This is an Oni thread. Talk about Oni in this thread

Also they hired a professional architect to construct levels. Turned out it was a bad idea. Minimalistic levels kinda fit the cyberpunk theme of the game though.

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Designing linear levels and designing buildings people are going to use IRL isn't the same thing. I wonder how that came to be since it wasn't Bungie's first game.

Also, pity that they never did anything more with the IP, or that nobody else made a spiritual sequel. Vidya needs more Ghost in the Shell ripoffs.

Bungie was going big by opening a second studio, Bungie West. They hired an actual licensed architectural firm to do the level design, Hollywood FX animators to do the characters, and of course ordered anime cutscenes by AIC (of Bubblegum Crisis and Black Magic M-66 fame).

Then they sold out to M$, all got ingested, became "Halo Inc.", giving Oni to Rockstar (who has done nothing with it) and Myth to GOD (who killed the franchise with The Wolf Age.

Oni really doesn't feel that much like GitS beyond the superficial level, it's really a lot more shonen. If I were going to pick a game to reuse for the GitS license, it would be Deus Ex, everything from the themes to the mechanics fit GitS like a glove.

Deus Ex is its own thing.

That being said, I'd love a third person game aping Deus Ex design concepts (freedom of approach to your objectives and viable character builds) but closer to Ghost in the Shell in terms of worldbuilding and artstyle.

I mean, imagine you could chose to customize your body for different playstyles, almost like a mecha, on top of your standard skills and augs, and that the game let you be a proper GitS cyborg almost immune to drop damage, able to jump incredible distances and being able to kill a normal human enemy with just a punch.

Goes to show how useless it is to involve those kinds of people in game development.

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This is something I've thought about before and it's why I think most really good games tend to involve people who wind up coming from other industries into game development.

I mean, look at Miyazaki, the guy was a Social Sciences major who just up and decided he wanted to get into games development one day.

And made their first good game.

The cyborg powers are certainly part of it, but the biggest thing for me is the way the open-ended level design meshes with your character build and loadout. So much of GitS is Section 9 doing undercover work to gather intel from hostile organizations, and planning spec-ops against hardsites, something about 80% Deus Ex and 20% SWAT/(classic) Rainbow 6 would do very naughty things to me.

Eh, it sometimes works out. Remember when the ARG they commissioned as part of the marketing blitz for Halo 2 had more plot in it than any Halo game, and it eventually bled into the (IMHO superior for such a mediocre series) singleplayer for ODST? Sometimes they sneak in, too, like Hollywood concept artist Craig Mullins, who was hired because of popular acclaim for his Marathon fanart in the community.

Vaporware as well

Just make the character the usual vidya protagonist with a lot of leeway in where he goes and what he does. Deus Ex had your working for UNATCO and others and it didn't get in the way of the gameplay.

Hell, make the PC an agent of one corporation or another, or a mercenary freelancer within an open ended world where he can pick and choose what missions to do.

What I meant with GitS is how no cyberpunk game ever really makes you feel like you're playing an enhanced human. In EYE you character can jump ridiculous distances with ease, and it goes a long way into making you realize you are playing something that is not quite human.

Same with GitS cyborgs. They might look like humans and act like them, but their insides are nothing like that, and when you see the Major or Batou go at it becomes apparent.

got this bundled with the ps2, was so new to the controllers that i had no idea R3 existed so i never shot the gun once and thought the game blew balls, is it worth emulating nowadays?

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Oh, absolutely. That's something that always made games like Deus Ex or Crysis feel so much more believable than stuff like Halo, where the player always feels mundane aside from occasionally flipping over a tank or ripping a turret off its mount. You can run like a motorcycle, jump onto rooftops, throw desks, punch people across a room, and smash through walls, but it never quite feels cartoony like Metal Gear Rising.

Yes, it's worth playing if you like beat'em'ups or third-person shooters at all. Get the PC version, the fanmade Anniversary Edition fix has updated Windows and Mac binaries.
pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Oni

You can download the pc version off igg and search for the compatibility patch so you can play on win7

Impressive, there is apparently a functional netplay patch in the early alpha stages:
wiki.oni2.net/Zukai

Why the fuck did Bungie have to go to shit? Just why?

also Oni illustration.

The shooting controls in this game where so laughably bad that it made it unplayable for me. I am not at all ashamed to admit I cheated and gave myself god-mode to get through it and see the story. My autism was not up to the task with wrestling with those horrible horrible gun controls. I'm glad I got it years afterwards for $2.

Was it any different and/or better if played on the PC?

Similar to any random mouselook FPS, but in 3rd person, almost exactly like PC Max Payne or Mass Effect, but with very wide and sharply sticky lock-on for ranged weapons. It felt perfectly fine to me.

Bungee shat this game out so unfinished and with cut content it's not even funny.

alcoholism

Bump.
Anyone know how to fix the black lines on the skybox?

I'm only interested in laughing that Bungie making a weeb game. Makes you wonder what long forgotten titles exist in big dev names past.

I'm totally playing the shit out of that once they're finished with it, by which time I'll be an old man in a rocking chair, playing it as I tell my grandchildren about how their games are shit.

I watched my brother play this in the early 2000s on various PCs. It was always very exciting just to watch so I could take in all the art, which is often what I still do with video games. This one in particular inspired me to draw and pursue art.

oni.bungie.org/archives/drawing_konoko/drawingkonoko.htm

I never understood what problem people had with the game. We had the PC version, so it really did not seem that awkward to control, and the martial arts moves were satisfying. Maybe I just enjoyed it for the visuals, voice acting, and overall impression and not so much the game play. I adored the futuristic sci-fi anime theme.

Oh also ever notice how the illustrations and box art etcetera seemed all over the place?

Lies and broken promises.
The biggest one being online multiplayer that actually existed in the early builds but was later removed from retail.
There is just so much cut content that modders are still digging and finding stuff to this day, the last one being references to a level called konoko apartment and two animations of her taking of her clothes and bra.
It's crazy.

I wonder how much more fondly it would be remembered if they had left in that classic anime fanservice.

It might have been something decided on as a result of blood being dropped. On THAT subject, though, I think it was largely technical, since they couldn't do glorious gore and blood fountains the way they had with sprites in PiD, Marathon, and Myst. I think Halo sort of inherited this flaw, invincible ragdolls bouncing around leaving inexplicable blood smears everywhere, much like another technical flaw shared by Oni, the 3rd person camera clipping through opaque objects instead of pushing in or rendering obstructions translucent.

Oni soit qui mal y pense

There are already a ton of good GiTS games, though.

I'm pretty sure I did an all melee run of the game at some point, I loved the shit.

daodan mod?

I read that they had originally intended for her to be getting naked all the time like the character they ripped off took inspiration from, but one of the female employees kept raising a big stink about muh sexism so they just dropped it entirely

Is there a list of recommended mods and new levels?

Someone should definitely make one.

I just got this game a couple weeks ago on pc and its my first time playing it. I watched my dad run through it when it was new and he weeb'd the fuck out over it. Combat is pretty damn fun, but the voice acting is early 2000s flash animation tier.

Isn't that true to the medium, though?