So beat Shadow Lords on Challenging; thought it was quite good. Reminds me a lot of X-Com, except with, well, fighting instead of turn based strategy combat. With that said, there’s one big eh factor that I feel kind of dampers the experience for me, namely the replayability, or lack thereof. Shadow Lords is, very clearly, meant to be replayed. A lot. I wound up finding one side quest on two playthroughs, and given the multiple difficulties, the fact that items carry over to subsequent playthroughs, and the likes, it’s pretty self evidence that this is a thing you’re supposed to do over and over again.
The one problem is…consistently fighting CPUs gets pretty tiresome.
After finishing my game, there’s a part of me that really wants to go back and look for stuff; the story dossiers, the Eyedol sidequest, the best guardians, etc. But fighting CPUs gets really tedious after a while. Admittedly I haven’t played on Godlike, so maybe the CPUs become far more interesting to fight, but on Challenging they just all basically follow the same tactics; walk slowly towards you and then either proceed to try and attack or get kicked in the face. Sometimes they won’t even do that; I had a Mimic Thunder that was content to just stand on the opposite side of the stage and repeatedly taunt me while I just tossed projectiles at him to see if he’d start approaching. There’s never a sense that the CPU is really evolving or getting better as the game progresses; they just get more and more buffs.
Perhaps this is a critique that’s difficult to really change without massively revamping the CPU, but I’d argue the biggest way to improve the game’s replayability would be to add some variety to things. Maybe have enemies alternate AI levels throughout the game, or have some enemies be more aggressive than others (not well versed in coding, so some/all of what I’m saying may just be flat out impossible or require too much work). Maybe as a really crazy idea, have an option where other players could control an enemy character during a fight through online play. Or, as someone mentioned earlier, perhaps have the shadows from Shadow Labs serve as the AI. As it stands, fighting the AI repeatedly over and over again gets kinda tiresome, and fighting the AI a lot more kind of kills my incentive to play through a second time.
Nah, the AI does seem to get harder as you go. On day 13 of Normal, Riptors were doing flip out resets on me.
For me it gets harder. Days 1-4 are simple, then day 5 hits, and it is like a whole other AI playing. After Omens show up, then it gets even worse.
Once the mode is finished and all the unlockables are put in there will be plenty of replay value.
Well IG coudl just crank up the AI the so that it plays “perfectly”. But I don’t think any player wants that. Why? Use your imagination.
Well IG coudl just crank up the AI the so that it plays “perfectly”. But I don’t think any player wants that. Why? Use your imagination.
I wouldn’t suggest making it play perfectly; more altering the style of how it plays. In the same way that you can have, say, a very aggressive Fulgore player, and a Fulgore player that prefers to stick to zoning, you can have AIs approach playing a character in different ways as well.
For me it gets harder. Days 1-4 are simple, then day 5 hits, and it is like a whole other AI playing. After Omens show up, then it gets even worse.
Nah, the AI does seem to get harder as you go. On day 13 of Normal, Riptors were doing flip out resets on me.
What difficulties were you guys playing on? Gargos showed up on my Day 15, and enemies still weren’t doing much. I don’t remember the exact day that the Mimic Thunder stood there and taunted, but it was after all the Omens had been defeated. Even the last Omen I fought just kinda stood there most of the time; he’d occasionally run up and throw out a move, but for the most part he’d just let himself get hit.
I never had a single character die. As a reference point for just how unchallenging things got, I stuck Aganos as the third member of my team (because I only really know how to play two characters and I chose someone randomly to come along). On Day 14, I sent him on a mission to South Africa at 85% health or so, and then because I made a stupid RNG choice, I wound up having to fight three mimics instead of one. I absolutely breezed through the fights by just spamming Natural Disaster and heavy ADs. I think I still had my first life bar when it was all over. And, to reiterate, I have absolutely no clue how to play Aganos. This isn’t me being good, this is just the AI getting standing there and getting hit.
Wow you got off easy.
The AI’s I fight on challenging and godlike do combos, shadow counter, and counter break. And even get frame perfect punishes. Of course there are the times they sit around and do nothing. It’s like a 50/50.