Tides of Annihilation

[radiofloyd]

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/new-action-game-tides-of-annihilation-fuses-modern-day-london-with-arthurian-legend

[one-armed dwarf]

I thought this was the best looking thing on it but could go either way depending on how free flowing it lets you get with the combat, or if it's more like Souls with flashy attacks.

 

There's bits that look like DMC so I dunno. Like I love DMC obviously but it's frustrating how such an influential game doesn't really have imitators of its specific style of action, just watered down derivatives.

 

I also sort of like that the framerate is dogshit in the trailer cause that tells you they're showing real gameplay

[mfnick]

The way they’re climbing around the moving enemies along with flashy combat is very God of War 3 so I’m very interested in this. 

[Maf]

The one thing it has over DMC is the art style. The thing I don’t really like about that series is how gothic and creepy it is, that type of art and design doesn’t do anything for me. This at least looks a lot cooler from that perspective 

[one-armed dwarf]

There's an eleven minute showcase later today apparently

 

There is this gif

 

Looks like combat is very 'Stand' based. One thing I really enjoy is games letting you do actions 'asychronously'. It can be complicated but if you can layer and weave multiple types of offense and combine their effects in interesting ways the skill progression can be really satisfying. It's why I liked Bayonetta 3 so much, cause you can control both her and the demons at the same time (not just one or the other, like a lot of people think)

 

See also the way spirit swords work in DMC with Vergil and Dante's Devil Sword, where you can call them up during combos. Maybe this isn't as complex as this tho and works differently

[Maryokutai]

13 minutes ago, Maf said:

The one thing it has over DMC is the art style.

 

For one I don't necessarily agree but I also think it has no real visual identity. There's some Elden Ring and some Bayonetta in its presentation and it has that almost standardised Asian (not Japanese) look we've already seen with Lies of P, Stellar Blade and Lost Soul Aside (very unfortunate they both were in the same showcase). Or maybe I just find this specific style and character design as unappealing as you do DMC.

 

Not particularly looking forward to it but if people like it come release I might give it a chance. Thankfully this one doesn't skip Xbox for a change.

[one-armed dwarf]

I want to say that the original DMC was a beneficiary of when capcom sent a load of RE4 designers around Europe to find inspiration for its environment design, back when the game was itself RE4, but I've no idea. It seems like it would tho, and I still think it's the best looking out of all of them, the reboot included. 

 

This does look very generic but as long as there's decent visual variety in its locales I won't really care, that's the thing which can make these games drag a bit.

[Nag]

This was the game I'm most interested in from the SoP... and thanks to @Maryokutai I now know it's due on an Xbox, I honestly thought this would be a PlayStation exclusive.

[mfnick]

DMC 1, 3, 4 and DmC all have decent environments IMO. But 5 was really bad for bland samey looking environments to the point it really hurt my enjoyment of that game. It was so boring to look at even with all the fancy slashing on screen. 
 

This immediately looks more interesting IMO. 

[HandsomeDead]

Yeah, I think this was probably the thing that piqued my interest the most but it is presenting a visual style that is becoming quite common.  I hope it has some extra sauce though, at least the gameplay looks pretty nice if a little safe.

[radiofloyd]

 

https://www.gematsu.com/2025/02/tides-of-annihilation-11-minutes-of-gameplay

[Nag]

If that's early build colour me impressed. The voice over work will take a little getting used to but I'm well up for that. 

[Maryokutai]

I like this a bit more than the trailer, the elemental puppet characters are pretty cool – didn't really catch that there were so many when watching the State of Play.

There's still some work to be done on the performance side, but I don't expect this to come out this year anyway. Hitstop effects seems a bit overdone in some instances (whenever one of the puppets launches or breaks guard etc.) but that might just be the first impression. The dialogue is pretty awful though, it takes itself way too seriously for saying such laughable stuff out loud. But you're not playing these games for the narrative usually, so not that big of a deal I suppose.

[one-armed dwarf]

It looks very standard tbh, hoping that there's more juice in the full game or even whatever demo comes out down the line. As always with games like this if there's a deep and expressive combat system you can't really expect the previews to show the extent of it cause there's a lot to learn. But I'd probably rather replay Bayonetta 3 at this point. The constant cutscene interruptions during the boss fight are a pet peeve, I am still very devil-triggered by that final fight against Vergil in DmC that did that constantly.

[mfnick]

I’m fully on board! That looks awesome. Not usually a fan of the whole creatures fighting for me thing but hopefully they’re just special ability attack animations & not something you have real input over. 
 

The voice acting is painful though. 
 

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

It looks like there are two types of attacks happening, ones which involve both character and puppet attacking together and other ones where they are desynced. Some of them use the blue stamina resource and some don't but it's not clear why. It reminds me a bit of Zato in Guilty Gear Strive. Also has a bit of a style switching thing as the puppets are mapped to the dpad, so git gud at claw grip 🦀

 

More I look at it more on board I am tbh, it's got some weirdness but this is a genre which badly needs new blood, can't just be DMC and Bayo especially with how infrequent those games release

[Maf]

I feel like hack and slash games are making a bit of a come back. Not that it’s a flooded genre but this, Ninja Gaiden, Project Phantom Zero or whatever it;s called. I’m sure I’ve seen some more trailers for hack and slash games as well. 
 

It’s almost like we did a decade+ of Souls games and people were like “what if this but faster and less animation priority” you mean like it was before Souls games, ok 

 

I;m still waiting for the game that does the level design of Dark Souls with the action of Bayonetta 

[Nag]

 

[one-armed dwarf]

It's very flashy, but it seems so random, almost like the game has ADHD or something with how often it context switches between a different scene/phase, and the characters just say the weirdest shit. 

 

I'm guessing the combat pacing is supposed to be like classic God of War or something and might not be all that substantial. 

[Nag]

It does look crazy but who knows when this takes place in the game, hopefully everything's explained with what's going on pretty well before that's thrown at you.

 

I'll be playing this on an easier difficulty no doubt... it'll be my hot woman beats the shit out of everything power trip.