Why Abobo? Well, because I think he's a great example of dumb decisions from devs that make people dislike the core gameplay loop. I like the game a lot. I like the characters. I like the combat system. But this fight made me question "what the fuck were they thinking" far too often. For instance: >Why make boss actively resist combos? You can literally launch the boss once - in the very beginning of the fight. After that, he'll start blocking and retaliating every launching attack. Limiting damage on a boss is an acceptable practice but doing that through actively limiting the player is dumb. >Why is combo-breaker attack also one of the strongest attack the boss has? It is dumb, but the headbutt Abobo does hits harder that almost everything else in his moveset. Simultaneously, it's an attack that has the highest probability of landing on a player as the only way around it is blocking after quick attacks. It seems to me that the message is "do not fight him in close quarters" but it's not like the player has any other option. In fact, you can easily take him down by doing a quick combo until Abobo blocks, blocking the headbutt, repeating. It's easy but it's also repetitive and boring.
>What the fuck is his reversal? You can knock Abobo down, alright. Now he wakes up, zooms to you across the map, and slams you from above. This attack is very quick - but that's to be expected because you know when he can use it. This attack has perfect prediction of your direction - this would be fine weren't the attack so quick. This attack can hit you when Abobo zooms to you and when he is slamming you. This attack has humongous hitbox on the slam and a big hitbox on the zoom. This attack is fully invulnerable. This attack is unblockable. This attack can only be dodged by either sidestepping or changing directions while moving and either of those would be fine weren't it for the combination of tracking and speed - those make the act of dodging the reversal uncomfortably precise. >Why make his animations invulnerable? Ground slam is alright - after all, it barely does any damage on its own (like 1/5 of what the headbutt does), it's a cinematic attack, it changes the fight phases, etc., etc. Why the fuck did they make his animations for picking up the stones and for throwing them invulnerable too? Why is his hurtbox so small when he's holding the stone? To make the player waste time aligning themselves to actually hit Abobo and eat invulnerable throw to the face instead? Like, what the fuck, use superarmor or some shit - it achieves virtually the same outcome but at least it doesn't feel as shit as having your attack "miss" because the faggot started his throwing animation.
[2/3]
Nolan Johnson
>combination of tracking and speed
Xavier Roberts
Everything in this fight screams "you are not supposed to fight him" - you get punished for comboing, for knocking him down, for being close at all (his grab is virtually undodgeable up close). And yet, there is no other way to fight him and the easiest way to beat him is to hit him with the quick combo and block the fucking headbutt thus never having to worry about the dumb reversal. Sure, he'll throw you a couple times in the final phase but that's basically nothing.
Like, what were they thinking? What was their approach to this fight? What was their vision? I genuinely do not understand. Everything starting from his patterns and ending with the damage numbers distribution makes zero sense to me.
I still like the game a lot and I'm having fun. But my approach to Abobo is not "to beat him" but to figure out how am I supposed to work around all of these absolutely retarded design decisions.
[3/3]
Aiden Johnson
>design decisions
Brayden Davis
Also, let's talk River City Girls because I fucked up the thread name.
Sebastian Jones
You could have just said the game was bad without the essay. Critical theory has ruined your mind.
It sounds like a game made by people that didn't want to make this type of game and only did it to fleece people.
Zachary Long
>its easy but it's also repetitive and boring Welcome to River City Girls™
Isaac Howard
literally git gud
Wyatt Allen
Please don't reproduce, zoomer trash.
Carson Roberts
I'm in my late 30s. The game is designed by people that didn't want to make this type of game. Look up the Director's twitter. He is ashamed of his work. And he gave everyone a cucked ending.
Great thread OP.
Thomas Cook
It's yet another example of the developers not studying the genre they're supposedly paying tribute to. If they looked at arcade beat em ups they would see that even in the 80's developers understood that when you design a boss that's meant to be fought 1v1 while keeping all the player's moveset properties, you're going to end up with a very exploitable fight. While if you try to counter this by forcing a specific playstyle the boss will become boring. So what did they do? They just went with the former and added extra enemies that spawn in, so most AI loops you can trap them in will get interrupted and won't become a major problem. It's reasonably fair and reasonably fun. So Wayforward ignored a perfectly fine solution and repeated the mistake that got solved 40 years ago. Most of the game is like this.
Liam Anderson
The issue here is that I like the game a lot. There is other bullshit but there is counterplay to that bullshit. Like, there are long-ass wakeup timers but you can juggle to prevent knockdown and you can actually combo off the "human weapon" throw. Enemies have dumb reversals but you can adapt to that and "divide and conquer" while moving around. These I can understand - you can work with it. I don't even necessarily want these to go despite many people complaining about them.
And sure, there are still issues with some attacks obviously needing bigger hitboxes and/or invulnerability frames, some inputs being weirdly precise, exiting locations mid-combo because having the same button do that was a great idea, the act of picking up a weapon cancelling wakeup invulnerability frames, enemies having a very high priority on some of their attacks, etc. But all of those feel like just small mistakes and a lack of polish at worst. With Abobo, I have no fucking idea what were they thinking and what were they going for.
I'd argue that it's mosly fun actually.
Aaron Ortiz
>Enemies have dumb reversals but you can adapt to that and "divide and conquer" while moving around. You can just walk up behind them and combo them on wake up. Makes me wonder why they even bother putting them there in the first place when it's that easy to bypass, and when the most effective juggle is a basic punch launch loop. Oh right, because they didnt know what they were doing.
Kayden Rogers
Your word vomit leads me to believe this is the first time you've bought a game by people that didn't want to or know how to make a game of a specific genre, yet still advertised it like they did and it would be good.
For some reason you thought WayForward would make a genuine brawler in the spirit of the ones from the 80s-90s. Why? What in their catalog led you to believe they knew how to do anything aside from sell 2d waifus to idiots?
Levi Morgan
>Why? What in their catalog led you to believe >What in their catalog >catalog What the fuck.
Ayden Morgan
a company's output in aggregate is often referred to as their catalog. Welcome to being a grown up. The spelling also means welcome to realizing US values rule your world.
Dominic Ward
I'm saying it's a retarded approach, user.
Isaiah Butler
You beat him by buying 3 first aid kits from the drug store. I think if you use fast punches like xxxxb he can't block it. I got 3 of these off in a row at the start of a fight on normal.
Christopher Rogers
I mean, I beat him up already without items or anything. He's pretty easy because there's little to no random in fighting him. He's just a badly designed mess.
Aaron Morris
I beat Abobo by spamming heavy attacks because yeah headbutt. Am I the only one that hates the guitar hero attacks? Not only is it kinda dumb, it also really calls attention to how imprecise moving is. I take more damage from those sections alone then almost anything else in the game now.
Landon Collins
>normal gameplay teaches you to favor one style of combat >bosses require to completely ignore those techniques rather than perfecting their execution I've been dealing with this kind of design mentality on a completely different style of game, but it's an annoying as fuck gameplay direction to deal with.
Daniel White
>What in their catalog led you to believe they knew how to do anything aside from sell 2d waifus to idiots? uh...
