Preach. (also, some comparisons between Doom, Bloodborne and DMC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC6hkv9isss
Now that I’m thinking about it, removing the Vital Stars, Devil Stars, Holy Water and Yellow Orbs might’ve been Itsuno actively trying to prevent players from purchasing a stash of Red Orbs and arming themselves to the grills with items.
I believe DMC5 is actually taking a page from another awesome demon-slaying franchise -- DOOM 2016.
In DOOM, you can’t keep health packs in your inventory and use them at will. There are health packs laying around in the various open battlegrounds, encouraging you to move around and never stop. Enemies are basically health packs in themselves and DOOM encourages maximum but skilled aggression from the player; if you’re low on health, staying put or hiding behind cover is a sure-fire way to get yourself killed. You can’t charge in guns blazing as well -- I emphasized “skilled aggression” because just like in DMC, you need to know how your enemies move and how your weapons work in DOOM. You need to know which weapon mod to equip and what weapon works best for a situation. This results in quick and visceral demon-slaughtering sessions that emphasizes skill and quick thinking; sound familiar?
In DMC5, there’s no more Vital Stars or Devil Stars because they’ve made some changes that seem minor on the surface but actually changes the game quite a bit. DT now regenerates much faster and health regenerates much faster when you use it. If you’re low on health, the best way to survive in DMC5 is to go down swinging. It’s also pretty similar to Bloodborne, where you can recover lost health by immediately attacking an enemy who just attacked you.
This new system in DMC5 also actively prevents the scenario where some chuckle-fuck buys a ton of Red Orbs and buys 10 Vital Stars, 10 Devil Stars and 10 Holy Waters and cheeses his way through the game. So yeah, there’s still no “skipping the game” through microtransactions -- you have to play it, practice and get fucking good.
