Lightspeed Fighter Ramble

[Slate_M]

I have to be honest here, I don't understand the logic behind adding this to the game. I absolutely loved Automata and had no problems replaying multiple times for every ending, since each one brought a lot of new content/ story to the table. When it comes to Replicant, while I thouroughly enjoyed my initial playthroughs (spent over 80+ hours on ending A & B just taking my time with it, give or take a few hours from afk), I'm already starting to feel a slog going for ending E, let alone a whole new game for the speedrun.

 

C & D were good but it was still just replaying what I already did in B with seldom new content thrown in. The extra story was definitely insightful and welcome, but nothing about the pacing or order of events changed, ever (with the exception of the 3rd Louise fight, that kind of subtle change, that adds unexpected excitement, could have added a lot of replayability to other endings if done in several other locations).  This quickly turned into mindlessly rushing through all the content, only stopping for the new scenes. Now that I'm going for E, I have to replay most of the first act again and that's where the repetitiveness really started to hit me. The new content for ending E is what's driving me forward, but after all this what made someone think "they'll enjoy yet another full playthrough from scratch, after coming this far"? Yes I've heard some people got the trophy just fine on their very first playthrough, but requires skipping all but the main content (if you plan on watching cutscenes) and that is just not my style, nor do I think that's what the devs would expect people to do. 

 

Long story short, my biggest gripe, is that after several replays of the game, along with partial replays for D & E; Yet another new game for a speedrun, without levels, words, equipment, etc offers literally nothing new. No new story, costumes, weapons, secret scenes or anything. Most games I've played that had speedrun trophies, would give you something in game for completing it, or wouldn't be that bad since you only needed one initial playthrough of the base game, not 4+.

 

In the end, I wanted to love this game as much as Automata, since I had my eyes on the original for a long time after Automata. I knew it'd be rough around the edges not being a remake, so it's basically a touched up older gen game, made modern. But this trophy alone, is causing me to leave this game on a sour note, which really sucks. I definitely enjoyed my initial playthrough and would easily recommend the game to others. It's also not like the trophy is hard or anything. I just don't think enough thought went into it. It feels like one of the trophies that's there just to artificially increase overall playtime. They could have at least allowed you to earn it on E, as a last ditch effort for completing your entire journey in the game, if you didn't feel like doing it on a brand new save. Or added a bonus weapon, spell, or costumes at the end of an A speedrun, to entice people to go for it, to have extra goodies for B onwards.

 

That's basically all I had to say, but I'd love to hear how others experienced this trophy, as I'm having a hard time justifying it's existence.

[Infected Elite]

it was in the original ps3 trophy set.

Its easier here... combine it with Ending E, then you go back and just finish to ending A of that file.

A lot of people got the trophy that way.

 

[FielVeredus]

I think it is suck to add such speedrun trophy in the game that youu need to enjoy the time with it slowly.

For me, I skip all cutscene and most of side content, but i can still access them on B so no big deal beside first half, you can still do it on E route. and I watch cutscene on youtube after i just skipped cutscene.

But that's said, you can still recommend it to other one as most of player didn't care about trophy and they are going to have a blast not doing so.
 

Edited May 4, 2021 by FielVeredus

[kanzenchaos]

It was really easy in the original, I just skipped over everything on the easiest difficulty and did it with plenty of time left.

[BKnocheese]

Yeah the remake stuck closely to the original game, for better or worse. Automata, in my opinion, improved many things including making subsequent playthroughs more fast paced. I definitely felt the slog of getting to a new ending when getting ending C, and there was even more of that to get to ending E. Even so, I still loved the game. 

[Slate_M]

10 hours ago, BKnocheese said:

Yeah the remake stuck closely to the original game, for better or worse. Automata, in my opinion, improved many things including making subsequent playthroughs more fast paced. I definitely felt the slog of getting to a new ending when getting ending C, and there was even more of that to get to ending E. Even so, I still loved the game. 

Yeah exactly how I felt. Automata did multiple playthroughs really well by making each one feel really unique to the last. That said I still enjoyed Replicant's endings A through E but it started getting repetitive. I feel that slog could have been alleviated a bit by adding an incentive to ending A. If they gave you a special weapon or costume for beating A within a set time, it'd entice people to do a regular playthrough of A at their own pace, then they have the choice to make a new save and skip through A fast as possible, to have that bonus for the subsequent ending playthroughs.

17 hours ago, Infected Elite said:

it was in the original ps3 trophy set.

Its easier here... combine it with Ending E, then you go back and just finish to ending A of that file.

A lot of people got the trophy that way.

 

Yeah I know it was in the original, so I get why the trophy is there, I just feel like they could have "upgraded" that trophy like they did some other parts of this version. I planned on doing the method you suggested, to at least save a couple hours of having to redo the act 1 content, but referring back to my main post, that doesn't change the fact that you had ~4 playthroughs up to that point already. It's not difficulty to earn, I just think they could've approached it from a better angle since speedrunning itself is pretty niche. As it is, it just drags the playtime out longer than necessary, as I would've had a better overall experience if I could've left it off at ending E.

[Infected Elite]

3 hours ago, SIate_M said:

Yeah exactly how I felt. Automata did multiple playthroughs really well by making each one feel really unique to the last. That said I still enjoyed Replicant's endings A through E but it started getting repetitive. I feel that slog could have been alleviated a bit by adding an incentive to ending A. If they gave you a special weapon or costume for beating A within a set time, it'd entice people to do a regular playthrough of A at their own pace, then they have the choice to make a new save and skip through A fast as possible, to have that bonus for the subsequent ending playthroughs.

Yeah I know it was in the original, so I get why the trophy is there, I just feel like they could have "upgraded" that trophy like they did some other parts of this version. I planned on doing the method you suggested, to at least save a couple hours of having to redo the act 1 content, but referring back to my main post, that doesn't change the fact that you had ~4 playthroughs up to that point already. It's not difficulty to earn, I just think they could've approached it from a better angle since speedrunning itself is pretty niche. As it is, it just drags the playtime out longer than necessary, as I would've had a better overall experience if I could've left it off at ending E.

could have done speedrun first. the game is only somewhat long if you do sidequests and watch every cutscene.

speedrunners can get 4hrs or less no prob. that's A and B

[RetroGamerAndrew]

I'm playing the game for the first time (never played Gestalt), so no previous knowledge of maps, tricks, puzzles, combat, enemies, boss patterns - anything, zero, nada.

Never skipped a cutscene and did 6 or 7 sidequests in part 1, and a few less in part 2. Even did some gardening.

 

I ended up my A run at - wait for it - 15h00'...15". ?

I replayed from the last checkpoint, skipping cutscenes and got it in 14h40'.

IMHO it's totally doable even if you take your time and enjoy everything the game has to offer, I can't even call it a speedrun.

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by RetroGamerAndrew

[Slate_M]

On 5/5/2021 at 1:21 AM, Infected Elite said:

could have done speedrun first. the game is only somewhat long if you do sidequests and watch every cutscene.

speedrunners can get 4hrs or less no prob. that's A and B

I explained that in my post though. I understand that's an option and is more than possible, but never having played the original I wanted a normal full first playthrough, doing as much as I wanted at my own pace. I got the trophy in the end and it wasn't hard, took me around 6 1/2 hours, but it's the idea that you'd have to do another fresh playthrough after 5 endings that gets me. Just doesn't seem justified without some kind of in game reward for doing the speedrun, as at that point, I had done everything I wanted to do in game, and the speedrun was just dragging out my playtime.