Deep Down Hands On Preview: Clunky And Gray

[Steven Bogos]

Deep Down Hands On Preview: Clunky And Gray

For a game that highlights its procedurally-generated dungeons, it sure is lacking in variety.

I got the chance to get my hands on Capcom's surprise dungeon-diving RPG: Deep Down, at Tokyo Game Show this year. In the ten minute demo, I was struck by the fact that for a game that boasts about its procedurally-generated dungeons and random enemy distribution, it was sure lacking in variety. I could see the workings of a good game just below the surface, but I wasn't able to get to it. The game may be looking more and more like a spiritual successor to Dark Souls, but it may not be the game Dark Souls fans have been waiting for.

Full disclosure: I suck at Dark Souls. I actually suck at a lot of console action-RPGs like it too, such as God of War and Devil May Cry. So, when I was handed the controller to Deep Down, I was very relieved to see a "casual mode" option. Obviously, this is going to upset the same kind of purists who saw red when Capcom gave Mega Man 10 an "easy mode" but for me, I was glad to have the option.

That said, even playing in casual mode, the combat felt incredibly clunky. The controls themselves were fine, allowing me to map "special abilities" to the face buttons while using the shoulder buttons as weak and strong attacks, but fighting Deep Down's mythical beasts just felt like I was stabbing wildly into the dark. Some of the special abilities were pretty cool and quite effective, but the basic shoulder button attacks just feel kind of lame and ineffective.

On top of that, every monster I fought in the demo felt like some (slight) variation of "giant lumbering bipedal dog thing." Some of them had different weapons but none of them really felt different or distinct.

So here I am running around jabbing my spear wildly into giant dog things trying to find the exit to this dungeon. This procedurally-generated dungeon that has done a great job of generating a whole bunch of 1-tile "pits," that have me climb up and down a ladder each time to move past them. I swear I spent more time climbing ladders than I did fighting bad guys.

[gallery=1781]

However, the game itself does look pretty gorgeous. The dungeon that I spent most of mine time in was just a tad too much samey and gray, but the atmospheric lighting peering in through the cracks is beautiful, the outdoors sections that I glimpsed looked very pretty, and all of the character models themselves take ample advantage of the PS4's hardware.

So overall, you can color me unimpressed with Deep Down so far. This could just be because I suck at these kinds of games, but from what I saw it was much too gray and much too clunky. The procedurally-generated dungeons are being touted as the biggest draw of the game, but to me, they were actually one of the biggest drawbacks. However, with only ten minutes to play around with it, it's hard to give it much more than a fleeting assessment.

Permalink

 

[josemlopes]

Why have someone that sucks at ARPGs, like Dark Souls, is chosen to be the guy that goes make a Hands-On Preview of a game that seems to be trying to be like Dark Souls (an certainly is an ARPG)?

I mean, there is still a lot of valuable information in here and the game still has a lot to prove for but I just cant really tell if the gameplay is that clunky or not from someone that isnt used to it, I mean, for all I know it can even be smoother then Dark Souls, or not, because you cant really make an accurate assumption on that since you arent really the best guy to talk about that subject.

 

[Steven Bogos]

Why have someone that sucks at ARPGs, like Dark Souls, is chosen to be the guy that goes make a Hands-On Preview of a game that seems to be trying to be like Dark Souls (an certainly is an ARPG)?

I mean, there is still a lot of valuable information in here and the game still has a lot to prove for but I just cant really tell if the gameplay is that clunky or not from someone that isnt used to it, I mean, for all I know it can even be smoother then Dark Souls, or not, because you cant really make an accurate assumption on that since you arent really the best guy to talk about that subject.

i'm the only one from the Escapist at TGS

I'm not going to take any of this information to heart because American reviewers and players often have a problem judging and playing Japanese games.

I'll have to make my own opinion when i actually see some in-game gameplay.

You're Japanese?

 

[gigastar]

Its possible to be bad at God of War?

Also did you happen to to get a release date? Or an indication to how close to completion the game is?

 

[Steven Bogos]

You're Japanese?

No, but i am a fan of Japanese games, and Japanese games just don't sell as good in the west as it does in Japan.

Why? Hell, i could ask you the same question. But what i do know is that most reviewers don't give any Japanese games the credit they deserve.

This is just plain untrue. You also use the term "Japanese Game" which is such a huge blanket. Mario is a "Japanese Game" and the western press loves Mario. Do you mean "hardcore Japanese action RPGS" when you say "Japanese Game"? I've lived in Japan for several years and I do try my best to give games credit where they are due. I absolutely love the Phoenix Wright series which is often passed over by other journalists here, and I've been palying Nintendo platformers for as long as I remember.

That said, I just did not find deep down very fun at all. This is a hands-on preview, so it is my opinion of the game based on the time I spent with it. It's my opinion and you can feel free to disregard it, but saying that all American reviewers just don't "get" Japanese games is quite narrow minded. Especially because I'm not American.

Sorry. OT: I feel like the game could possbily be a lot more, but the demo they were showing was not very flattering. Other gameplay trailers looked a lot better

 

[saltyanon]

Why the hell do people who don't get (or just plain suck) at games like MonHun/DaS/DeS etc. call them clunky, as if it's the game's fault?

The dungeon that I spent most of mine time in was just a tad too much samey and gray

I hope it's just this dungeon. Then again, maybe it's because of procedural generation.

 

[Steven Bogos]

Why the hell do people who don't get (or just plain suck) at games like MonHun/DaS/DeS etc. call them clunky, as if it's the game's fault?

The dungeon that I spent most of mine time in was just a tad too much samey and gray

I hope it's just this dungeon. Then again, maybe it's because of procedural generation.

sorry my friend! I tried my best, but I wasn't able to get it to feel natural. I feel like if I had more time with the game I could have figured it out a lot better

 

[cynicalsaint1]

The game may be looking more and more like a spiritual successor to Dark Souls, but it may not be the game Dark Souls fans have been waiting for.

... Soooo what you're saying is that its not in fact Dark Souls II?
(sorry couldn't help myself)

Why the hell do people who don't get (or just plain suck) at games like MonHun/DaS/DeS etc. call them clunky, as if it's the game's fault?

To be fair, Monster Hunter is pretty damn clunky, its part of the game to be sure - and I love me some MH3U, but it definitely is clunky - and this is coming from someone who has cleared Mark of a Hero and taken down Alatreon before the online version was available.

Dark Souls and Demon Souls definitely aren't though they're just slower and more deliberate than most button-mashy games. Combat is silky smooth though - you can even change your facing mid-swing if you aren't locked-on.

 

[Hagi]

Eh, I'd say lay off the guy. There's some useful information here.

If the game feels incredibly clunky to someone without any experience then you can be pretty sure that unless improvements happen it'll never feel outright great even if you do have experience. Experience may make difficult controls much easier to manage, but that's not what's described here.

For example, even if you suck utter balls at Dark Souls when you do finally manage to make that drop attack after first dying 20 times it still does feel effective and I don't see anyone describing it as lame and clunky. Even if you get your ass handed to you by the undead in the Undead Burg on a regular basis when you do get a normal attack in it doesn't feel ineffective. On the contrary, in Dark Souls when you finally hit something after failing spectacularly dozens of times it feels like a major freaking victory. That's why the game works so well, because even if you die over and over and over again it never feels ineffective and clunky.

As for the too much grey and all the creatures being the same, I can forgive that at this point. It makes sense with procedural generation to first start with a limited pool to generate your environments and creatures from and then gradually expanding it, squashing bugs and solving problems as you encounter them, instead of having your algorithm attempt to do everything at once.

 

[V8 Ninja]

Don't feel too bad about the preview, Mr. Bogos. Like you said, this is not your type of game, but the other thing is that it takes several hours of playtime for any concrete judgement to be made about the slower ARPGs. It took roughly 8 hours for me to really get the mechanics of Dark Souls. If I were to judge DS based on less than 30 minutes of playtime, I would think that it's slow, boring, and unnecessarily difficult.

 

[josemlopes]

Why have someone that sucks at ARPGs, like Dark Souls, is chosen to be the guy that goes make a Hands-On Preview of a game that seems to be trying to be like Dark Souls (an certainly is an ARPG)?

I mean, there is still a lot of valuable information in here and the game still has a lot to prove for but I just cant really tell if the gameplay is that clunky or not from someone that isnt used to it, I mean, for all I know it can even be smoother then Dark Souls, or not, because you cant really make an accurate assumption on that since you arent really the best guy to talk about that subject.

i'm the only one from the Escapist at TGS

That sucks then, I believe my point still stands but I see that you did all you could. You still gave use some cool information, its just that it didnt go as indepth as it could.

 

[Maxtro]

Sadly, the more I see of Deep Down, the less impressed I am. The game has the potential to be great, but I just don't know what Capcom is doing with it.

Why can't Capcom just make Dragons Dogma 2 or at least a spiritual successor?

 

[Steven Bogos]

That sucks then, I believe my point still stands but I see that you did all you could. You still gave use some cool information, its just that it didnt go as indepth as it could.

The demo was quite short compared to other games. Only 10 minutes.

 

[cynicalsaint1]

Eh, I'd say lay off the guy. There's some useful information here.

If the game feels incredibly clunky to someone without any experience then you can be pretty sure that unless improvements happen it'll never feel outright great even if you do have experience. Experience may make difficult controls much easier to manage, but that's not what's described here.

For example, even if you suck utter balls at Dark Souls when you do finally manage to make that drop attack after first dying 20 times it still does feel effective and I don't see anyone describing it as lame and clunky. Even if you get your ass handed to you by the undead in the Undead Burg on a regular basis when you do get a normal attack in it doesn't feel ineffective. On the contrary, in Dark Souls when you finally hit something after failing spectacularly dozens of times it feels like a major freaking victory. That's why the game works so well, because even if you die over and over and over again it never feels ineffective and clunky.

As for the too much grey and all the creatures being the same, I can forgive that at this point. It makes sense with procedural generation to first start with a limited pool to generate your environments and creatures from and then gradually expanding it, squashing bugs and solving problems as you encounter them, instead of having your algorithm attempt to do everything at once.

Well to be honest, when I first started playing Demon's Souls it felt clunky to me, but that wasn't really the case - really its just slower and more deliberate in how its combat works, once I got used to however I realized actually really smooth and responsive -it was just the pacing was different from the more button mashy games in the genre.

Compared to to say the Monster Hunter series which is a bit clunky by design (ie a lot of animations that can't be canceled out of, changing your facing takes actual time, etc).

So I'll wait for someone more used to these styles of gameplay to make that call - is just slow and deliberate? Clunky in a way that suits the game? Or does the combat just plain feel bad? Though I agree people should lay off the dude - he admitted this kind of game really wasn't his thing, so its not like he was trying to pass off as the kind of person who should be making that kind of call ...

The repetitive bland environments, however, is definitely a bit of a downer to hear.

 

[rednightmare]

Can I say it's refreshing to see a previewer that is prepared to say that they were unimpressed by what they saw. It seems these days every preview tries to stay as far away from an opinion as possible, just because it isn't out yet.

Thank you for your honest opinion Steven

 

[blackdwarf]

Yeah, I saw a gameplay stream from the game.. It was just embarrassing. Everything felt clunky about it and even though the graphics and animations were impressive, the presentation was brown and nothing new.

 

[seditary]

Procedurally generated dungeons sounds to me like the worst idea for a game like this.

 

[Baresark]

I have not been impressed too much with this game. I would love a good Demon/Dark Souls-alike, but this one doesn't look like the one so far. I don't think Capcom designs controls well in third person games. RE6 had horribly clunky controls. Dragon's Dogma (a game I love), the one issue it has is the terribly clunky controls. Also, the souls games do not control clunky in my opinion, but the are designed to be very deliberate. The controls are actually very smooth once you don't button mash and know how to control your character. I'll not hold my breath on this one... and the truth is that I have never really found procedural generation fun or impressive, with some rare exceptions of course. And the whole tiles going up and down thing... well I hate the idea of that being generated into the game.