How close God Eater 3 to 1-2 in terms of gameplay?

[Transcendental Raccoon]

I was wondering how close these games are gameplay wise?
Crafting custom bullets was an interesting idea, but that was about it - I've found everything else very boring and repetitive.
I don't have a problem with monster hunting/boss rush games in general since I loved MH:W, but God Eater in particular bored the♥♥♥♥♥♥out of me.
So is the new game close to the older ones or there are some gameplay changes/improvements?

[Tregarde]

Some minor tweaks, but overall it's pretty much the same as the previous God Eaters.

[Aethanix]

Feels way better in my opinion whilst still having the same feeling? if that makes sense

[RexEviL]

Faster, stronger, more dynamic, most attacks and devours don't feel clunky. Gameplay is more towards melee instead of ranged in previous games.

If you play GE3 for 30min you simply can't bear to play previous games. That how it feels like.

[Ruego Al Alba]

--- Compared to 1 and 2, 3's way of handling camera is better.

Camera: You can now select view distance, meaning you can either have the camera hug your character's back or have the camera really distant like in an MMORPG.

--- Compared to 1 and 2, 3's attack speed is marginally higher on every weapon.

Attacks: Some weapons such as the Buster Blade have different movesets and hit counts compared to the earlier renditions.

--- Compared to 1 and 2, 3's guns are weaker but better balanced.

Guns: Especially compared to Rage Burst, which had Blood Bullets, guns in 3 aren't nearly as strong early or late game. However, the shotgun is no longer subpar. The replacement of the Blast Gun with the Ray Gun also means you can't make meme bombs anymore, and you can't abuse Ultra-Range on sniper rifles like you could before. That said, gun feedback is kind of bad because of a distinct lack of recoil. Assault Guns in generally don't feel very nice either because of the input lag, making you fire the gun slower than the word "Assault" implies.

Custom bullets are also limited use. They don't run on OP anymore.

--- Compared to 1 and 2, 3's NPC companions are *much* stronger.

Companions: I once let three companions fight little aragami by themselves and they mopped the floor with them very easily. They're very useful, but it might be less fun if you wanted to be the one that carries the team rather than the team pulling their own weight. Consequently, this leads to the next point.

--- Compared to 1 and 2, 3's difficulty is much higher.

Difficulty: Aragami are much faster and their attack delays are shorter. One particular aragami (Havakiri) is so strong that they actually do need to be nerfed as their speed and hitboxes make fighting it a lot more painful than other higher-tier aragami. Ashborn aragami can also devour you and if you get devoured then get incapacitated while having the devour debuff you can't be revived and have to respawn.

Soloing is a lot harder than in previous games. Stunning and staggering aragami takes more effort than before and there aren't many options for passive defense increases early on, meaning you should probably get good at performing Just Guards or using tower shields.

The lack of Support Units also means you can't get stuff like Bond Sure Break or Full Burst. Acceleration triggers, Burst Art Effects, and Engage effects don't emulate any of the support passives.

Aragami such as Vajra and Chi You are even more annoying than before.

--- Compared to 2, 3's Burst Arts are a lot more flexible.

Burst Arts: In GE2 you could only equip one Blood Art at a time, but in GE3 you equip 3 at a time with Burst Art Effects modifying the "finishers." In GE3 you don't play around one special ability. You play around three of them at a time. This works really well on every weapon except the Biting Edge. The Biting Edge has a problem with prioritization due to the second form (Glaive) having a full moveset different from the normal form (Daggers). If you slot for Glaive, the Daggers will be too weak to justify using, and if you slot for Daggers they're still worse in DPS than the Glaive form with the silver lining being that they take a lot less stamina to use.

[vinzi]

@Koloss
Great post! Thank you!

[Demaulicus]

To me God Eater 3 feels like a bad fusion of God Eater 1 & 2. The gameplay got severely easier as even though most of the Aragami bosses got sped up compared to previous games all you have to do is fight until you drop below half health then run around the map to find a healing well. For the most part items have become irrelevant due to the healing wells.

As far as features go people who played the previous games will remember Link Support Device which gave a bonus which costed points that had a cap limit. I feel the Link Burst in God Eater 3 replaced this feature. Mission variation was stripped from 5-7 sections (need to look at the previous games for the exact number) down to 2 sections (Story and Assault) for God Eater 3.

Most of the boss Aragami were easy to fight and only ran into annoyances like Havakiri and the Ash Aragami since when they devoured they could 1-2 shot you in that mode. All you had to do was wait the timer out by range attacking the bosses until their buff ran out before attacking melee again.

The story (if you could claim the game had one) felt more like a bunch of small plot points that failed to actually connect into a true story.

Combat was pretty much RT + A or R2 + X depending on controller style. Can't remember the keyboard controls for the Air Dash but this was how you dodge. Standard dodge tended to get you hit. Blocking became more important since the Aragami on average are faster. For those wondering Venom is a great perk for the weapon as it destroys most boss Aragami (there are a few that aren't impacted by this).

God Eater 3 saw certain features stripped from the game without adding anything to replace them along with a couple things that were changed but didn't add any real benefit to the game. This is a game you'll either enjoy, feel neutral on, or dislike regardless if you played the previous games or are new to the series. For me I was disappointed with the way God Eater 3 released and couldn't give it a positive review with the amount of bad development decisions made for this game and such.

[PFC Demigo [29th ID]]

God Eater 3 just has a Faster Paced Combat overall.
Much more Fluid, Dynamic and Smooth.

[Transcendental Raccoon]

@Koloss and @Iris Heart (Demaulicus), thank you for the detailed answers!
I think, I will probably skip the game.
But thanks for weighing in!