New bump! The best game of 2020 is about to get even better...



So excited for these additions! Some are free, and some are paid DLC.

I just can’t get close to Buns score. Curse you my friend !

I must be lacking in combos. I’ve beaten easy and I’m at the last couple of stages on normal and I’m really good at not using ultra special star moves or burning through too many lives. My rankings are no higher then a B. What am I doing wrong ?

Keeping a combo going is key. And honestly not every character is equal when trying to go for scores.

Personally, I find Floyd the best, since you can just grab a guy and walk him closer to the next batch of enemies to keep the combo going. He's very slow, but then you can jump + special your way across the screen very quickly.

@Smerd

Combos are the main key to getting high ranks, and if an enemy hits you in the middle of one, it breaking means you lose all the points you would've gotten had it resolved. It's best to chain together a lot of enemies without getting hit, or at least via letting the combo resolve itself if you feel like it may be broken soon. Very risky, but that's the game!

The color of the combo text (starting from orange and yellow, then moving through green and blue and eventually pink and red for the highest tiers) determines how big the bonus is when the combo ends naturally. Try to shoot for the higher tiers for lots of points! Not only will you get way more points than if you'd been slapped in the middle of it, but you may unlock an extra life in the process by getting your score high enough, meaning more points for the remaining lives at the end of the stage.

Keep in mind that combo points are actually based on damage done, not number of hits. So hitting a Donovan 10 times to beat him is worth the same amount of points as just kicking him once into a pit for an instant KO.

The Stars can help get you out of a jam or get a combo to keep going when things look tough, and depending on the situation, that can often be worth more than the 500 points you get at the end of the stage for the remaining stars.

@Guillaume

Yeah, Floyd does a good job at linking together disparate sections of a stage. That said, I'm terrible with him for whatever reason! I tend to like Axel and Blaze, as both of their blitzes can hit enemies off the ground for more damage. But one's mileage may vary (those two vets are among the slower characters).

Ok great. - I’ll keep that in mind. Must practice more. They really got the “feel” right in this game. I can’t wait for turtles.

The DLC is finally available! Well, two separate things are available at the same time.

- A free update that adds a training mode that shows you combos and secret tricks, and a Mania+ difficulty.
- Paid DLC ($8) that adds Estel, Max and Shiva as playable characters, and a Survival mode.

Survival Mode: An inventive, immensely replayable challenge where fighters beat down endless waves of foes and earn perks for as long as they can stay alive. The Random version of this mode keeps each fight unpredictable through generated runs, and the Weekly version has a series of static gauntlets generated each week that keeps players on their toes as they brawl their way through the streets of rage and fight for the top spot. Each completed level offers a choice of randomized stackable perks to choose from.

Karen and I tried Estel and Max last night and we cornered and juggled the level 1 boss so bad (on Normal), they kind of felt overpowered. But I think we were just lucky. I soon discovered Max is fairly vulnerable when grappling enemies and haven't yet figured out how to deal with that outside of learning to love the L shoulder button.

I've already dabbled in Mania+ mode for a couple hours, it's great. However, I think I'm going to hold off on the DLC until the physical version comes out in September. I ended up loving SoR4 and I'm ready to get physical with it (as one does). So it'll be cool to have something new to try out when the cart releases. I hear the extra mode is awesome!

I bought this the other day, and it's the missing link between Smash Bros. and fighting/character action games that I always dreamed of. It's finally explained the logic behind combos to me: they're not arbitrary sequences of button presses, they actually have a coherent logic to them that maps to the inputs. Simple controls combined with a simple premise make for a great controlled environment for me to develop a deep understanding of this in.

Yeah this game rules.

The downsides are that it's WAY too long to enjoy the Arcade mode, and T-bun's criticism of the combo system ruins Level Select. So Story Mode is the main way I'll enjoy this, I think, but it feels like the lamest of the bunch. I got the Survival Mode DLC, but its perks feel like a distraction to me.

But the core game is solid af. I'm finally learning how this genre works, and it feels so good.

Ah, unless I just misused the search and reply search functions, there is NO discussion of Absolum on this here forum? The new roguelike brawler from the makers of Streets of Rage 4?

It's very good! It's a decidedly Hades-inspired beat'em-up that is meant to reveal more and more of its plot and secrets as you try to roll the credits, and beyond.

I was a little ambivalent about it at first: it seemed quite impossible to me to beat the game without first getting the permanent upgrades you can buy after each run using crystals you collect throughout the stages. And I may have been right, as it must have taken Karen and I a dozen attempts to get through the game, and by that time, we had unlocked all those perm upgrades.

However, we now no longer have permanent upgrades to buy, and yet there is more game to get through, and the only way we'll succeed is by getting good at it. Now that grinding is no longer the main key to winning, we're playing around more with the "boons" you get in each area and trying to find synergies between them (just like in Hades), and it's quite fun.

My last build was especially satisfying: playing as the dwarf, I kept upgrading "impact" damage (which is when you bounce enemies on the ground or send them flying into each other or into walls, as well as how effectively I could separate their feet from the ground. By the end, I could fairly easily start juggling bosses and send them bouncing back and forth on the left and right sides of the screen.

Definitely check it out if you like SOR4 at all.

@Guillaume

I'd been curious about it after seeing Maximilian Dood call it one of his favorite games of the year. Thanks for the write-up! I was specifically curious to what extent beat-em-up skill comes into play, sounds like they ramp up to it.

No prob!

I still have some ambivalence re: the grinding aspect. Because the thing is: it works on me. I like seeing the numbers go up. So it's not as if it's not enjoyable to first get a one-time Revive with 25% of your health. Which you can upgrade to 50%. To then get a second Revive. Then both bring you to 75%. And finally 100%.

But I'll be honest, if you can finish this game with a single life, you're better at these games than I am. Karen and I definitely needed all 3 (now I haven't tried the game solo, maybe co-op is actually significantly harder… yeah, this will be my excuse if you beat this game on your first try).

But again, working towards the full upgrades was enjoyable in itself. I'll consider it a fun prelude to the real game: the tougher remixed levels once you've rolled the credits once, and messing with the different builds possible in this game.

Speaking of which, I was ambivalent with that aspect of the game as well: what do you mean, there is no dedicated grappler in this beat'em-up? Where's the Haggar? But on some runs, you'll get your grapple moves, and they're as fun as you'd hope. It's just that you'll have to experiment with other styles if the RNG doesn't give you exactly what you want.

@Guillaume

You probably don't remember it, but I look back on this post as one of the first things that opened my eyes to how insidious grinding in games can be:

Guillaume said:

From then on, at every step, a huge numerical display with progress bar shows you when you've gained XP, in a very transparent attempt to get people addicted to picking berries and skinning animals, which require no gameplay whatsoever beyond pressing a button when you're next to a shrub or a carcass.

That's not to say that all stats-based games do it maliciously, but I do find it often detracts from the design for me personally. I was really excited by Emerald Rush recontextualizing Donkey Kong Bananza into a replayable arcade game, but in practice its adoption of the typical "here are three options, pick one" roguelike mechanic turns it into more of a math optimization problem than a platforming challenge. It does get you to play the game in very different ways (and it sounds like Absolum does the same thing), but I think I'd prefer if you obtained your build's powers in a less incremental way that's more integrated into the world.