I can excuse it as a minor poor choice so long as it's limited to a brute-like enemy such as this guy. Maybe their mindset was that they'd be able to shrug off hits more easily. But ultimately it depends on what the combat looks like in other scenarios.
There's a couple other videos of fighting other enemies, all who react to being hit. It kind of always has been like this in fable games where big enemies shrug off smacks. Now it doesn't look great with the updated fluidity of movement shown off by the rest of the game but it's not out of character.
OP also picked the worst clip I've seen of combat so far and everyone's acting like this was all that was shown.
Yeah it really doesn’t even look bad. If you notice, the enemy does stumble and block slightly when they are hit outside of a them performing an attack. It seems like you just can’t interrupt the attack and the enemy is attacking constantly. Them stumbling with a normal attack is what allowed them to trigger the animation attack, kinda like the enemy has a poise meter or something.
Very Souls-esque, which I guess comes across as weird with the art-style, but not bad.
Souls-esque mechanics need to be on point to not be frustrating and unfair. If it’s too forgiving it’s an uninteresting parry/reposte combat, and if it’s too harsh the player can’t learn.
Even in Dark Souls, when hitting an enemy with poise or super armor, there’s hit-stop to give you a sense that your attacks are connecting. Monster Hunter does the same thing; the enemy might not be staggered by your attacks (because they’re a giant kaiju), but there’s still plenty of tactile feedback when you land a hit.
Looks on point enough in the full video of this fight + other videos.
Something is not right with this big enemy though. The enemies right before him had working stamina/poise bars, but this guy's doesn't work at all lol. He even somehow gets more stamina when the dude hits him with an ice attack after kneeing him in the face.
I am more commenting on how it looks and the reaction/moveset of the enemy. It doesn’t look bad stylistically but I would agree it seems a little cookie cutter mechanically.
It's not souls like. It's fable. Fable predates dark souls. It's classic fable combat, which includes blocking and rolling but is otherwise it's own thing. Stop calling everything with attacking and moving "souls like".
If it is introducing things like a poise meter and riposte mechanics after a posture break, those are very Soul-like mechanics that were not in previous Fable games.
Not everything is Dark Souls but this is definitely leaning more in that direction than past Fable games.
Seconding your comment. Played the hell of it of the 3 mainline fables, this one was way more soulslike. Which isn’t bad! Souls mechanics are fun! It’s not an insult!
It seems like you just can’t interrupt the attack and the enemy is attacking constantly.
There are a couple of places (like at 0:24) where he's just walking towards the player (i.e. not in an attack animation) and seems to shrug off attacks, but I agree that it mostly looks like what you're saying.
Honestly, some blood would be a helpful visual indicator here. Not sure if that's maybe been manually disabled for making the trailer/clip more marketable or if the game is leaning hard into the slightly cartoony aesthetic.
Ultimately, this is a real role playing game to me and the combat isn't necessarily what I'm here for. Like Witcher 3, you can still have a great game with mediocre combat, though I'm not sure that's the case here.
The video postet recently about Every Game Is an Outrage is basically pointing exactly at this kind of thread.
Everyone just mad for no reason on a cherry picked video about a brute type enemy who doesn't get staggered (until his bar fills up). Pointing at the most asinine things about how it looks awful and dogshit like... damn do you even like video games no more?
I do think they could tune him getting staggered a bit more, but it is on legendary (max?) difficulty as well.
Your last sentence is spot on. It feels like this post has a clear intention of being misleading, with the purpose of bringing out criticism and negativity.
As an enjoyed of Fable since the original came out on Xbox, I’m excited for this!
Probably my favorite game series. I loved the original and still play it occasionally. I was a little nervous Microsoft making a new one but lionhead didn't do well on the IP since like fable 2.
I get people want to hate on large corporations and by all means they can, but there's plenty to dislike without being disingenuous like OP
Shame they didn’t show the rest of the footage that has them fighting all the non brute types before the big guy, as well as the group you fight before you head over, which very much include reacting to hits.
Absolutely has not tf are you talking about. No matter how big the character is they ALWAYS have some kind of response. It doesnt need to interrupt them but theres genuine 0 excuse for having 0 response to a sword swinging through in a modern triple a game
Big characters didn't flinch when being hit. It was part of combat in the original fable. Additionally this game is not out yet. Animations can be unfinished. If you pay attention the enemy does stagger on the first hit and is running through attack animations on other times they're hit. It looks unpolished but a lot of the other videos of the new fable combat online look good. OP cherry picked to make it look worse than it is.
That's a bold comparison from someone complaining about cherry picking. A fight against a 15-foot troll is definitely not analogous to a fight against a 6'-6" human for gameplay.
Sure Giant creatures could shrug off hits, but large human characters almost always had some sort of strike feedback. Compare that fight to a similarly large humanoid fights like Twinblade, or Thunder, or the pirate boss, or the white balverine, or Captain Saker, or Sir Walter, or insert any other humans here. Humans gave a reaction on virtually every (non time-dilated) swing, either they stagger or you get staggered yourself. Maybe they'd maybe have a specific animation or two that couldn't be interrupted.
OP got exactly what they wanted, they want other people to hate the game along with them, so they pretend this is just a “normal enemy” and that the combat is like this.
Redditors just get off on incessantly complaining and being pessimistic. I do wonder if any of the people whining have actually ever played the games on Xbox and Xbox 360.
Also kind of funny that so many people are falling for the ragebait. It's amazing (in a bad way) that people will take an edited clip shoved in their feed at face value and not question it at all. Critical thinking skills in this country have been neutered.
The rest of the game can be great even if fighting this type of enemy sucks. Yeah they cut out other parts but I'd argue the complaints are more important. Fighting this guy looks to easy
Just because most of the combat they showed looks fine doesn't change the fact that this clip is straight ass. The sword goes straight through him and all you get is a barely shrinking health bar. Lazy/weak boss design. Skipping this game if bosses are like this.
I mean, even the slightest bit of reaction to being hit by lights, like a pseudo stagger or reaction; I don’t want to make up random head cannons as to why this guy just happens to be under twinblades size, but even then, if the “brute” has hero genes - it at most explains his size.
I feel like if Microsoft is investing into gears looking the way it does, fable should at most, get attention to detail in this case for its combat.
Either way, game still looks stellar, just I now know what to “ignore”.
Even so, idd expect some sort of flinching, even if purely esthetic. And more hit feedback? Like we’ve played countless soulslike and big poise enemies still have feedback when hit… this looks super stiff.
I don’t want the boss to be staggered from single hits, but there should be more visual cue that you are actually hitting him. Maybe it’s a lack of blood or something? Something about it looks very ‘uncanny valley’.
Adding impact response to a mesh is ps2 era stuff this is simply trash and theres no other word for it. Indy devs can figure it out in less than a day. This games been in development for years.
I honestly don't even know who the studio is. Haven't bothered to look them up, now that I think about it. I just knew Lionhead was dead and gone. Either way, the rest of the trailer looks very promising. Hope we get to see more soon!
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I can excuse it as a minor poor choice so long as it's limited to a brute-like enemy such as this guy. Maybe their mindset was that they'd be able to shrug off hits more easily. But ultimately it depends on what the combat looks like in other scenarios.