of War, but like The Force Unleashed II). And I'm in no way calling MGR a bad game, it's good, I was impressed with various elements of the demo (the cutscenes and the overall Metal Gear feel, as well as the perfectly smooth 60fps, which shows just how well Platinum have taken to the PS3 tech), but to me it's just not as great as other reviews are making it out to be. In my mind it's more of a 7, which is still a very good score, as people seem to have sadly forgotten, so I'll probably pick it up a few months down the line, as I don't really want to pay £40 full-price for a game with a 4-6 hour campaign (according to other sites), excluding VR missions. I get that it's purely an action game, and Platinum are up there with the best, and the combat does flow seamlessly when you manage to get multiple attacks in at once (carving up Gekko was incredibly satisfying after spending so long hiding from them in MGS4), I just couldn't adjust to the parry system within the brief time the demo allotted. Maybe it'll be different when I play the full game, who knows? I'm certainly hoping it'll suddenly click and I'll be able to enjoy the rest of the game. But I can't help shake the memory of the empty urban environments, and the basic running and jumping almost felt like they belonged on PS2. Maybe the demo was just a poor representation of the finished product, I don't know, but it just didn't feel like a great game to be. A good one, yes, but deserving of 8's, 9's and even a couple of 10's? No, not to me. And yeah, that does sound fairly aggressive, but that did come after reading about 15 very high-scoring reviews and feeling frustrated when my favourite site does the same, even with mentioning the parrying system and visuals. But I can't help but think that the parrying system could have been implemented a little better, I love the idea of it, as it forces players to adapt to a steep learning curve and play more tactically, instead of button mashing, but I would've loved a dedicated button for it, and have the combat be a quasi-hybrid of traditional hack n' slash and the more timing-based Arkham City approach. Now that would've been amazing. Yes, I know that the E3 2011 demo was essentially a tech demonstration, but I still would have liked to play that game. The physics and animations looked better, and Raiden's basic movement looked like it flowed more than Platinum's animations. I understand the reasons for Koj handing it over though, as if he'd continued with the game it most likely would have fallen short of expectations, and I'd rather see a good Metal Gear game from a different dev, rather than an occasionally brilliant one marred by technical issues and (I'm guessing) a very patch-work feel to it. So in essence what I'm saying is that I'd like to see some more grounded scores (both the official Xbox and PS magazines have given the game a 7, which I entirely agree with) that take into account a combat system which will not be to everyone's liking, and in a game based purely on making you feel like an unstoppable cyborg ninja, that does feel like a major problem.

...Wait, so you get that personal judgment is purely subjective, yet you got frustrated because you didn't agree with the majority of the gaming press, and you'd rather have THEM adhere to your own personal feelings of the game? How is that in any way reasonable and mature? You just acknowledged that the game did some things very well, and that it's a good game overall, but for you, it's only a 7, that's fair, that's your opinion and expressed like that, it's totally valid. But then, how does that make other people thinking better of the game any less acceptable? Obviously, a lot of others (including myself) thought that the positives far outweighed the negatives, and as such, it warranted the game to have a high score. It's difference in opinions, so again, how is that a bad thing? And actually, for me, from what I've played and from what I've seen, this game deserves higher than an 8 even, yet you didn't see me raging and calling this site or others bias because they didn't agree with me, now did you? I just don't get the mentality of "Because I think this way, EVERYONE ELSE should think like me!", seems like a very narrow, selfish way to think, at least to me.

Basically, had your original post been something along the lines of "Eh, y'know, I don't entirely agree with this review, this and this issue really bother me a lot, feels like a 7 to me." And left it at that, no one, including myself, would given you any crap about it. But the moment you start calling everyone else biased because they didn't AGREE with you, that's when you just step a line.

I in no way think others should think like me (if we all thought the same, debates would be SO boring), I tend to be highly opinionated, which does tend to disagree with people, hence the debacle here. And I don't want to accuse people of being biased, even though pure objectivity is impossible. Though my choice of words did kinda suck, as it was a fairly knee-jerk reaction I was having at the time. I disagree with publishers paying for reviews and positively spun press, as most sensible folk do, and I wouldn't even dream that GR would do that, because the staff obviously love games, and I usually agree with most things they post.. Let's just leave it at what you managed to sum up so nicely: "Eh, y'know, I don't entirely agree with this review, this and this issue really bother me a lot, feels like a 7 to me." Because that does accurately reflect my feelings. Apologies for causing any issues, and can we agree on Platinum being a great developer, who obviously meant well with the game.