This Week On PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale: Free Avatars, Oh Kratos... you continue to goof.

[RK64]

Wait, hang on a minute. This is a mobile game?

 

They musn't be very confident about this if they're not hosting it on their own fucking platforms.

 

Escpecally with the Vita having a touch screen/gyro controls that would be a good fit for the mini games. 

 

Mmm...a PS mini game collection with big Sony ip would be a great idea now that I think of it; temple run mini game for Uncharted (with great graphics of course), a Parapa the Rappa music mini game where you tap inputs on the touch screen with the song, a Velocity Ultra-inspired Gravity Rush mini game, LBP style version of Rayman Jungle Run, a light gun Ratchet and Clank mini game where you use the gyro to aim you guns and have the buttons/touch screen be used to swap your weapons, a Ape Escape mini game where you tap the monkeys to catch them (with some other mechanics involved like shaking the Vita to stun the monkeys or tilt the Vita to move monkeys toward you) and many more .

 

That idea would be a wonderful PS Vita exclusive PSN tittle and would be a great way to sell the Vita's features outside of it replicating the home console feel, which could turn into full games/PSN tittles too.

[Autosaver]

Wait, hang on a minute. This is a mobile game?

 

They musn't be very confident about this if they're not hosting it on their own fucking platforms.

 

Sony has a mobile brand now. They have their own phone line up and I think the PSVita may have access to some of their mobile designed games.

But yeah, cash-in with coke.

[PSI Wind]

Oh god, my sides.

My fucking sides.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Currently on mobile but can't link to it.

This game has just been given a massive patch which has changed nearly every character.

From reading it, the changes are going to greatly change the game.

[Teoskaven]

FINALLY! This patch was promised first for November 2013, then for December 2013 and then "in the first quarter of 2014".

Better late than never i guess.

[Marcello]

Currently on mobile but can't link to it.

This game has just been given a massive patch which has changed nearly every character.

From reading it, the changes are going to greatly change the game.

 

Here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=798347

[PSI Wind]

So, now that I have a PS3, I'm interested in picking this up. Do the DLC characters cost money now?

[Chooch]

Yo these patch notes are too real. Some characters still didn't get what they really needed but based on these changes I am confident the game will be more balanced.

 

 

I am super excited to come back to this game and play online. And the DLC characters have to be paid for now I believe.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Well they're certainly making an effort in promoting it this time.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7OTb7khHIQ

[Teoskaven]

As i said, the only way this game could possibly recieve more updates/DLC is making a PS4 version with cross-compatibility; sadly though, i'm not seeing that happening anytime (but the hopes for a proper sequel are still there for me).

[Chooch]

You can't realistically expect every PS3 game in the known universe to be put on PS4.

[Teoskaven]

What other titles i mentioned other than PSASBR?

 

Edit: Downloaded the patch (took 115 minutes btw), but sadly the promised missing trophies (finishing arcade mode with Emmett, Kat, Zeus and Isaac and doing a level 3 with Sir Dan in the Graveyard) are still missing. Oh well, at least they gave Zeus and Isaac's costumes free.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Look what you can get for free!

 

Avatars!

 

And if you thought the Kratos boxart was goofy looking, you ain't seen nothing yet.

 

https://store.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/#!/en-gb/games/avatars/playstation-all-stars-kratos-avatar/cid=EP9000-BCES01436_00-UAPASKRATOS00000

 

https://store.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/#!/en-gb/games/avatars/playstation-all-stars-sweet-tooth-avatar/cid=EP9000-BCES01436_00-UAPASSWEETTOOTH0

 

Edit: Theres quite a lot all free.

 

https://store.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/#!/en-gb/games/playstation-all-stars-battle-royale/cid=EP9000-NPEA00413_00-PSABATROYL000001%3AAVATARS

[Chooch]

Bumped the wrong topic. Oops.

[Crash]

Could anybody possibly help me get a trophy on the game? I need to do a versus match with an online player so if anyone would be willing to add me and help me to get it I would greatly appreciate it!

[Chooch]

I could help you out probably.

[Crash]

Okay great. My PSN is XtremeCow23.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Sorry for the thread bump, but since it's related, I thought I'd post it here.

 

That said.

 

Playstation All-Stars: What Went Wrong?

 

Playstation All-Stars was a game announced and released in 2012, it was a unique take of the Smash Bros formula where 20 Playstation characters would go up against each other in a bunch of maps. I say it was a unique take because unlike other mascot fighters, All-Stars used a unique system of All-Star Moves that worked as KOs.

 

But to get down to exactly what went wrong with the game, we should go over the basics, and what the game did right.

 

No matter what is said, I felt that All-Stars' super system was done in a really good system at first, a risk vs reward system if you will. The way the system was supposed to work that by spending time to build up more AP (Every attack builds up AP, and when you build up enough, you can pull off a super move). A level 1 super is the cheapest but was also the hardest to land, and was easily cancelled, therefore, while it was cheap, it was very risky. 

 

A Level 2 was more expensive and could only be cancelled if killed by another super. Due to it's higher cost and therefore requiring more time to build up to, it had the potential to get more kills and without as much risk.

 

A Level 3 was the most expensive super, being impossible to cancel, and have very high potential for a lot of kills and while it was very expensive, if you could pull it off, you could easily make a comeback.

 

Another thing All-Stars did to try stand out was to mix the Brawler formula with a more fighter based movesets. Each fighter got a variety of different moves that when pressed with a different button and movement (Up, Left, Right, and Down) would pull off a different move. 

 

Both of these two systems made the game very unique from other brawlers like TMNT Smash Up, which basically copy and pasted the Smash formula. One of the things I often see from Smash Bros fanboys is that ''ALL-STARS IS NOTHING BUT A CLONE'' when it's very very far from the truth, it was in fact, very unique from the Smash gameplay.

 

''Time for a comeback, Eh Dax?''

 

So what went wrong? At first, honestly, nothing. I've been playing All-Stars since the beginning, I played it at the Beta and from the game launch so trust me when I say I have a load of knowledge about this game. At first, the game was pretty damn fun. Characters were easy to handle and for the most part, most of the game issues hadn't cropped up yet. But patches began to take care of characters. But unfortunately, the games issues went downhill quickly from here. The major issues were five different things, which I'm going to look at one at a time.

 

 

''I AM THE CHARACTER OF SPAM''

 

Issue 1: Unbalanced Characters (Overpowered & Underpowered), and Useless Patches

 

This was one of the biggest issues from the game's beginning. Characters like Kratos and Raiden were unbelievably overpowered, while others like Jak & Spike were underpowered. Kratos for example had attacks that were far too easily spammed, and had a massive AP gain which meant getting 2 Level 3 Supers in one match which lasted for three minutes was easily achievable because of the spammy nature of his moves and the huge AP gain from them.

 

Raiden on the other hand, had spammy moves as well, but he also had another problem, his supers were crazily overpowered. Level 2 supers are meant to be able to get three kills at most. Raiden's Level 2 can easily get four kills and even able to get more kills than some level 3 Supers, along with having a stun move that makes it even easier to get kills. 

 

But Sony Santa Monica (Who are the creators of God of War and who helped Superbot Entertainment with the game, along with taking over development after Sony got rid of Superbot) were not good at doing balance patches at all. At present, Kratos is still unbelievably overpowered, as is Raiden, and they even managed to succeed in making other characters overpowered as well!

 

This is especially terrible because after about 10 small patches and 2 mega patches, these unbalanced characters were still broken or unusable due to how weak they are. That was one of the major issues with the game and it still is. This also extended to the DLC characters. Kat especially was banned from tourneys due to how broken and OP she became at one point.

 

 

 

Issue 2: No Support Less Than A Year In.

 

Another thing All-Stars was meant to have was continued DLC support after it's released and at first, this seemed to be the case. A few months later, Kat from Gravity Rush and Emmett from Starhawk were released as DLC, and as a sign of good will, were released free for one month. While they needed some work, they were a sign of continued support and as everyone wondered who could be the next characters to be included, it was finally announced...only to be disappointing and more or less a cash cow.

 

 

This one is going to need context. Basically, this was clearly a Cash Cow decision was this DLC was released near the launch of Dead Space 3 and God of War Ascension, I.E: The characters were chosen to advertise those games. On top of that, it was previously said that only one character from each franchise would get in (The exception being Cole because of the Good!Evil stories in inFamous), and Issac not having anything to do with Playstation so it was pretty much just to advertise those two games.

 

Furthering that is the fact that God of War Ascension came with a code to get the two characters for free.

 

Other than characters, two stages were also released, some costumes were released, and some minions (Chibi versions of characters from the franchises who cheer you on in game). That was it. Nothing else. But there is still some more to discuss. You see, there was two more characters, and one more stage to come, and this was quite famous in fact.

 

 

You see, there was to be another DLC, including fan favourite characters Dart from the PS1 game Legend of Dragoon and Abe from Oddworld, along with a Gravity Rush stage, but these were all cancelled for an unknown reason, despite fan petitions and more to try get the DLC released. All it resulted from was empty words from Sony Santa Monica, and the promise of a final patch to be released soon.

 

What happened was the patch got delayed until months later, and when that patch happened (it was one of the mega patches), it failed to balance a lot of the characters.

 

 

Issue 3: GLITCHES

 

This was one of the things All-Stars was known for was the glitches and exploits in the game. From a glitch that gave Raiden an infinite level 2, to another glitch that basically broke the game entirely, making it impossible to start single player, and resulted in errors when you tried to go into multiplayer, this game was plagued with glitches and currently still is. with things like infinite loading screens, level 3's failing to activate, your character getting randomly switched with another, and more. 

 

 

Issue 4: Unblockable Combos/Touch of Deaths

 

This issue in particular was one of two issues that was All-Stars' final nails in the coffin. Basically, the massive problem here is that Superbot didn't include a method to break combos in the game, which means that if you get trapped into a combo, you are stuck in it, with being able to do nothing. On top of this, there is several moves that can grab hold of a player, stuns them, and brings them to the attacker, forcing them into a combo, meaning the same combo can kept being used over and over again until a Level 2 or 3 is achieved. But even worse, is the Touch of Death, a combo which basically can be done with 0 AP, stuns the player, gives the attacker enough AP for a Level 1, and then finally forces them into a confirmed Level 1 kill.

 

As you can imagine, due to the nature of these combos, it means that players can be kept within combos and are basically forced to sit there without being able to play while the attacker repeats the same unblockable combo over and over again, and can even KO the player before they even get a chance to attack!.

 

 

Issue 5: Kill Confirms

 

This was the final nail in All-Stars. The reason why this happened is because this basically broke the super system I explained earlier. You see, by exploiting the game's combo system, by using a move which sets up a combo, you can use a kill confirm, where you kill someone when they are stunned and unable to block because the combo system was exploited. Which this basically means is the Risk Vs Reward system is completely broken.

 

Why go for a Level 2 when you could just use a cheap level 1, and 100% confirm your kill? Why go for Level 3 when you could get a bunch of Level 1's for that price and use a cheap kill confirm?

 

This was the final nail in All-Stars' coffin. This is what finished the game off. By breaking this system and exploiting the combo system into such a cheap kill move, that was what turned a fun balanced game into a cheap, broken mess of a fighter.

 

 

Ryan's Final Thoughts:

 

Playstation All-Stars was a great, unique fighter. I loved this game when I first played it. I loved this new super system, I loved seeing characters like Jak getting a much awaited return, All-Stars was responsible for getting me into new series like PaRappa and Ape Escape. As Smash fanboys claimed this was nothing more than a clone, I watched the gameplay and eagerly awaited for this game to come out, I saw the new risk vs reward system, and I was just so excited to play this, and the game delivered. It really did. 

 

But that's where the flaws of the game just ruined it. With enough skill, you can beat people trying to spam with characters like Kratos, you could still have fun despite no further DLC updates, but the broken combo system, the cheap kill confirms, and the absolutely annoying glitches all just brought this game down. It's a massive shame, because All-Stars could have been something great, but with the issues, along with other things such as poor netcode, among other things, it's sad what happened, even if Sony and Sony Santa Monica at least put the time in to get these issues fixed up, the game could really be something great, but in it's current state, it's honestly nothing more than wasted potential

 

However, I do think this game deserves a second chance, with a developer who's willing to put the time and effort into getting these issues fixed up. If they do that, we could really have a great brawler game. That's why I do hope we might see a Enhanced Edition on PS4, or even a sequel, cleaning up these glaring issues and making this into the brilliant fighter we had at launch.

 

So, with that. That's my full thoughts on what went wrong with Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale, coming from the perspective of a person who has played this game from the beginning. Please tell me your thoughts and give me so feedback!  

 

It's a shame things went down like this for All-Stars to be honest. I would have liked to maybe get a tourney going for SSMB if there was enough interest but with Smash 4 and all that, I'd doubt it.