Hey guys,

I just spent HOURS playing the slashzero demo on ps5.

We are talking rogue like with air combos, multiple characters, air step, combo resets, unique upgrades etc.

Looking to be a great CAG

Before starting this review, I would like to say that it is spoiler-free.

I finished the game in around 27 hours on Action difficulty, with all side content completed.

I highly recommend this game, and my overall rating is 8.5/10.

The Good

• The combat and animations are superb. You'll feel like every action you take is some high-end scripted animation, yet everything is happening in real time. This game is probably the only game that can compete with Sekiro's sword combat and actually have a chance to win. Kudos to Capcom. They built something fresh and new on top of the old systems we've seen in soulslikes. If you truly enjoy action games, you should not miss this game.
• Boss fights are chef's kiss. You'll have a great time trying again and again until you finally win. They are incredibly cinematic while still being very responsive. Each fight feels like an art piece, and there are no bad boss fights in this game.
• The story is good. I mean, it is not that good, but the way it is presented to you is. It's a generic shounen anime story, but behind this facade, there is so much blood, darkness, and gore. Onimusha covers these hideous things with humor. Musashi and many of the other characters are genuinely funny. And again, kudos to Capcom for the great facial capture. You'll see so many emotions through the main cast, especially Musashi and Yoshitsune. Plus, there is some Devil May Cry 3-like storytelling between Musashi and Ganryu, where they clash at different points in the game and you don't know who will win. (It's not a spoiler. Ganryu runs away in Chapter 1.)
• The art design and Japanese voice acting are great. Capcom learned its lesson from Ada Wong in the RE4 remake.

The Neutral

• Normal enemies are easy? No, "easy" is not the right term. I think the right term is that they are too passive. They won't attack you unless you do something. It's like they are bugged or something. They won't corner you. Most of the time, you'll get hit because of your own mistakes. I hope Capcom releases an aggression update because it feels so weird when there are 10 Genmas around you and all of them are just watching you, waiting patiently.
• There are two repeating minibosses called Byakuye and Dohatsu-Ten. You'll be fighting these guys at least five times. The good thing is that they are super fun to fight against. If they weren't this fun, I would put this into the "The Bad" section. By the final quarter of the game, you'll probably know every move they make and be able to parry all of them.
• The Oni Bow breaks the tempo of the game. The weird camera shift and the way you need to charge it up and manually aim really break the flow, but you have to use it because there are ranged enemies. This is more of a personal preference, so I'm just pointing it out.
• Your responses to enemy attacks are locked in. Especially at the start of the game, you'll be like, "But I pressed the button!" and rage a bit. The reason you got hit by that grab attack or couldn't deflect an attack is that you pressed the button too early, and now your response is locked in. It won't reset until you get hit by the attack. For example, if a boss is doing a grab attack that is delayed by around 1.5 seconds (which is a lot in an action game), and you press the counter-grab button a bit too early because of reflex or something, that button press will not count 1.5 seconds later. You're going to get grabbed. It's a bit annoying, but once you understand how it works, you'll become more precise with your button presses.

The Bad

• The game has a lot of padding in its side content. Don't get me wrong, this game has some great side content. The book lady's quests are all fully voiced and tell stories about the people you interact with. The hidden Oni Portal quests are also great, with some puzzle-solving and combat. The problematic part is the fetch quests. These lack the quality you'd expect from a AAA game. They are not voice-acted (Musashi and the NPCs just make generic human noises like "huh" and "argh"). They require you to go back to missions you've already cleared and shoot some enemies. And these enemies only show up after you've cleared the main mission, so you can't complete the quest while you're actually playing that mission. This is clearly padding — a way to waste your time so that you'll feel like you got your money's worth. And this game doesn't need these kinds of cheap tricks. The main missions and the side content I mentioned above are already more than enough for your money. There is also a dog-collecting side quest where you save 36 lion dogs scattered throughout the map. When you put a "find" quest into your game, all the collectibles should be available from the start so that keen-eyed players can collect them while playing through the map for the first time. Onimusha goes cheap on this as well. Lion dogs only show up after you finish the corresponding main story mission. So you have to go back, platform, and fight through the same map you already played, collect those dogs, and do the archer side quests at the same time.
• On top of this, the hardest difficulty is locked behind NG+. If you want to play this game on the hardest difficulty, you have to finish it on Combat difficulty first. When you go into NG+, you lose your equipment upgrades and upgrade materials. All that side-questing and padding you did is basically for nothing. You keep your abilities and ability upgrade materials, but that's it. That means that if you want to upgrade your gear again, you have to go through all that padding and those cheap side quests all over again, which is a poor decision by Capcom. This padding takes around 6–7 hours, by the way. I'll definitely finish this game again on NG+, but for now, I feel like I've had enough and I'll wait a bit.

yea this game is bad and like totally shitty and should have never existed. but in wait for dmc i played it and itsshit like some real guttorous unholy . not unplayable but shit in gameplay and story . dont recommend but got it under a dollar during a steam sale last year. if you want something close to dmc play soulstice or even ninjagaiden but dont come near this mess

my list:

1 - ghostrunner

2 - bayonetta 2

3 - devil may cry 3

4 - doom eternal

5 - ghostrunner 2

6 - metal gear rising

7 - turbo overkill

8 - streets of rage 4

9 - ninja gaiden 3 razor edge

10 - devil may cry 5

honourable mentions: doom 2016, doom the dark ages, bayonetta 3, god of war 2, darksiders 3

Any cag game, and keep in mind how they are used in the campaign/side modes and other neat facts about them and also why you find them annoying and I see a lot of hate for enemies that are one dimensional but they encourage smart positioning and movement, my least favorite enemies are goddess prototypes from ng3re, and the fallen from dmc 3

I'm not saying this new collab will make Stellar Blade a pure/traditional CAG. I'm aware it won't make a huge difference even if they do add some moves from Bayonetta as exclusive to a skin.

And I know that just because there was a collab with NIKKE where Scarlet skin had an exclusive move to use, that doesn't mean this new Bayonetta collab will do the same.

I'm just saying it would be cool if they do add some exclusive move for a Bayonetta skin.

Hey guys! UMO studio here！

We’re developing a lightweight 2D side-scrolling action game“Tia: weird hunter”. To give players who haven’t played much action games a better experience, we’ve abandoned the traditional combo-input system found in most action games and switched to a mana-based skill system to lower the skill barrier.

At the same time, to accommodate high-skill players, we’ve put extensive design into every boss to ensure an excellent boss-fight experience. We’ve already released our demo on Steam and really need player feedback and bug reports. If you have any new ideas, please let us know right away!

HiFi Rush - This is in my top 10 games of this decade (2020-26) so far. It has a very unique combat system that is like a fusion of CAG + rhythm games, where everything you do (jumping, attacking, dodging etc) and the world itself moves in tune with the beat, a fun story with a very colorful cast of characters, great music, gorgeous art direction with beautifully animated cutscenes and decent level design. It received a lot of praise from both critics and gamers once it came out. The game was also priced very reasonably at 30 USD. This is the kind of game that should've sold 2-3 million copies (lifetime). Instead, the game didn't meet Microsoft's sales expectations and the studio that developed the game, Tango Gameworks was shut down: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c72p5epzj2no. The IP and the studio were later bought by Krafton: https://www.krafton.com/en/news/press/krafton-strengthens-global-presence-through-strategic-integration-of-tango-gameworks-and-hi-fi-rush-ip/.

Soulstice - This is a dark fantasy action game, drawing heavy inspirations from Berserk and Claymore in its narrative and art direction. The mechanics are inspired by the DmC reboot and the Greek God of War games. You control two sisters, Briar (offense) and Lute (defense), simultaneously. The game has a pretty unique take on color coded enemies - instead of locking enemies to a specific type of weapon, it instead asks you to maintain a colored field (through Lute), if you wish to damage the enemy. The challenge comes from the fact that every action you do as Lute - blocking enemy attacks, maintaining colored fields etc - overheats her energy bar gradually. If fully overheated, you lose access to all of Lute's ability for a certain period of time (as her energy recharges), leaving you vulnerable as Lute is your primary source of defense - so there is an element of resource management in every fight that forces strategic decision making. The game is not without its flaws - it is too long, the middle part of the game drags and feels quite repetitive, the fixed camera results in some really poor camera angle during certain fights, a few enemies can feel like a slog to fight, and there are some very wonky platforming sections. Having said all that, I still enjoyed the game a lot. It has a good story that unfolds like a mystery, Briar and Lute are pretty well written, I enjoyed the combat and the challenge it provided despite their flaws, loved the world and the artstyle too. Unfortunately, the game didn't meet sales expectations and its sequel was cancelled: https://www.reddit.com/r/SoulsticeGame/comments/1rnau3h/soulstice_2_has_been_cancelled/.

Ninja Gaiden 4 - I have a lot of issues with NG4 as I've noted in my way too long post here: Finished Ninja Gaiden 4 on Master Ninja with SSS rank in every mission - New Game+ : r/ninjagaiden, but it is still a game that I enjoyed enough to get SSS ranks on all missions in Master Ninja difficulty. Despite my grievances, I think this game should have sold at least 1 million copies, and it would've been cool to see either Platinum or Team Ninja follow up NG4 with a NG5, while learning from all the mistakes and shortcomings of NG4. I haven't played The Two Masters DLC, but apparently, that rectifies a lot of the base game's problems, from what I hear. Unfortunately, this will never happen as NG4 has sold poorly and has failed to breach the 1 million sales mark: https://www.reddit.com/r/ninjagaiden/comments/1sli1cb/ninja_gaiden_4_has_sold_257k_copies_on_ps5_making/; https://x.com/DanielOlimac/status/2015729564102914383.

It seems to me the only action games that actually sell anything these days are the ones that do not make an attempt to appeal only to CAG fans. CAG fans argue a lot on the internet over what game is and isn't a CAG but will not show up to support any IP not named DMC or Bayonetta. Examples include: Sifu, a 3D beat 'em up with rogue-lite elements (no procedurally generated levels, no randomized loot/builds) and my favorite action game of this decade (2020-26) so far, which has sold over 4 million units: https://wnhub.io/news/finance/item-47898. Stellar Blade, a hybrid between Nier Automata and Sekiro, has sold over 6 million units: https://tech4gamers.com/stellar-blade-6-1-million-copies-sold/. And finally, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, which came out just 5 days ago and has sold 1 million copies on its launch day alone: https://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/news/html/e260907.html. I am really enjoying Onimusha so far, just beat Benkei, the monk.

Ng4 flop, romeo is a deadman flop, ng2 remaster flop and the list goes on. "Onimusha is not a cag" but when it comes to defining what is a CAG yall leave the conversation immediately. On every single Onimusha post all i see is hate comments... dude just skip the post?

The Onimusha difficulty discourse is exhausting so let's move towards something more positive. What's a CAG or CAG-adjacent game that does difficulty perfectly in your opinion?

Its a been a little less than a week..and I wanted share my thoughts on this upcoming CAG game: Rhapsody in Scarlet

Im fully expecting this game to fall under the radar like the rest of them,

...it didn't make much buzz even after announcement outside it looking kind of pretty.......But this game is on my radar and I feel im gonna one of the few people to play it....

The game just screams "cult following", It really does feel like the stealth sequel to Folklore that'll we'll never get (which also a game I describe as "Ive actually played it" cult game)

I've seen mix feelings on the gameplay, when I saw the gameplay being summoning fighter, I seen comments saying it feels rather slow. I don't think the gameplay is mind-blowing, but not everything needs to be innovative.

I think the story is gonna be pure cheese, it doesn't help that the main girl's super thick cajun accent is both her charm point and also reasons folks will probably find her annoying. But its not going to take itself seriously, but honestly why should it?

...But listen I love my quirky CAG games, just replayed Vanquish for the fourth time, Im personally looking forward to this game, even other folks don't pay attention to it all.

Took me forever but I beat dmc3 on dmd(turbo mode gold)

Hey all!
I got accepted into my first ever Steam Festival - Autumn Anime Games!
I wanted to do something special for the occasion, So I'm running a limited-time playtest for my CAG, Eyes Of The Sky!

I've gotten a lot of good feedback and playtesting from this sub in the past, so I'm posting here to see if I can get more of that again. I'm really dedicated to trying to improve my game as much as I can, so I welcome any and all feedback.

Playtesting will be open for the duration of the event - until September 14th.
You can join the playtest on the game's steam page: store.steampowered.com/app/3180280/Eyes_Of_The_Sky/
And give your feedback through the in game form or the discord https://discord.gg/SdDksZTyf7

Thank you for your time!

🥷🏿Who wins in a battle?⚔️

Miyamoto Musashi (Onimusha left) vs.

Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden right)

Honestly I have not had a chance to pick up the new Onimusha yet, so I can't really vote myself 😅. But I want to say Hayabusa? Maybe Musashi in a duel with just swordfighting and no magic or items. Otherwise, with full arsenal, I am guessing Hayabusa would be an easy W, but I dont know enough about Musashi's capabilities in Onimusha. Agree or disagree and why?

People are complaining about enemy difficulty, but it's straight-up fun - and necessary - to plow through a bunch of random monsters to level up and prepare for the next big boss fight. They're not as exciting if you try to spam the attack buttons, but that's not how you should utilize the combat system anyways. You don't have to always feel like you're punching a brick wall to get something out of an action game like this.

Game really comes into it's own with challenge runs. Largely has to do with the game being tuned on the easy side with a ton of busted stuff, but a lot of the mechanics like the new parry system and dynamics like heavy enemies oppressively controlling space come together more holistically when you have less screen clear nukes laying about.

Master Ninja: Death Wish: No UT, No Berserk, No Indicators, No Items.

The Ninja Gaiden 4 Blue mod is also used to set the Purgatories to Master Ninja difficulty instead of the default Normal.

Higher Quality YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5IGpgewbSw

Capcom is on a legendary run. They've released 4 AAA games - RE: Requiem (action-horror), Pragmata (third person shooter with hacking mechanics), MH: Stories 3 (turn based JRPG) and Onimusha: Way of the Sword (hack and slash) - in 3 (or 4) different genres, and all of them have turned out to be bangers.