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Post by mikegarrison on Jul 3, 2024 1:48:10 GMT -5
Cooper's coin and Hayato's rock (functionally the same), have more utility than I realized at first. They can make enemies look away from somewhere you want uncovered, but they can also make enemies look TOWARD an area they otherwise would not see. Like, an uncovered area where they can be lured and to and then dealt with. (Doc's bag, Mugen's sake, a body, footprints, etc.)
Bodies lure even enemies that otherwise don't get lured.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 3, 2024 1:49:45 GMT -5
I did the final mission in Shadow Tactics in seven minutes, lol. It's actually pretty easy to sneak past the enemies and get to the shooting range where Aiko can use her sneezing powder to get one of the soldiers to accidentally shoot the traitor. I'll do the mission the normal way at a later time. All you need is Aiko and Yuki, and maybe not even Yuki, though she makes things easier. You can just leave Hayato and Takuma where they are. The normal way or the secret way? With the secret way, all you need is Aiko. There's only one enemy at the very beginning that needs to be killed, but anyone can do that. After that, it's just a matter of using Aiko's sneezing powder to blind enemies and sneak to the shooting range.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jul 3, 2024 1:51:26 GMT -5
All you need is Aiko and Yuki, and maybe not even Yuki, though she makes things easier. You can just leave Hayato and Takuma where they are. The normal way or the secret way? With the secret way, all you need is Aiko. There's only one enemy at the very beginning that needs to be killed, but anyone can do that. After that, it's just a matter of using Aiko's sneezing powder to blind enemies and sneak to the shooting range. You don't have to kill that enemy, if your timing is right.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 3, 2024 1:57:04 GMT -5
Cooper's coin and Hayato's rock (functionally the same), have more utility than I realized at first. They can make enemies look away from somewhere you want uncovered, but they can also make enemies look TOWARD an area they otherwise would not see. Like, an uncovered area where they can be lured and to and then dealt with. (Doc's bag, Mugen's sake, a body, footprints, etc.) Bodies lure even enemies that otherwise don't get lured. Yeah, I'd say that half the time I used the coin/rock was to get enemies to look at the bag/sake lures.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 3, 2024 10:02:17 GMT -5
Here's how I rate the Desperados 3 characters on normal difficulty (i.e. who I would choose if all characters are available): 1. Isabelle 2. Hector 3. Doc 4. Kate 5. Cooper I think I might replay the game or at least certain missions at some point on hard or even the "Desperado" difficulty. I often find that playing a game on normal difficulty and playing it on the hardest difficulty results in completely changing my tactics and shifting my opinions on characters, abilities and weapons. That said, I think Cooper's deficiencies would be even more pronounced on a difficulty with less forgiving stealth mechanics. After beating the game and the DLC on desperado difficulty, my character rankings are unchanged. Isabelle and Hector are even better than I realized due to each having a game-breaking exploit. With Hector, it's the ability to toss tied-up enemies to lure ponchos. With Isabelle, she can connect herself to an enemy (with the exception of long coats) and then allow the enemy to shoot her. This will kill the enemy and not raise the alarm. Isabelle can then use her unlimited healing power to get the one health that she lost back. She can do this seemingly as much as she wants. I avoided using these exploits except on the stupid Baton Rouge mission with no weapons where I did use the Hector one. I didn't use the Isabelle one at all except for testing. Some other observations and changes of opinion from the first playthrough to the second: -Isabelle's cat is better than I initially thought because of her ability to get into position while in showdown mode. Once she's in position, Isabelle can retreat beyond the normal range of the ability, but it will still work upon executing the showdown. The distraction length is also a second longer than Cooper's coin. So I think it's the better distraction in most situations. As for her other abilities, connect and mind control were just as good as they were the first time. -Some of Hector's abilities seemed a bit more limited on desperado difficulty. I didn't have many opportunities to use his shotgun, and there were quite a few situations where his trap and whistle weren't good enough. Some of this is probably since I just played Shadow Tactics, and Yuki's trap is just a lot better due to her ability to change levels much easier. All that said, Hector is still a powerhouse and normally led the team in takedowns. Whistle is usually good to remove at least a couple enemies, and the shotgun is a nice option to have for certain situations that would be tricky otherwise. -Kate in a disguise is even better than I initially thought. I hadn't realized how excellent her lure was the first time I played. Her perfume is also the best distraction in the game for ponchos and long coats because it works for the full four seconds on all enemy types. Her quiet pistol is also really good in some situations where it's just about the only way to take out an enemy without setting off an alarm, especially if Doc isn't around. -Doc performed about the same as before. His sniping is excellent for dealing with tricky enemies, and his bag is good for thinning out groups of enemies. It has additional utility when combined with another lure like Hector's whistle. Both he and Kate are excellent for hiding bodies stealthily, which is more important on desperado difficulty with less margin for error. Hector is still the best for hiding one or two bodies as quickly as possible. -Cooper is about the same. His throwing knife is good for saving ammo, even if it's a bit harder to use than you might expect due to both a loud noise radius around the target and a fairly long dying animation. He's very similar to Hayato in Shadow Tactics, and he theoretically should be better due to his double guns. But I found Hayato to be more useful, particularly his shuriken. I think it probably has to do with the enemy placement in the two games. There seemed to be more opportunities to safely use Hayato's shuriken in Shadow Tactics than there were to use Cooper's knife in Desperados 3. Actually, I think I'll make one change to my character rankings. This is for who I'd want for a random mission on desperado difficulty: 1. Isabelle 2. Hector 3. Kate 4. Doc 5. Cooper I swapped Kate and Doc. This is with the caveat that Kate needs a disguise to be extremely effective, but there's one available on all of her missions. Some are easier to get than others, but still. Her ability to indefinitely shift the vision of enemies, stop patrols and lure normal enemies is incredibly useful.
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Post by Wolfgang on Jul 3, 2024 14:47:56 GMT -5
Also, check this out. Dude just walks everybody right up to the top, killing nobody. Shoots a few samurai just to slow them down or knock them out. Now that I finished the game, I decided to watch this video. Very impressive. Of course, for all these videos showing high performance achievements, we have no idea how many times he practiced the entire walkthrough (and sections of the walkthrough) to perfect his timing. The guy who ran this had a PC which allowed him to move the entire group together. I have a PS4 and, as far as I know, I can only move one character at a time. It would be a pain for me to move the entire group in unison because I would have to constantly click R1 to change my character after an inch of movement. But still...very impressive.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 3, 2024 14:57:10 GMT -5
Also, check this out. Dude just walks everybody right up to the top, killing nobody. Shoots a few samurai just to slow them down or knock them out. Now that I finished the game, I decided to watch this video. Very impressive. Of course, for all these videos showing high performance achievements, we have no idea how many times he practiced the entire walkthrough (and sections of the walkthrough) to perfect his timing. The guy who ran this had a PC which allowed him to move the entire group together. I have a PS4 and, as far as I know, I can only move one character at a time. It would be a pain for me to move the entire group in unison because I would have to constantly click R1 to change my character after an inch of movement. But still...very impressive. You can move the whole group by going into the character select menu (hold R1) and pressing square. All the characters will follow the party leader that you designate (whichever character you were on when you pressed square). You can also select multiple characters if you don't want to use everyone by pressing X on all the characters that you want to move together. Again, they'll follow the party leader. That said, I've found that the AI for the characters you're not directly controlling isn't the greatest, so I usually only did this when it was safe to do so. And PCs are generally accepted to be the fastest for speed runs.
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Post by Wolfgang on Jul 3, 2024 15:01:30 GMT -5
Shadow Tactics
Finally finished the game. The shortest mission took me about 50 minutes and the longest mission took me 3:30 hours. Very satisfying game. I loved it. I bought it for something like $3.99. Aiko is kind of a beast with her disguise. At the outset, I thought maybe Hayato would have the most kills for me for the entire game but he has actually never been the one with the most kills in any single mission (other than the one where he's alone with Takuma). Yuki is great to play. Takuma was actually a pain because he's not as mobile and don't have anything except for his guns.
There was some funny stuff I tried. Most notably, if there was a guard (or two) at a crucial location, I had one of my characters take him out. But the game would then replace that dead guard with a new guard. Often, it happened in tandem where if I killed two guards, they would then be replaced by another two guards. This happened continuously in the same mission for the same guard posts and patrols. In the mission where I had to get Kage-sama (IIRC), there were two guards immediately outside the fenced-in area where Kage-sama was. They were separated by 15-20 yards. I constantly used shadow mode to take them out. Then, they would be replaced by another pair of guards. This happened about 5-6 times -- so 10-12 guards total. I could've done it again and again but I thought maybe there was no limit to how many times the game would replace the dead guards even though the game should have a finite number of guards (as far as I know). It was actually getting too funny. So, I went a different route which turned out to be a lot easier -- even if a bit more boring.
Now I'm really looking forward to Desperados 3. The Digital Deluxe version, which includes all DLCs, is now available for $9.99 at the PS Store. I should stop being a cheapskate and buy this sucker. But I also believe it'll go down below $5.00 someday.
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Post by Wolfgang on Jul 3, 2024 15:05:45 GMT -5
Now that I finished the game, I decided to watch this video. Very impressive. Of course, for all these videos showing high performance achievements, we have no idea how many times he practiced the entire walkthrough (and sections of the walkthrough) to perfect his timing. The guy who ran this had a PC which allowed him to move the entire group together. I have a PS4 and, as far as I know, I can only move one character at a time. It would be a pain for me to move the entire group in unison because I would have to constantly click R1 to change my character after an inch of movement. But still...very impressive. You can move the whole group by going into the character select menu (hold R1) and pressing square. All the characters will follow the party leader that you designate (whichever character you were on when you pressed square). You can also select multiple characters if you don't want to use everyone by pressing X on all the characters that you want to move together. Again, they'll follow the party leader. That said, I've found that the AI for the characters you're not directly controlling isn't the greatest, so I usually only did this when it was safe to do so. And PCs are generally accepted to be the fastest for speed runs. Good to know. I'll have to look at the game again and look for this feature. But I don't think my reflexes are that great that I can pull this off for heavy traffic sections.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 3, 2024 15:07:34 GMT -5
Now I'm really looking forward to Desperados 3. The Digital Deluxe version, which includes all DLCs, is now available for $9.99 at the PS Store. I should stop being a cheapskate and buy this sucker. But I also believe it'll go down below $5.00 someday. It might, but "some day" may be a couple years from now if ever. It's your money, but you won't regret spending $10. I like Desperados 3 better than Shadow Tactics, at least from a gameplay standpoint. It's a bit more refined in general, and they added some nice quality-of-life features.
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Post by Wolfgang on Jul 3, 2024 15:45:28 GMT -5
Shadow Tactics
Some minor complaints and some features I love. I realize, of course, that this is a fantastical and mostly unrealistic game. I mean, visible viewcones? And I also realize this is a game and ever game has certain quirky and sometimes irrational rules. So, I qualify my complaints with that in mind.
Complaints:
1. Inability of characters to get over the smallest and shortest of obstacles, e.g. small stone. If a paved path has even the slightest "turn," my character can't jump over it and instead must follow that turn.
2. Why can't Aiko bring her own disguise to every mission? She pretty much looks the same in all the missions.
3. I don't know why Hayato doesn't have the option to crouch while carrying a body or the option to drag the body instead? Speaking of which, Aiko and Yuki are supposedly too weak to carry bodies but they seem to have no problems lifting these bodies up to their shoulder level while standing and throwing them over the railing or down a cliff.
4. Why can't Hayato carry more than one shuriken (star)? What a cheapskate!
5. Why can't all the characters have the ability to throw rocks like Hayato? I mean, there are rocks everywhere on the ground!
6. I don't know how samurai warriors can survive a sniper bullet to the head. Or even multiple sniper bullets!
7. I don't like how the knock-out feature has a timer where, after the predetermined time, the knocked-out NPC regains consciousness. I should have the ability to tie them up and gag them.
8. If I kill a guard and hide his body in a building (with the "hide body" prompt) and then subsequently, another guard enters that same building, he doesn't seem to notice that body that I've hidden there.
9. Why do I all of a sudden move in slow motion when I'm detected? I would think I'd move even faster due to the adrenaline pumping through my veins.
10. I haven't tried this but if I use Kuma to lure some enemies and then throw a grenade at these enemies (and Kuma), my guess is that Kuma would still be alive. LOL!
11. I don't know why my characters can't enter a moving wagon. It's perfectly do-able.
12. I don't think they should have guns. For distance weapons, they should just have bow-and-arrows, stars, and spears.
Things I love: Actually, I love a lot of things about this game. But here's just a few.
1. In the prison mission, I love the fact that all the weapons and gear were scattered around the compound. If I were a bad guy and captured some inflitrator, I wouldn't keep the weapons/gear all in one location in its original package. I'd probably take them and use them as my own. Or separate them and store them in some storage or armory.
2. If I enter a building (with the "enter" prompt) and remain there, guards can find me and shoot at me inside that building. If I'm lucky, no guard will even enter the building. But I love the fact that some guards will look inside.
3. The melee kill animations are surprisingly satisfying. It's probably the sound effect combined with the characters' utterances.
4. The night time view cones were pretty cool.
5. The footprints in the snow were pretty cool but they disappeared rather quickly.
6. I love the variety and complexity of the guards/soldiers/samurai that are spread out all over the place. They have mostly different viewcones and movement patterns.
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Post by mln59 on Jul 3, 2024 19:23:22 GMT -5
just turned on the PS5 for the first time. playing a game that came with it, astro bot, and it looks gorgeous
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Post by mikegarrison on Jul 3, 2024 19:29:10 GMT -5
7. I don't like how the knock-out feature has a timer where, after the predetermined time, the knocked-out NPC regains consciousness. I should have the ability to tie them up and gag them. 12. I don't think they should have guns. For distance weapons, they should just have bow-and-arrows, stars, and spears. This is taken care of in Desperados 3, where some (but not all) your characters can do this. I think the devs underestimated the desire to go non-lethal in Shadow Tactics. As for the guns, well, they did have matchlocks in Japan in the Shogunate Era. I mean, it's a game, so it doesn't have to be realistic. But guns were available. However, they were mostly long guns (like the guards all carry to kill you with). The need to get a disguise (assuming you choose to do it) is obviously kind of mission padding. It gives you another secondary goal. I suppose if they had wanted to, they could have tried going for a Hitman-type thing, where different disguises get you into different places, and have different noticers (not just all samurai/longcoats can always see through the disguise). But Hitman is all about the disguises, and this game really is not, so they didn't bother.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jul 3, 2024 19:35:07 GMT -5
I love the variety and complexity of the guards/soldiers/samurai that are spread out all over the place. They have mostly different viewcones and movement patterns. D3 adds one more twist, which is that some guards are women. And apparently none of the women are into Kate (while all of the men are), so while she can pass unnoticed among the women guards, she can't distract them like she can the men. Allows the devs to take that strategy off the table in certain key spots. Side note, I think it is particularly funny that Aiko can hold a guard forever just by pretending to be interested in what he is talking about. "My lord, may I ask a question? ... I did not know that. Please tell me more." Rather like real life.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 3, 2024 20:42:48 GMT -5
I love the variety and complexity of the guards/soldiers/samurai that are spread out all over the place. They have mostly different viewcones and movement patterns. D3 adds one more twist, which is that some guards are women. And apparently none of the women are into Kate (while all of the men are), so while she can pass unnoticed among the women guards, she can't distract them like she can the men. Allows the devs to take that strategy off the table in certain key spots. Side note, I think it is particularly funny that Aiko can hold a guard forever just by pretending to be interested in what he is talking about. "My lord, may I ask a question? ... I did not know that. Please tell me more." Rather like real life. I thought Aiko's distraction dialogue was pretty boring. Kate was way more flirtatious, which I found to be more amusing. It was especially hilarious when she would lure them by saying she wanted to take them back to her room or something, and they'd respond with something like, "Imma coming, baby!"
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