#assault spy

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I'M STREAMING ASSAULT SPY

They gave the chief of R&D a portal machine and she was sent to the mirror world so she poses as a specialist in the CIA to um...do, something? With the company? Look this game is a lot ok?

Attendance is mandatory~

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010: Assault Spy

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Salaryman Devil May Cry. Within seconds of watching it, you’ll immediately be able to clock the influence, down to the individual animations and attack names. Corporate spy Asaru may be more prim and proper than Capcom’s layabout bounty hunter, but he’s happy to borrow from Dante’s moveset. But while Assault Spy may owe a debt to DMC and its ilk, it changes the approach in ways that shake up the core rhythms of its inspirations. 

Developed largely by solo developer Wazen, the difference in production means Assault Spy can't compete with the sheer variety of Dante's ever expanding moveset. Instead of the layered instrumentation of DMC, Assault Spy remixes and repurposes the percussion into a catchy new beat. Small stylistic flourishes add to the corporate spy flavor: battles start with massive “ENEMY ALERT '' text while cutting away to alternative angles to introduce the space, style rankings being named after flight seating classes (Economy, Business, First, Executive etc.). Even Asaru’s run animation is a forward leaning speed walk that makes him look like he’s late for a train. 

As far as combat goes, Asaru, and alternate playable character Amelia (1), each have their own distinct timings for inflicting maximum damage. Asaru's business-like demeanor means he gets the most from pulling off actions just in time, with several attacks having a "Just"(2) version that inflicts more damage, leading to different follow-ups or causing different effects. It doesn't require the precision that those familiar with the term might expect, but it does mean doing things the "proper" way, with well considered timing and rhythm, is heavily rewarded over button mashing. This is supplemented by an Overclock, which builds as you attack and perform Just Dodges, eventually allowing you to slow time to a crawl.

Amelia, with her wild, impulsive personality, uses held button presses to unleash big bursts of damage. Combined with her suite of multi-hit attacks, she can wail on enemies, then finish off a combo with the choice of either focused directional damage or an explosive AOE attack. Each builds up her Hype meter, upping her damage output and allowing her even more powerful versions of her dash, energy pillar and laser cannon. 

Regardless of who you choose, you'll be equipped with a high speed dash, which is important enough to merit being mapped to a face button in the default control scheme. Dashing works both as a short range evade and long range sprint, instantly getting you out of danger and letting you reposition yourself anywhere in the arena. Short taps can be used for precise maneuvers, and holding the button gets you out of range of everyone, except certain ranged enemies. In function, it's not unlike Dante's Trickster style dash from later games, but removed of DMC's awkward legacy controls, resulting in more immediately accessible and flexible movement (3).

Other stylish action games are by no means slow, but Assault Spy makes them look like considered games of strategy in comparison. The manic, explosive speed requires a change in approach for enemies and level designs, with complex office layouts and industrial machinery creating obstacles to both impede your passage and use as cover from enemy fire, often with plenty of destructible scenery in play. 

Controlling the space means pinballing through obstacles within a room, and sometimes, cutting straight through them. There aren’t many enemies that require specific directional positioning, and the ones that do can be guard broken easily using certain techniques. Combat is less about precision engagements and more about managing the overall flow of enemies within an area. Assault Spy is plenty generous with the tools you need to do that, and doesn’t often dole out hard punishments for mistakes. 

The overall generosity of the systems and lack of punishment leads to a low friction design to the game, outside of boss battles, at least on the default difficulty. That isn’t to say that I never struggled or failed, but Asaru and Amelia are both so overpowered that I never had to seriously buckle down and learn an encounter. 

The low friction instead leaves a lot of room for self-expression, not exactly letting you approach the game whatever way you want, but instead giving you plenty of ways to deal with each situation and letting you find your own routes and solutions. To that point, there’s a training mode available from practically anywhere in the campaign, as long as you aren’t actively in combat, where you can practice moves and timing at your own pace. If you ever do get stuck, or want to pull off a particular maneuver, just pause for a moment and quickly lab it out. 

By the end of the game I was using the training mode just to remind myself what moves I had on hand. It might not be the near infinite toolset of its inspiration, but Assault Spy still has plenty to express yourself with. To that effect, Amelia ended up being my preferred character. Her moveset worked better for my own impatient playstyle, and her campaign really begins to go off the rails. 

Asaru and Amelia share the same set of levels (including a short, but ill conceived stealth tribute to Metal Gear Solid), but while Asaru’s story tells a largely straightforward tale of a corporate heist going bad, Amelia’s story starts wrapping in parallel universes and a whole heap of exaggerated American English. By the end it even layers on Asaru’s Overclock as an option, and then lets you switch to him on the fly. Between the wild story and absolute aggression you can unleash, it makes Amelia's campaign by far the stronger half. 

Even after essentially binging the entire game over a few VOIP calls, the simple pleasure of working out combos and digging into new moves had me coming back to Assault Spy. The sheer energy and fluidity of it is incredible. The way it ratchets up the pace gives me the feeling of running up the gear shift, as my mind spins at higher and higher speeds until it's carried away by the momentum. The relatively simple controls make it easy to settle with, giving me more space to work out new routes, relying on the satisfaction of my staple moves when I need time to think. 

It's easy to look at a game like Assault Spy and think of it only as a derivative work especially when it lays it out so openly, but what makes it work is the ways it branches off. The little stylistic touches, the change in rhythm and tone, all of it creates a wonderful, original work. Like DmC: Devil May Cry and Bayonetta, Assault Spy carves its own identity out of the bones of its inspiration, with a confident stride towards what it sees as the next step. 

Assault Spy is available on PC, via Steam and GOG. 

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Top 10 Games I Want Ported FROM PC VI: Fully Loaded

Top 10 Games I Want Ported FROM PC VI: Fully Loaded

Time to return to my April Fools’ tradition. What is left to say about it that I haven’t said in years past? I’ve done five lists so far, and now I’ll be doing a sixth. That’s almost impressive in a sense, if only because that means there are still so many games exclusive to the PC, even as it becomes more and more difficult to find games for my own self-serving lists. Of course, part of the…

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Also recently finished Assault Spy, a hack-and-slash "character action game" about the professional yet unfortunate Asaru and the excitable yet violent Amelia as they take on a job to investigate and stop the goings on of the Negabot Company. It's a fun little action game that wears its DMC inspiration on its sleeve.

The game is overall fun, but I've got my nitpicks. It seems I’m two-for-two with complaints about controls because the dash button being on X and not B like 90% of all other action games I’ve played caused a lot of issues until I just switched the controls to something that made sense [A- Jump, B-Dash, X-Attack 1, Y-Attack 2 for the record]. Speaking of the dash button, it and general dash inputs don't feel good, as if you mash the button a little too fast (especially for Asaru) you can get stuck doing a dash attack where you meant to just close the distance for a normal combo attack. It reminds me why DMC and Bayonetta had you double-tapping forward for moves like that so that the dodge button didn’t cause accidental inputs. Equally, this game commits the grave sin of many other action games by having platforming segments in it despite the annoyingly slippery controls when attempting precise movements (see my dash button complaint above). Again, this isn’t the only DMC-like to try that, but it’s always annoying when the game stops to do platforming that ultimately wastes time and shows just how bad the precision in this game is.

But it wasn’t all nitpicks and bad moments. The story was honestly my favorite part. This game didn’t take itself seriously much to its benefit and every other cutscene got a smirk and light chuckle from me due to the dialogue and how well the characters played off each other. The voice acting was top notch in terms of being a silly action plot and all the voice artists doing an absolutely fantastic job with the lines they had, special shoutouts to the voices of Kanako, Amelia, and Chidori. My favorite character overall was Amelia, her combat style rewarded aggression and her super mode made a lot of the later stages tolerable when most of the enemies spammed projectiles from off screen.

I'm a little hesitant in recommending this one, as I think the DMCs and general rise in action games within the last few years have made early indie games like this showing their age a bit, but if you're a fan of action games and have 20 bucks to spare then give this game a shot, at least for the Amelia playthrough.

[eriserinyes]

I'm streaming assault spy!

The world of corporate espionage is wild man, the head of the sales department just performed JUDGEMENT CUT END in the break room I gotta get the fuck out of here.

Attendance is mandatory~

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Kazama - Assault Spy

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Asaru Vito - Assault Spy