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Well, Bayonetta and DMC both come courtesy of Hideki Kamiya, so... For my part, i'd say DMC3 and Bayonetta are the two best examples of the genre, so maybe you do. The DMC games are all very good though, aside from 2.

I'm a huge fan of Megaman, and boss fights in general, but i definitely understand where Zeus is coming from. Yes, there's technically a "right" order to do them in, but you'll notice, especially with 2, nobody really ever agrees on what that order actually is. That's because, despite the system of weapon weaknesses, you still have to fight that first one with nothing but your mega buster. Everybody has their own fight that they think is easiest to do in that state, but it doesn't change that the first boss you fight in any Megaman game is always going to be one of the hardest ones, and it's kind of a really fucked up thing about the series that never got addressed. Those levels and fights don't scale with you as you power-up, they start out being as hard as they can possibly be and only get easier.

Echoes is a pretty rough and flawed game, it's the buggiest of the 3, the difficulty balance is kind of all over the place, and the world design lacks a good cohesive sense of flow and momentum. It's not so much a divisive gem like Majora's Mask, it has actual problems that aren't just a matter of taste. That said, the things that potentially redeem it do tend to be things that are a matter of taste. For one, I really enjoy the survival-tinged dark world mechanics, a not particularly common sentiment about the game, but i really appreciate what Retro was going for with Echoes. It's experimenting with new mechanics in some really confident ways, and to interesting effect, and in that sense perhaps it is a little akin to Majora's Mask. It's a game that i want to like more than i do, but the fact remains that it's quite rough around the edges. Corruption on the other hand, i think the worst anybody can ever really say about it is that it didn't really grab them, i don't think i've ever heard anybody say outright that they hate it. For my part, i loved it when i played it, i still think it's one of the Wii's best games, but it lacks a kind of sharpness in its mood and tone and hasn't left as much of an impact as other games in the series tend to. Beyond that, i don't know. I don't think my opinions about it are as fully formed as my opinions concerning Echoes and Prime, and perhaps that also speaks to the relative lack of impact it has. Still, i think it's a great game.

I've been playing around with multiple equipment sets lately, having various sets of armor keyed to the strengths of paired weapons, and there's a super valuable thing to know that isn't maybe self-evident: So decoration gems are super important, you'll use them to disable active penalties and push other skills into the range of being active, or even up past further thresholds. Moving around decorations manually is pretty tedious though, and it's an issue you'll run up against if you need to have a difficult-to-create decoration in multiple sets of armor. The solution is simple: Save your equipment sets, don't ignore that feature, because the game will automatically shuffle around your decoration gems to the right slots when loading a set. is what happens when you try to dismiss a palico from your party in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. The first scene depicts welcoming them back at the very last confirmation prompt, the latter is what happens with an actual dismissal. The game takes a long, long time to actually open up the palico stuff, you need to reach the third city in the game, but it ends up being a fairly involved set of systems, there's quite a lot to it. Though, don't get your hopes up, because you can only ever actually bring two of them into a fight, and one of them will always be the main palico you created at the start of the game.

Pay a few bucks for the privilege of having a store open early, or stay open late. In fact, why wait for anything to happen? You can pay to have Crazy Redd show up now! Oh, but you've been playing for too long and run out of stamina for the day, but you can pay to have Brewster make you some coffee so you can keep playing!

It looks like there's a fairly comprehensive set of guides over at gamefaqs, including some topic-specific ones. However, these guides - topic-specific ones included - will unavoidably spoil some surprises in the story. The first portion of the game doesn't have anything especially important going on, so maybe hold off on the guides untill you feel like you have a better grasp of whether or not you care. Edit: I did a bit of further searching, and it doesn't sound like any of the side quests with important character rewards ever really expire, so you can probably get around to that stuff whenever you feel like it.

Imagine for a second the nightmare that a free to play Animal Crossing could be.

That is a looong game, and one that ended up with probably a fairly permanent place on my short list of favorite RPGs. I'd advise just using a faq to keep apprised of the enormous selection of side-quests, not necessarily so you can be a completist, but primarily so you can track down the ones that unlock extra skill trees for your party members. The way the game frames all of its sidequests with this fairly dynamic relationship web is pretty cool and easy to be ensnared by, but the quests themselves are often tedious and time consuming, as is actually just tracking down the relevant NPC's, which all have broadly wandering daily routines. (The game also helpfully identifies quests that can expire through progress, but it does not tell you when. It could be in ten minutes, or it could be twenty hours further into the game.)

Tri-Ace has apparently been purchased by a japanese cellphone company and is being restructured as a tablet and smartphone developer. Not quite the end for them, but it's hard to see a way it can really turn out well for anybody who liked what their games were in the past. They've been a reasonably well liked and fairly prolific studio, but, speaking personally, i never had any particularly strong feelings towards their output beyond Resonance of Fate, which ended up being probably one of my favorite RPG's out of that entire last console cycle, i just absolutely loved that game. So, even if only for that, i'm a little bummed to hear this news.

Despite the bug staff probably being the most versatile set of attacks in the game, i also find micromanaging the bug very tedious and limiting. As for the longsword, In addition to the lance, the longsword is the other weapon i've primarily been playing at this point, and i like it a lot. It's a very straightforward moveset, but it has some fun mechanics and a great balance of range and power and speed. You'll probably struggle to get it buffed against highly evasive enemies, so taking advantage of long attack recoveries, exhaustion or stuns, traps, or the topple state caused by mounting attacks to give yourself opportunities to build your buff will be very important. (Remember, you can leap from walls or any ledges to try to set up mounting attacks, you don't need to rely on a weapon's built-in jump gimmick, which the longsword has none of.) You generally want to open combos with its fast A attack, then do two X attacks, and then another A attack. However you start it though, it'll basically always end up being the same, two X's and one A, back and forth into eachother. (A tends to get deflected easily if your sword loses sharpness, though.) You can cancel out of that chain at any time with the X+A backstep slash, which besides being a useful egress and positioning tool, is important for something i'll get to in a bit. Once you have your meter filled by landing successful hits, you can start doing your spirit slashes with R, and if you land a hit with the whirlwind attack at the end of that combo, you upgrade your longsword's damage. (The effect stacks until your sword glows red. The damage buff will slowly time out, but hitting the next phase of the progression resets the clock. Unrelatedly, your spirit slash meter will also start timing out after about 30 seconds, and even if you land more attacks, it will not stop depleting until it hits zero.) Now, starting your spirit combo just with R requires full meter to successfully trigger the whirlwind attack, but if you start the R combo from the X+A backstep slash, it uses fewer moves before getting to the whirlwind attack and therefore needs less meter. (It's also faster, though starting with R generally has more forward momentum and range.) Another quirk that is worth noting is that the spirit slashes apparently ignore attack deflection. It seems a little unreliable, but you're also generally allowed to sneak one X or A attack into the middle of an R combo to build a bit of meter, if you're not sure that you're going to have enough for the whirlwind attack. (Those attacks will be deflected as normal, so be wary of doing that if you started the spirit slashes after your sword lost its sharpness.)

The bow probably has the best DPS of the ranged weapons, and it definitely has the most versatile moveset, it's just... It's so damn strange. Also keep in mind that its damage falls off over distance, something that isn't true for the bowguns. Speaking of the bowguns, it's the light bowgun gets the majority of the support/status effect stuff, while the heavy bowgun essentially sets you up to be a sniper. I... I only play ranged when i have to, so i don't have lots of advice to give on them.

The lance is my favorite weapon, and i can tell you from experience that you'll definitely want a fallback that lets you be more actively mobile. Though you can be pretty damn mobile with the lance if you get a handle on the running charge attack(R+X+A), which keep in mind, will seem useless until you're at a green sharpness weapon. It will deflect off of almost everything before then, but once you get up past green sharpness, it's a rapid-hit attack that can end with an extra powerful attack, or a leap. The latter detail making it the other weapon, aside from the bug staff, that can mount a monster from anywhere. (X for the attack, Forward+B for the leap and X in the air to attack and potentially mount, or a neutral B to simply end the dash while on the ground. You can also steer slightly by holding left or right.) Of its basic moves, upward angled attacks always do more damage than the horizontal attacks. You can side-dodge twice in a row if you use it after an attack, so abuse that, and the normal backstep, to line yourself up for more attacks. (They also have invincibility frames, but those windows are incredibly small.) You also have the option to do an advancing guard, a forward step with your shield raised, and you can optionally end it with a shield bash that inflicts a portion of knockout damage, like a hammer would, if used on an enemy's head. (Forward+R+X to do the advancing guard, X again to shield bash.) R+A, on the other hand, is a counter hit that can absorb an attack and immediately strike back. To round out the descriptions, your standing X+A is a nice wide arc attack to help clear out small, fast moving harassers, and R+X is a slow stab that keeps your shield raised, but your normal X and A attacks are dramatically better. (Again, the upward stab does more damage.) The lance is awesome, nobody plays lance, but it's totally awesome. The Hunting Horn is also pretty incredible, but mostly in multiplayer. I honestly don't know how it would go over solo, it would probably still work out totally fine. Your buffs work for the entire party though, and you start pulling aggro the more buffs you have active. It's amazing, it's one of the best weapons to have in a multiplayer party. The bowguns are basically dual-analog if you play with a circle pad pro or on an N3DS, they're incredibly easy to use. The bow, on the other hand, has a very strange control scheme that will likely take some getting used to. Given how many people prefer blademaster, being able to play as a gunner in a multiplayer group is highly valued, especially for support shots or status-effect inflicting shots. The expeditions are weird. With the exception of a few scripted scenarios, they're essentially rogue-lite stages, they're randomized areas constructed out of a toybox of forest arenas and any monsters you've faced in the solo game progression. There is no time limit when you go into them, but monsters, which will shuffle between areas of the randomly generated stage as normal, will eventually also actually just leave the area if you take too long. (There will be an onscreen notice when you're close to one of these time limits.) You can actually skip fighting monsters though, aside from those scripted expeditions. There are items you seem to only be able to obtain during expeditions, and you could just go into one, make a mad dash for those drops, and run to the end of the area to complete it. Anyways, like a lot of things, the expeditions are essentially re-rolled after every tick of world time. (You must have realized by this point how every mission you do advances or randomizes certain elements of the overworld areas.) You can check the info screen for the expedition every once in a while and see if it looks like there's anything interesting going on. (If it says there's a poogie in the area, for example, you can obtain a new costume for your poogie.)

The egg carrying missions aren't too bad online since you can have people keeping monsters off of you, but done solo, they're just the worst thing in the game. About lopping bits off of monsters, it also often modifies their behavior, perhaps preventing them from using certain attacks and the like. Here's an important thing to understand though: Focusing on one weapon is a bad idea. It limits your ability to cope with the variety of challenges that will come your way, but you're also going to run into certain upgrades being bottlenecked by requiring drops from monsters that are far ahead of your current progression, and perhaps not even being particularly great items for it. If you're juggling a couple of different weapons and their upgrade trees, you give yourself a fallback when you hit these bottlenecks. Back to that first thing though, that it limits your ability to deal with a variety of situations, because there are going to be cases where your weapon is simply not the best option against a monster. Perhaps almost every piece of a monster is heavily armored and your weapon's sharpness isn't great enough to cut through it. Weapons with wide arcs are just going to be deflected and you're never going to be able to stab at the soft belly you're trying to aim for. In a situation like that, weapons with short ranges, or weapons that can stab like the lances, will be preferrable. Or against flying enemies, you want weapons that have high vertical swings. (Though, honestly, the bug staff's ability to leap into the air and do airborne attacks from anywhere on the map makes it just about the best blademaster weapon for fighting flying enemies.) More than that, deep into the game you're almost going to be forced to swap out weapons, even within the same weapon class, so you can take advantage of elemental attacks against monsters that are weak to them. (You'll likely even craft many sets of armor tailored specifically to get the most out of your individual weapons, that's why there's UI options for building equipment sets.) With all of that stated though, I think playing around with two or three weapons and some basic catch-all armor is a good starting point for a good, good long stretch of the early game. (I'm talking sub-100 hours here. Yes, that's the early game.) Certainly though, if you feel like your gear progression is slow, that's your cue to go experiment. Specifically with regards to the bug staff: If you hit the input for launching out the bug after the bug is already flying, the bug will reorient itself to match your character's facing. In this way, you can nudge your bug in the right direction to help it chase down targets. (Now, i don't play bug staff myself, but i believe the second redirection will always also double as a spin attack. You can also charge the bug before releasing it to do another spin attack right as it's let go, in addition to also then allowing for more redirection commands.)

Just based on some of the rumors that have circulated around the game, i suspect that Half-Life 3 has probably been started and stopped multiple times.

Given that you seem to have expressed quite a lot of interest in the genre, i feel like you should probably at least have that experience. The Monster Hunter 4U demo has online play, so if you ever have the opportunity to run through that with somebody who knows Monster Hunter relatively well, you should do at least that. There are so few types of fish that it's relatively easy to get what you want, but the different types of lures can scare away every other type of fish except for the ones you want, making it even easier. It's the egg carrying missions that will really have you in swearing fits.

3U didn't have online play on the 3DS, so did you play it multiplayer at all? Personally, i never would have gotten into Monster Hunter without a group of friends kind of forcing me to stick with it and play with them, and playing the game in a group is still absolutely the most appealing thing about it. Having a diverse team fulfilling different roles in a sprawling, dynamic multiplayer boss fight is thrilling. I can definitely sympathize about the grind though, and if you just can't stand that about Monster Hunter, i'm not going to tell you that you that you should just deal with it. It's a part of the series, and i've grown to understand why it's a part of the series, but that doesn't mean you have to like it. As for RubixsQube's questions, Ninja's covered mostly everything i would have said, but i'll just run through some quick replies: - If you find the bug staff tedious, definitely play around with other weapons more. If you want to stick with it, i understand that getting the bug's speed stat up is the most important thing to do for it. - Don't upgrade armor early on, just build armor with more defense. Also, don't obsess over complete sets, you want to mix and match for skills, and to perhaps mitigate crippling elemental weaknesses. - Focus on weapons in the early game, but once your weapon needs resources you don't have access to, start leveling up another weapon so you can have backups. - Casual resource gathering in low-stress missions should get you most of the way to anything you want to make, and if that's not the case, you might be trying to min-max the early game more than you need to. - Failing a mission completely resets you to the pre-mission state, doesn't it? You don't get to keep anything, i think. Dying in a mission just reduces your reward potential and removes a respawn ticket. - If you complete a sub quest and then fail, the mission counts as successful, weirdly enough. So you keep your stuff and get relevant rewards and everything. (Just not the main rewards, and perhaps it doesn't get marked off as completed. Not sure about that.)

You can trade friend codes in here, though ACNL actually streamlines things a bit, since if you're in a town with somebody whose code you do not have, the game can set things up for you. (You still need to have at least one person whose game you can join from the outset though, so you still need to trade codes at least once to get that door open.) There's also another thing going on in ACNL where you can tag certain people in your friends list as "best friends", which will allow you to exchange messages with them at any time, while playing ACNL, no matter where you are or they are. Anyways, hey, Video games. I have apples, anybody want apples? (Plant fruit from other towns, they'll grow into trees and bear more fruit that will be more valuable than your native fruit.)

I've been playing mostly using a circle pad pro, but i've also gone without and found both fairly playable. Without it, the lock-on is serviceable shorthand, and the game lets you customize the touchscreen tiles to a fairly significant degree. There's loads of options there, including changing the size and shape of the hotspot for touchscreen camera control. (Beyond just being able to move around its tile in the touchscreen grid, to be clear.) With a circle pad pro? Then it's just right stick camera control, it's completely fine. I mean, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate was why that peripheral exists in the first place. (Also frees up some slots on the touchscreen for more inventory or map stuff.) Also, If anybody's confused - as i certainly was - by the game dumping the palico system on you right up front and then doing literally nothing with it for the next ten to twenty hours, it's when you have access to the game's fourth city that it finally starts letting you recruit new palicoes and start crafting and upgrading their gear and everything.

The next time your poogie follows you outside because he's content and happy, or if you carry him outside yourself, choose the rodeo option in his menu. Do it. Do it. Do it. With regards to DLC, i'm a little wary of how Capcom will end up handling that. Monster Hunter is a framework that could certainly allow for some pretty exploitative DLC practices. If they have any plans like that though, i will say that - thus far at least - the base product doesn't appear to have suffered for it. Monster Hunter 4U is pretty damn terrific. Of course, who can know? Maybe they'll start selling super rare end-game drops and kind of ruin the whole experience. That starter pack is definitely pretty harmless though, it just gives you the stuff you otherwise spend the first couple hours grinding out resources for. (You could argue that it delays new players learning which resources they need to value and be aware of, i suppose.)

This would be the greatest troll in the history of video games.

It did, i never used it for its intended purpose, but it's a great spot to briefly put down a 3DS without losing track of the screen. I don't know though, i feel like Nintendo invited a lot of the control scheme hysteria over Kid Icarus Uprising by drawing attention to it with that stupid thing, they had already released multiple games with similar control schemes and nobody had really ever made a fuss about it. I came into Uprising from having played tons of Metroid Prime: Hunters on the original DS and basically had no problems with the control scheme in either game. (I push the lower right corner of the system into the palm of my stylus hand so i'm not putting the whole weight of the thing on my left wrist. Problem solved, no cramps. At least, no more than you would get from playing any input-intensive handheld game for long hours.)

I admire what Order of Ecclesia tries to do, bridging the two disparate styles of Castlevania games, and it's probably the most polished and well presented of all the Igarashi games, but for some reason it never really clicked with me all that strongly. The Sorrow games are definitely my personal favorites.

I think Tokyo Crash Mobs is hilarious and dumb with its weird digitized sprites and campy, surreal FMV. It's actually like Zuma though, it's that kind of puzzle game, and it's from the guys PopCap ripped off in creating Zuma. Given how flamboyantly strange it is, it's probably not for everyone, but i dig it. I think Kid Icarus: Uprising is pretty terrific. If a relatively light-weight third-person shooter with some distinctive mechanics and an expansive and complex loot grind sounds appealing, definitely check it out. (People tend to complain about the control a lot, but if you've played any other DS or 3DS games that do stylus aiming in conjunction with the d-pad or the analog stick for movement, you already know if the control scheme with give you any issue.) People i trust say Wonderful 101 is pretty amazing, if lacking in tutorialization, but i haven't played it myself. Sticker Star and Photo Finder are pretty blah, and i didn't personally like the Dillon games either.

Would it help if i told you that the Sorrow games feature a weird near-future setting? For real though, i do think you should try to play at least one of the Igarashi Castlevanias, it's the "Vania" part of Metroidvania.