Copanele Posted November 8, 2023 Share Posted November 8, 2023 Quote So what’s the verdict, now that the game is out? Mechanically, the game does a lot to return to the pre-"RPG Saga" formula (thanks for the term, @Copanele!), retaining only some features from the Action RPG installments Lol, glad it has been approved 😂😂 So...like never before...I read half of your post and decided to stop. Because of this: Quote Open combat is greatly de-emphasized in this game. There are no heavy attacks, shield bashes, or equipping of javelins/lances/bows (🥲). Basim has a dagger and a sword that can be used in a fight when he gets detected by guards and uses the simple “parry or attack” system of older games. .... Mirage doesn’t have the ridiculously massive skill tree of Valhalla. The three categories can broadly be described as “assassination and blade”, “tools and pickpocketing”, and “Enkidu/detection”. This stuff strangely hyped me up so much for the game that I will play it myself thennnn continue my reading And I know, I know, it won't even get close to the originals, it will still have a "by the Ubisoft numbers" feel....but MAN DO I WANT A SMALL AND CONTAINED AC GAME! Can't wait! Also Cats! (on the other hand...not looking forward to the game as a service assassin's creed...I can already smell the failure baking in the Animus ) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted November 8, 2023 Author Share Posted November 8, 2023 (edited) 5 hours ago, Copanele said: So...like never before...I read half of your post and decided to stop. Because of this: This stuff strangely hyped me up so much for the game that I will play it myself thennnn continue my reading I'm so happy that the early part of my post was able to get you excited for Mirage! I'm really interested in hearing the AC: Mirage thoughts of other veterans of the franchise! While I did shed an emoji tear over no longer having Bows because I'm a huge simp for them, the fact that they removed the combat focus of the other RPG Saga games is a huge boon to Mirage. We don't play Assassin's Creed games for looter-shooter weapon rarities and brute forcing our way through an objective, we play them so we can do the stabby-stab from the shadows! 😂 5 hours ago, Copanele said: And I know, I know, it won't even get close to the originals, it will still have a "by the Ubisoft numbers" feel....but MAN DO I WANT A SMALL AND CONTAINED AC GAME! Can't wait! Seriously!!! Yes, the game is unable to fully escape the "Ubisoft-by-numbers" vibe, and it isn't 100% what veteran fans of the series wanted for a "return to its roots" game, but even something that achieved a good percentage of Early Games Vibes made me so happy! It gives me... skeptical hope (is that even a thing? lol) that Ubisoft can actually refocus on what made the games great. Granted, Jade and Hex are far enough into development that if they aren't already trying to move away from "RPG Saga" mechanics to something closer to Mirage, there isn't time to change direction for those games. I've wanted an AC game set in Japan for ages and the setting of Hex sounds fucking awesome as well, so fingers crossed that they aren't more "RPG Saga". 5 hours ago, Copanele said: Also Cats! 🐈⬛🥰 Are you also a cat person? I say 'also' because I think it's pretty clear by now that I am a huge cat person. 😂 They hold my heart hostage. 5 hours ago, Copanele said: (on the other hand...not looking forward to the game as a service assassin's creed...I can already smell the failure baking in the Animus ) 💯🤮 Edited November 8, 2023 by pelagia14 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted November 8, 2023 Author Share Posted November 8, 2023 (edited) Platinum #107 | Man of Medan (The Dark Pictures Anthology) Developer: Supermassive Games, 2019 Country: England Time Played: 29h Platinum Earned: 13 October 2023 Rating: 4/10 PREMISE The Dark Pictures is an anthology of horror games that focus on branching narratives, a cinematic interactive experience, the casts' relationships with each other, and the option to play the stories via co-op. Man of Medan is the first game in the anthology. It follows a group of college-aged friends and their hired boat captain as a planned holiday diving trip in the waters of French Polynesia goes horribly wrong. A run-in with modern-day pirates and rumors of a gold treasure result in the kidnapped group being trapped on a ghostly abandoned ship full of terrors. Your decisions will determine if they each meet a grisly end or manage to escape the ship. GAME THOUGHTS TROPHY WARNING: The platinum trophy requires at least one online co-op playthrough to get specific collectible items only available in that mode. SCARE METER Man of Medan was another Spooktober game for me, and I was pretty let down by how not scary the game was for a solo gaming experience. The game is overflowing with cheap jump scares and very little else in terms of scares or 'horror', unless you are playing the game via online co-op only. The only thing that might squick someone out is towards the end of the game - for several seconds, a single scene somewhat references the Chestburster scene from 1979's Alien movie. The almost claustrophobic corridors of the derelict former military ship certainly make for a spooky environment, but the game's clunky and cumbersome movement controls will often leave you feeling annoyed rather than on edge when walking through various corridors. Also, I'm really sorry but these 'terrified' death faces were rendered so awkwardly that they just made me laugh instead: GAME MODES There are a few ways to experience the game's story: Play Alone [Solo] Theatrical Cut: The default or 'intended' solo experience. Most sections of the game have two playable characters, and you only get to control the "Player 1" characters for each scene. The "Mario" experience. Curator's Cut: Only unlocked after a Theatrical Cut playthrough, it lets you play as the "second player" in most chapters which lets you make different decisions and get a few new scenes as a result. The "Luigi" experience. Don't Play Alone [Co-op] Movie Night: Couch Co-op for up to 5 people. Before the story starts you choose which players will control which characters. When the controllable POV character changes, the game will pause to allow you to swap the controller to someone else. Shared Story: Online Co-op for 2 people. One person plays the Theatrical Cut POV and the other plays the Curator Cut POV (with occasional reversals where it makes sense). Both POV Cuts play out simultaneously. If you want an actually spooky experience, I would argue that this mode MUST be your first playthrough of the game. WHY START WITH SHARED STORY? I found the game a lot less spooky once I got to the end of the narrative and learned the backstory that explains everything. Since Shared Story has the two players experiencing the different Cuts simultaneously, the difference in what each POV sees is the real highlight that makes things a bit spooky. MASSIVE STORY ENDING SPOILERS: Spoiler Okay, so the whole reason that Shared Story is the ONLY way you should initially play through the game is that the ghost ship isn't actually a ghost ship. The ship has a hallucinogenic gas that makes people see whatever most terrifies them, and the characters normally hallucinate at different moments. Thus, Player A might see a ghostly apparition at the end of the corridor, whereas Player B in that same corridor sees nothing. Or while Player A was navigating through Area A of the ship, Player B over in Area B ran into a ghoul that attacked and tried to kill them. The asynchronous experience would lead to the two players sharing mysterious and/or frightening events over voice chat, and thus each person conjures up scary imagery of what the other player must have seen. Nothing can beat the scares of our mind, after all. However, once you know that there isn't anything supernatural on the ship and it's all hallucinations, everything outside of the pirate gang no longer holds any threat. Alex doesn't actually have a rat bursting from his chest, he's hallucinating. A horrifying hag-like creature isn't trying to attack him, it's Fliss. Many of the 'supernatural attacks' are just empty air, and when that isn't the case it is almost always "Player 2" that Player 1's POV is hallucinating into a monster. There aren't a lot of scenes with the pirate gang once you are aboard the ship, and after an initial playthrough you've either already had characters be killed by the pirates or figured out how to survive the pirates, so outside of the potential for a new scene here and there the element of suspense is gone. Since Man of Medan is currently available on PS Catalog, luckily I was able to use my husband's PS5 alongside my own to play online co-op for the collectibles. (Alas, the husband does not like anything that is scary/horror.) This gave me the unique experience of seeing how the simultaneous nature of the online multiplayer experience creates cool asynchronous jump scares and scary moments for the two players. As a side note, I wouldn't recommend doing this yourself unless you are really dedicated, because you will need to have two TVs/monitors and make use of two PS5 controllers during QTE scenes, sometimes at the same time. OUR CAST So, I should probably talk about the 5 playable characters you spend the entire game with! There are two brothers, Alex and Brad. Alex is dating Julia. Julia's brother Conrad joined the trip. They hired Fliss, captain of the Duke of Milan ship, to take them to areas where they could do deep dives. The game also does this thing where when we first meet each of these characters, the cutscene pauses to show us the character's name, important relations to others in the group, and a mini ✨word cloud✨ of key personality traits. I actually really disliked most of the group. Julia is the typical spoiled rich girl who has never been told no and as a result is super snobby, rules don't apply to her, etc. She would absolutely go Karen over stupid bullshit. Conrad is the typically rich frat!bro who lives to party and throws money to 'solve' the problems caused by his irresponsible behavior. He thinks that he is a suave and smooth lady's man. 🙄 Alex seems to care about his brother Brad, but at the start of the game tells Brad not to 'embarrass' him in front of his rich girlfriend and her brother - so he only cares about his brother so much, in my opinion. Also, Alex is stupid enough to think it's a great idea to propose to Julia while they are a couple hundred feet underwater, ring and all. What if Julia had accidentally dropped the (presumably expensive) engagement ring? //facepalm I decided to add to each character's introductory 'word cloud' with how I felt about them: (FYI, clicking on an image will expand it) MOSTLY POINTLESS PREMONITIONS There are two types of collectibles in the game. The 'Clue' collectibles are actually decent, since many of them give more context and details about how/why things happened. The 'Painting' collectibles were pointless, though. When you find each one you get what is ostensibly a premonition of the future, and a glimpse of it should provide clever players with hints or clues to navigate subsequent decisions. Black Paintings show potential deaths, and White Paintings show potential scenes that are not deaths. In reality, some of the 'premonitions' are so brief that they are essentially useless. One literally just shows Brad standing up from the ground in a room on the Duke of Milan boat. Cool story, I guess? A few of the premonitions were useful. An important item can be destroyed - okay, I gotta be careful with any QTE related to that item. Brad can die from being stabbed - alright, be wary of any QTE scene or character with a knife. However, overall I found the premonition system to not be very helpful for hints and not even be super interesting in terms of 'teasing' potential futures. I constantly felt like I had no idea where I was inside the ship. I'd be in one character's POV somewhere on the ship. Next thing I know, I'm now swapping to another character's POV in a different seemingly random part of the ship. Since everything happens in 'real time', it's rare that when you return to a specific character they are in the area where you last left them. And sure, it's possible that the developers thought making players feel "lost" in the ship would add to the tension and suspense of things. It just left me feeling disjointed and annoyed, as if everything happened in isolation instead of being interconnected. BONUS FEATURES The game has some bonus features that were actually interesting! There is The History of Anthologic Horror, a 9-minute mini-documentary about the evolution of short story horror anthologies, starting with literature and then moving into radio, TV, and movies. Playing the Fool is a 6-minute video focusing on actor Shawn Ashmore's experience doing mocap and playing Conrad. Surprisingly, Shawn Ashmore almost made me want to like Conrad as a character. We also find out that during mocap footage capture, all actors in a scene are present so that they can work off of each other, which honestly should be an industry norm. Creating the Curator is a 7-minute video that gives us some background on the Curator (his library is the story of everyone's life and death), how they designed the library and his outfit, and details on filming the mocap with actor Pip Torrens. I didn't find it as interesting as the first two bonus features, but it was okay. The last two bonus features are the Secrets of the Ourang Medan - Part 1 & Part 2, two 25-page comic books. They are set a few years before and during the WWII prologue. When you navigate a page of one of the comic books, you are first shown the full page and then you zoom in to navigate through each panel. There is ambient music and the occasional sound effect which is a nice touch, but I didn't read through the two volumes. POSITIVES Besides a few of the Bonus Features, there are a few other positive things I can say about Man of Medan. There are some trophies for getting the game's collectible items, and the collectibles are cumulative across playthroughs. Not a huge thing, but after a game (by the same developer!) like The Quarry where you had to get all Tarots in a single playthrough or all Clues in a single playthrough, it's also not something I'll take for granted. There were two moments where they used creative camera angles/framing: While it can be extremely difficult to make out whether a decision is a HEART decision or a BRAIN decision, at least when you pause you can see if you are still on an uninterrupted streak of picking one choice exclusively in a run (considering there is a trophy for only heart decisions and another for only brain decisions). RANDOM THOUGHTS The Anthology opening wants to be taken seriously, but it's another thing that ended up making me laugh instead. It's like the opening sequence of a TV show, even featuring a super dramatic theme song ("A Conversation With Death"). How do the members of the pirate gang not hear when people are screaming and shrieking at the top of their lungs? Yes it's a huge ship with walls made of metal, and the pirate gang is also hallucinating, but they only seem to accidentally run into the group instead of 'oh I've been trying to follow the screams of the people we kidnapped'. I was initially really annoyed at the presence of rats on the ship since it is allegedly an abandoned ghost ship aka no sources of food for the rats after a short amount of time. The explanation for the events of the game addresses that, though. FAVORITE... Trophy Image: None. It all felt pretty lazy, just putting different icons on three book cover colors. Trophy Moment: Secrets! Lies! Conspiracies, man! if I had to choose one, I guess. Screenshots: . Edited November 16, 2023 by pelagia14 fixed incorrect release year 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post pelagia14 Posted November 15, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted November 15, 2023 (edited) Platinum #108 | Paradise Killer Developer: Kaizen Game Works, 2022 Country: United Kingdom Time Played: 15h Platinum Earned: 15 October 2023 Rating: 9/10 PREMISE “Is this a fact, or the truth?” Paradise Killer is a creative whodunnit game with delightfully cryptic occultist worldbuilding. The game is half visual novel and half open-world investigation, with you playing the immortal Investigator known as Lady Love Dies. The first screen of the game provides a crash-course of the worldbuilding to help orient you to the world: The Syndicate created the first Paradise Island to worship their dead alien gods. Guided by Leader Monserrat, the Syndicate attempt to resurrect the gods by forcing Citizens into psychic worship rituals. However, the worship invites demonic corruption from beyond the stars. The islands always fail. The islands die and a new Paradise Island is reborn. The cycle repeats. After Island 24’s near-perfection was derailed by demonic influence, the Syndicate’s powerful Council cloistered themselves to ‘birth’ Island 25 through meditation. However, in the moments immediately after the creation of “Perfect 25”, the entire Council was brutally murdered. With Island 24 essentially quarantined, Lady Love Dies has been called in from thousands of years of exile to locate the murderer before they can taint the perfect paradise that everyone hopes Island 25 will become. 🎵 Paradise (Stay Forever) GAME THOUGHTS Y’all, this game kills it. Just like Inscryption, this was the kind of game where after I read 2-3 paragraphs, I was immediately sold and decided to do a complete blackout of any additional information until I had beaten the game. It’s the first game from developer Kaizen Game Works, which was “formed in 2018 by two games industry veterans”, and I can’t wait to see what they’ll create next. I was initially taken aback by the contrast in quality between the beautiful hand-drawn character portraits and the low-poly 3D open world, but the vaporwave aesthetic really grew on me over time. THIS IS LIKE PHOENIX WRIGHT, RIGHT? On the surface, Paradise Killer seems to be just like a Phoenix Wright game (and apparently Danganronpa), but that comparison barely scratches at the truly unique experience that is this game. It’s been - gosh, almost two decades since I played the Phoenix Wright games. I certainly enjoyed them - and have the original trilogy waiting in my PS backlog - but their narratives are fairly linear. Sure, you can sometimes fail to discover an important piece of evidence at a specific crime scene or not confront a witness with the key dialogue option or evidence. However, if I recall correctly, at certain points the Phoenix Wright games essentially gate plot progression until you backtrack and do whatever it is that you missed. Paradise Killer is the exact opposite. You can investigate as much or as little as you want - heck, there’s a trophy for speedrunning the game in less than 10 minutes, which requires you to start the trial right away. Of course you aren’t going to be able to counter alibis and successfully challenge people’s statements, but Paradise Killer is more interested in allowing you to define your gameplay experience on your own terms. INVESTIGATING PARADISE One of the strongest aspects of Paradise Killer as a mystery game is that you can investigate the island's crimes in whichever manner you’d like. At the start of the game most of the island’s suspects are available for you to travel to and gather testimony from. You can choose to focus first on leads that point towards a specific crime (which was mostly me), or you can take the approach of gathering everyone’s initial testimony to get the lay of the land. Besides a few secondary crimes only opening up for investigation once you learn about them, the game doesn’t try to corral or railroad you into a specific narrative sequence. While the game does have a few crime scenes that you investigate via point-and-click screens, a lot of your evidence collection is through gathering testimony and then cross-examining suspects based on other testimony. Furthermore, scattered across the ‘open world’ island are pieces of evidence for you to discover, alongside the game’s collectibles. Requiring us players to search the island for evidence not only justifies the ‘open world’ concept, it provides a vital aspect of investigative work that most video games fail to truly capture. Paradise Killer doesn’t hand you all the clues through dialogue or “point-and-click around this screen”, it trusts that you will be curious enough to want to find the links that connect different pieces of the puzzle together. This type of "investigation" is extremely RARE. EXPLORING PARADISE The island of Paradise 24 is your oyster to explore. At first glance it might seem like the only thing worth doing is traveling between suspects to speak with them and later confront possible lies or half-truths, but that’s not the case. There are plenty of items that an adventurous investigator can collect. Most obvious and numerous are the Blood Crystals which function as currency on the island, but there are plenty of collectibles as well that expand the game’s worldbuilding. Sometimes you will come across golden altars where you can pay a tribute of your own blood to gain Shrine Tablets, which reference different cosmic deities of the game’s lore. Island Sequence Mementos give you a fragment of the history or ‘personality’ of the previously failed islands. The game’s soundtrack can be unlocked by locating different song tracks at radio towers across the island. Finally, there are numerous places where you can encounter the nihilistic demon Shinji for short banters. There are also three ability upgrades you can find for Lady Love Dies, though hilariously I didn’t unlock the first one until probably six or seven hours in! I found the footbath near Sam’s Bar early on but was short a Blood Crystal, and then once I had enough crystals I forgot to return back to it for ages. The abilities are Double Jump, Dash, and Meditate (temporarily show icons on your screen for item locations). The number of times I spent struggling to climb up to building roofs with my single little hop only to find nothing up there when I could have quickly unlocked double jump… //facepalm. 😂 STARLIGHT COMPUTER The game menu (aka Lady Love Dies’ Starlight PDA/computer) was so incredibly helpful for keeping track of things during your investigations: The Notes screen acts as a to-do list or reminder of things that you should check out. Sometimes you can gain 2-3 leads from a single conversation, and by the time you’ve followed the first lead to its very end, you might have forgotten about some of the other leads you have. Case Files has two sections: folders for Suspects and for Crimes. Each Suspect folder contains any motives you’ve discovered for an individual, their alibi (which is their testimony and any additional evidence that supports it), and “alibi breakers” which is other testimony or evidence that contradicts their alibi. The Crime folders give a short summary of the crime in question, and then breaks down all of the evidence related to that crime based on which suspect(s) it implicates. What’s even more awesome is that the game has two settings for the Crime folders - you can either manually determine which crime each piece of evidence belongs to, or have the Starlight OS automatically sort that for you. Your Inventory is broken up into Key Items (just a place for you to reference if you have collected a key item or not), Upgrades discovered for your Starlight OS, and Relics. Relics are where you can see most of the game’s collectibles and read the snippets of worldbuilding atmosphere that each item has. Everything is listed in the order that you found it; it would have been nice if we had the option to sort by category (soft drinks, island mementos, etc.) to make it easier to figure out which collectibles you missed and need to hunt down at the end of the game. Population was helpful mostly at the beginning, though I greatly appreciated it. Here you can see the names of the Council and other Syndicate members, as well as a short, pertinent summary for each person. For a game that has truly unique character names such as Crimson Acid and The Witness To The End, it was great at helping me to learn which names went to which characters. The Timeline screen helpfully summarizes the time-specific facts related to the main crime. It’s another screen that I found mostly useful at the start of the game when I was still absorbing the known facts surrounding the murders. The Map screen shows you all the different areas of the island and which region you are currently in. It is an incredibly zoomed-out map, so it tells you where each area is in relation to the others but isn’t detailed enough to tell you which paths to take to travel to different areas. It was a bit frustrating at first since I couldn’t remember how to get back up to the starting area after I descended the mountain (and didn’t have enough Blood Crystals to unlock the Graveyard phone booth at the start of the game), but it really forced me to learn how to navigate the island on my own which I ended up appreciating more. At Skins you can customize the “desktop background” of your Starlight OS menu. Skins are earned as you unlock more and more fast travel destinations. Finally, the Music screen is like your radio. Here is where you can play the song tracks you’ve discovered whenever you’d like. CAST The game's cast: I don't know how to talk about them without spoiling things, so I'm not gonna. 😂 ATMOSPHERIC WORLDBUILDING Another aspect I love about Paradise Killer is how the game doesn’t feel the need to explain everything to you. I’m not talking about the crimes of the main story - each of them has a definite culprit (though some are more difficult to get to the root of than others) - instead, I’m talking about the game’s lore. While the game’s three opening screens do provide you with some starting context to work within, much of the game’s remaining lore is there for you to find and interpret… or not. The developers don’t force-feed the wackier aspects of the lore to you, trusting that if you are intrigued enough by it you’ll seek to understand it on your own. The lore is also interesting because it is often described as intricate or complex (even by me) - but that isn’t precisely true. Of course the worldbuilding presents us with some broad strokes of a ‘framework’ followed by lots of details… but there are more gaps in the lore than details provided to us. By the way, this isn’t a complaint! By providing us with just enough details and texture to give the world a sense of history, time, and personality, the game allows us to fill in the gaps with our own imagination. Mild lore spoilers: I loved how messed up the world of Paradise Killer is. It is an artificial realm separated from our real world that has suppressed the ‘true’ history of overthrowing calamitous and genocidal alien gods over a thousand years ago. Citizens are kidnapped from the real world to be offered as mass sacrifices to resurrect these eldritch gods, and until it is time for their ‘true’ purpose they are essentially slaves. The world has plenty of ‘occult’ elements: statues and murals inspired by ancient Sumeria and Babylonia, tablets containing divine messages written in Mesopotamian cuneiform, and threats of demonic possession or divine deception. This is all juxtaposed by modern city buildings and technology heavily influenced by the 90s Japanese street pop aesthetic. Ritual altars for blood sacrifices and small candle-lit pyramidal shrines can be found next to radio towers and vending machines. I loved the anachronistic aesthetic. A FEW SMALL GRIPES: Here are my small gripes with this fantastic game: The voice acting setup did not mesh well with my neurodivergence. The text dialogue is not narrated - instead, each character has a few recorded ‘stock lines’ of greetings/reactions. Love Dies will have a stock line play while her text appears on the screen. When it switches to Character B, the same happens with their stock line. As the conversation between the two characters progresses, interesting or surprising information might prompt another stock line to play out. I completely understand that a small indie studio probably didn’t have the budget to record the massive number of lines in this game. What really bugged me was that a character’s voice would be saying one thing, but the text appearing on the screen was completely different. And this isn’t like subtitles, where it is the same content just in a different language. I am a very fast reader, but suddenly hearing spoken text that didn’t at all match what I was reading really tripped me up. I’m fine with needing to spend Blood Crystals to unlock Fast Travel destinations, but didn’t like that it is a finite currency additionally required to use fast travel. If the developers want to encourage people to not use fast travel as much, they could have either created a farmable resource that gets expended when using fast travel or made it something like that you would only be able to unlock all fast travel locations once you’ve collected something like 97% of the island’s Blood Crystals. I was so worried that I might inadvertently lock myself out of the platinum in my playthrough that I didn’t use fast travel at all until I cleaned up missed collectibles right before the trial. Start mild spoilers -- It’s not immediately clear to me the purpose behind the “Island 25” Bar interludes that played when alcoholic collectibles were found. Was it trying to give us a glimpse at how the inhabitants of Sequence 25 were reacting to the delayed termination of Sequence 24? Provide us with a different type of atmospheric worldbuilding, or just provide something different to occasionally change up the pacing of the game? Besides maybe having one or two scenes to show us that some people were indeed ferried to Island 25 by Lydia (though Love Dies wouldn’t know this), these little scenes don’t really have a reason to be in the game. Finally, it’s a little weird that after the trials are over you can walk up to any surviving Syndicate members and just execute them with your gun before you end the game. Perhaps this was intended to allow players to kill people they believed to be guilty but did not have enough evidence to convict, but it really goes against Love Dies’ character. Instead of carrying out justice, now she is committing crimes of her own. The developers definitely wanted to restrict us players as little as possible, but this was one instance where that lack of restriction didn’t make much sense to me. The ending in general was a bit weak compared to the rest of the game. -- End mild spoilers THE TRIAL The stakes are as real as they can get during the trial, since once it is over Judge will have you execute whoever is found guilty of each crime. Here are my thoughts on who would be found guilty during the trial: Spoiler When I thought I was ready for the trial, I still had one item listed in my “Notes” menu screen, though I wasn’t sure where to go for it. I decided to mop up the collectibles I was missing to see if I’d stumble upon it. As much as I hated the Starlight Skin located on the top of the golden Opulent Ziggurant dome (took me ages to get that jump right!), without it I would have completely forgotten about the mysterious depression in the ground nearby that unveils the final secret of Paradise Island. By the time I got to trial (after looking through the Case screen for a good half hour to solidify my understanding of everything), I had pretty much everything figured out. Henry was innocent not only because there was a lot of evidence pointing to that, but because common opinion said he was guilty before I even landed on the island. While Yuri had big ambitions to get on the council, he was too mustache-twirling to be the mastermind behind everything. I had forgotten to visit Akiko and Henry until I had done a lot of other investigating, so when I did finally talk to her it felt apparent that she was being used to further someone else’s goals. I felt bad that Sam and Lydia had to be convicted since they just wanted an out from everything, and didn’t actually kill anyone, but alas Judge is pretty merciless. Doom Jazz was momentarily suspicious to me because of the broken security camera leading to his lab area, but there was never a lot of additional evidence against him. Finally, Crimson was another character I felt we were supposed to find suspicious because of her occupation, but she was always so friendly whenever we chatted and was happy to help my investigation by selling me the rumors and secrets she knew. Interestingly, I thought that both Carmelina AND Witness were working together to dismantle the Council, when they actually were working independently of each other! Since they had a romantic past and shared access to the secret bunker in the Dead Zone, I figured their plan was to kill the Council so that the two of them could be in charge of Perfect 25, with Carmelina finally getting all the recognition she wanted and Witness getting to put a heavier emphasis on saving other gods. Plus if they were working together, nothing could be traced back to a single person. Turns out that while they both had big conspiracies, they were not aware of each other’s plans! My Trial Verdicts: Henry’s Escape - Akiko - I really thought Witness and his aural death scream device were involved, but ultimately chose Akiko since she was more directly involved. Henry’s Demonic Possession - Yuri Murder of Grace Bloodlines - Carmelina - I was torn on this one for a while, but a ring showing up in the strangulation wound was key. I also figured that Akiko stepping out for a few minutes gave Carmelina the window of opportunity, and there wasn’t a strong enough motivation for Akiko to go against law and order to commit that specific crime. Who Killed the Holy Seal Marshals? - Akiko - The two prisoners being taken out of prison “off the books” and held in storage was key to me, plus Akiko’s refusal to let the bodies be examined closely. K HX is Missing - Yuri - K. HX literally had Yuri’s ring in a death grip! The Second Holy Seal - Lydia - As much as I didn’t want to accuse her, the rappelling gear, tire tracks, and Obelisk data key were all too strong to ignore. Who Opened the Third Seal? - Sam - I didn’t like accusing Sam either, but he even admitted it after Lydia’s verdict. It neatly explained why Kafka’s empty blood vial was in his brewery as well as the safe with Dying Grudge’s flesh. Who Breached the Fourth Holy Seal? - Sam The Mystery of the Dead Killer Demon - Witness The Crime to End All Crimes - Carmelina - By this point, I had realized that her and Witness were not working together, and knowing about Dainonigate explained how the Dead Killer Demon was killed with a bullet yet still no Council members survived. “May the Silent Goat walk with you.” RANDOM THOUGHTS I’m getting better at noticing when a game has the PS5 controller light up in a non-default color. Paradise Killer chose pink controller lighting which perfectly matches their neon color palette. I love how even reaching the primary crime scene of the game takes a lot of investigative work! Syndicate members bidding farewell based on their birth sign was neat! Gosh the soundtrack is fantastic I already discussed how the recorded greeting/reaction lines didn't work well for me, but there was also a pretty funny moment. I didn’t visit Henry at the prison until very late in the game so I had a ton of questions to discuss with him. It went along the lines of: Henry: “Let’s have a nice little chat” (+written text) LLD: “I don’t like this” (+written text) Henry: “FUCK YOU” (+written text) LLD: “Sure” (+written text) Henry: “FUCK YOU” (+written text) LLD: “I don’t like this” (+written text) Henry: “FUCK YOU” (+written text) etc. Of course, my husband happened to walk by during all of this, leading him to wonder what the hell kind of game I was playing. 😂 FAVORITE... Trophy Image: Scholar of Island Sequences Trophy Moment: Scholar of Demons Screenshots: Spoiler Screenshots: Spoiler . Edited November 15, 2023 by pelagia14 removed extraneous line breaks 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted November 15, 2023 Share Posted November 15, 2023 WOOOHOOOOOO!!!! You have no idea how excited I got when I did my check-in on the cabinet threads and saw somebody properly reviewed this game 😭, and what a relief you put the 9/10 rating early so I didn't feel like I gassed up a game that left people disappointed. 19 hours ago, pelagia14 said: On the surface, Paradise Killer seems to be just like a Phoenix Wright game (and apparently Danganronpa), but that comparison barely scratches at the truly unique experience that is this game. It’s been - gosh, almost two decades since I played the Phoenix Wright games. I certainly enjoyed them - and have the original trilogy waiting in my PS backlog - but their narratives are fairly linear. Sure, you can sometimes fail to discover an important piece of evidence at a specific crime scene or not confront a witness with the key dialogue option or evidence. However, if I recall correctly, at certain points the Phoenix Wright games essentially gate plot progression until you backtrack and do whatever it is that you missed. So fun note - I have never played any of the Phoenix Wright OR Danganronpa games. There are just too many games to play and I have to be judicial with my time. I HAVE been able to experience each of them via my favorite weeb streamer Joseph Anderson. It's odd. I THOROUGHLY enjoyed the absurdity of the Danganronpa series even if I found the investigation sequences to get a bit laborious. I found the actual court debates in Phoenix Wright entertaining as hell even if much else around them had me a bit bored. I think the wonderful quality Paradise Killer has is the free-flowing ability to actually yanno... WALK AROUND these environments which the other two don't allow for. 19 hours ago, pelagia14 said: There are also three ability upgrades you can find for Lady Love Dies, though hilariously I didn’t unlock the first one until probably six or seven hours in! I found the footbath near Sam’s Bar early on but was short a Blood Crystal, and then once I had enough crystals I forgot to return back to it for ages. The abilities are Double Jump, Dash, and Meditate (temporarily show icons on your screen for item locations). The number of times I spent struggling to climb up to building roofs with my single little hop only to find nothing up there when I could have quickly unlocked double jump… //facepalm. 😂 lmao do not feel bad whatsoever. I don't know if I mentioned this in my review but I completed the ENTIRE GAME before realizing that you could get any upgrades to your movement ability. I was hoarding these blood crystals because of their finite amount and necessity for fast travel that I didn't want to "waste" them on something I didn't know I would get in exchange for. So you actually did much better than me only taking 6-7 hours 🤣 19 hours ago, pelagia14 said: The voice acting setup did not mesh well with my neurodivergence. The text dialogue is not narrated - instead, each character has a few recorded ‘stock lines’ of greetings/reactions. Love Dies will have a stock line play while her text appears on the screen. When it switches to Character B, the same happens with their stock line. As the conversation between the two characters progresses, interesting or surprising information might prompt another stock line to play out. I completely understand that a small indie studio probably didn’t have the budget to record the massive number of lines in this game. What really bugged me was that a character’s voice would be saying one thing, but the text appearing on the screen was completely different. And this isn’t like subtitles, where it is the same content just in a different language. I am a very fast reader, but suddenly hearing spoken text that didn’t at all match what I was reading really tripped me up. I’m fine with needing to spend Blood Crystals to unlock Fast Travel destinations, but didn’t like that it is a finite currency additionally required to use fast travel. If the developers want to encourage people to not use fast travel as much, they could have either created a farmable resource that gets expended when using fast travel or made it something like that you would only be able to unlock all fast travel locations once you’ve collected something like 97% of the island’s Blood Crystals. I was so worried that I might inadvertently lock myself out of the platinum in my playthrough that I didn’t use fast travel at all until I cleaned up missed collectibles right before the trial. Two gripes I'm very much in agreement on. The characters are reduced to Pokemon with their voiced lines and it's a shame given the personality they provide. In defense of the Creators, I listened to this interview they did and they mentioned rewriting dialogue until VERY close up until release. It simply wasn't practical for their size and scope to have majority voiced dialogue though it is one element that would have made the game age even more gracefully. and yup, I barely fast-traveled until clean-up mode just like you because of the same thing. 19 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Finally, it’s a little weird that after the trials are over you can walk up to any surviving Syndicate members and just execute them with your gun before you end the game. Perhaps this was intended to allow players to kill people they believed to be guilty but did not have enough evidence to convict, but it really goes against Love Dies’ character. Instead of carrying out justice, now she is committing crimes of her own. The developers definitely wanted to restrict us players as little as possible, but this was one instance where that lack of restriction didn’t make much sense to me. The ending in general was a bit weak compared to the rest of the game. The ending and trial itself are undoubtedly... slightly disappointing. Though a much better video game designer than me would have to find a solution. I didn't mind the post-trial execution that much since I don't view any of that as cannon, it's more like the creator's way to goofily let the player do whatever they want before resetting and trying again if they truly botched the trial. Though I suppose the fact you can still do that even after getting all the correct suspects is a bit odd. 19 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Hide contents When I thought I was ready for the trial, I still had one item listed in my “Notes” menu screen, though I wasn’t sure where to go for it. I decided to mop up the collectibles I was missing to see if I’d stumble upon it. As much as I hated the Starlight Skin located on the top of the golden Opulent Ziggurant dome (took me ages to get that jump right!), without it I would have completely forgotten about the mysterious depression in the ground nearby that unveils the final secret of Paradise Island. GIRL!!!!!! Aight. So... I'm 99% sure I wrote about this but that STUPID ASS NEEDLESLY INSANELY DIFFICULT JUMP distracted me SOOOOO much that I COMPLETELY ignored that depression in the ground. I go to the trial, got through the motions, can't get the final convictions without it and wonder what I missed... I go back there and discover TOOTSY FRUITSY ASS THE LAST KISS FOR THE 1ST TIME IN MY ENTIRE PLAY THROUGH SICNE THE INTIIAL INTRODUCTION. I then laughed my ass off at Lady Love Dies commentary when I discover to the left this hidden hole and she goes: "damn... would have been good to find this before the trial". Spoiler As for the trial verdicts, it's funny how you mentioned knowing Henry was not guilty because he was the perceived guilty one at the start. It's fun how a mystery game has to navigate the line between the in-game hunt and trying to prevent the player from meta-gaming. As for your accusations, I don't care if it's a bit corrupt, I refused to throw my gal Lydia and best bonesy boy Sam under the bus with accusations. I know there was more evidence against them but... they weren't the BAD guys compared to some of the other elites. I'm happy to hear somebody else took such extensive notes while playing though. I did the exact same. What a lovely review. The images, including the soundtrack at the very start so I could listen and be transformed back to my time while reading was a total treat. you've got me wanting to step up my game with visuals as they add a lot to conveying the atmosphere of the game. Now play Banner Saga 😇 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted November 15, 2023 Author Share Posted November 15, 2023 2 hours ago, realm722 said: WOOOHOOOOOO!!!! You have no idea how excited I got when I did my check-in on the cabinet threads and saw somebody properly reviewed this game 😭, and what a relief you put the 9/10 rating early so I didn't feel like I gassed up a game that left people disappointed. Don't worry, I gotchu. 😉 2 hours ago, realm722 said: So fun note - I have never played any of the Phoenix Wright OR Danganronpa games. There are just too many games to play and I have to be judicial with my time. I HAVE been able to experience each of them via my favorite weeb streamer Joseph Anderson. It's odd. I THOROUGHLY enjoyed the absurdity of the Danganronpa series even if I found the investigation sequences to get a bit laborious. I found the actual court debates in Phoenix Wright entertaining as hell even if much else around them had me a bit bored. I think the wonderful quality Paradise Killer has is the free-flowing ability to actually yanno... WALK AROUND these environments which the other two don't allow for. I have Danganronpa 1-2 Reload and V3 Killing Harmony in my backlog. I'm glad to hear that you found the 'absurdity' enjoyable! We all have our own tastes for things like humor and wackiness, but most of what I've heard about the games came from friends who are more casual gamers. And yesss, the courtroom ✨drama✨ in Phoenix Wright is hilarious - to the point where I don't even get too annoyed that they completely discard about 95% of the rules and procedures of court! 😂 2 hours ago, realm722 said: lmao do not feel bad whatsoever. I don't know if I mentioned this in my review but I completed the ENTIRE GAME before realizing that you could get any upgrades to your movement ability. I was hoarding these blood crystals because of their finite amount and necessity for fast travel that I didn't want to "waste" them on something I didn't know I would get in exchange for. So you actually did much better than me only taking 6-7 hours 🤣 Two gripes I'm very much in agreement on. The characters are reduced to Pokemon with their voiced lines and it's a shame given the personality they provide. In defense of the Creators, I listened to this interview they did and they mentioned rewriting dialogue until VERY close up until release. It simply wasn't practical for their size and scope to have majority voiced dialogue though it is one element that would have made the game age even more gracefully. and yup, I barely fast-traveled until clean-up mode just like you because of the same thing. 😱 Yeah, dialogue rewrites totally make sense. I couldn't think of a super great solution either beyond "have more money before releasing the game", as if it's that simple.. Should they have removed vocals entirely? Doing so would remove small bits of personality, which isn't good. "Pausing" the crawl of dialogue whenever a "Pokemon vocal" plays would create its own issues. You could have the two characters greet each other by name as their portraits animate across the screen at the beginning of a conversation, but then that doesn't account for reactions and is a further solution that reduces personality. Ooooo, will have to listen to that interview soon! 2 hours ago, realm722 said: GIRL!!!!!! Aight. So... I'm 99% sure I wrote about this but that STUPID ASS NEEDLESLY INSANELY DIFFICULT JUMP distracted me SOOOOO much that I COMPLETELY ignored that depression in the ground. I go to the trial, got through the motions, can't get the final convictions without it and wonder what I missed... I go back there and discover TOOTSY FRUITSY ASS THE LAST KISS FOR THE 1ST TIME IN MY ENTIRE PLAY THROUGH SICNE THE INTIIAL INTRODUCTION. I then laughed my ass off at Lady Love Dies commentary when I discover to the left this hidden hole and she goes: "damn... would have been good to find this before the trial". Yes, I read through your review last night and completely empathized with you! It probably took me 40-50 jumps as well. I even pulled up a video to try to find the magic jump spot needed, little good that it did me. And gosh, Love Dies really hit it on the nail there. 😂 Speaking of One Last Kiss - funnily enough, the first thing I did after landing on the island and speaking with Shinji again was climb up the path. I reached but didn't enter the Opulent Ziggurat (didn't visit the Workshop on the left, though) and then descended to explore the Mountain Gorge. After I had some Blood Crystals I kept trying to figure out how to get back up the mountain, but for ages, without fail, I would end up at the bottom of the elevator to Sam's Bar instead (or wind up at the Citizen Apartments/Danchi). //facepalm 2 hours ago, realm722 said: What a lovely review. The images, including the soundtrack at the very start so I could listen and be transformed back to my time while reading was a total treat. you've got me wanting to step up my game with visuals as they add a lot to conveying the atmosphere of the game. I'm happy to hear you like the format! I'm an extremely visual person, and screenshots help me recall game memories and moments. Plus it adds a lot of color to a post! 🎨🖌️ I really like how you will emphasize certain phrases or sentences in your reviews by bolding them and adding color - alas, it's not something I'm capable of doing in moderation. 2 hours ago, realm722 said: What a lovely review. The images, including the soundtrack at the very start so I could listen and be transformed back to my time while reading was a total treat. you've got me wanting to step up my game with visuals as they add a lot to conveying the atmosphere of the game. Now play Banner Saga 😇 With Halloween-vibing games (mostly) behind me and just a few more weeks left in the Trophies to Fight Cancer event, I've already started to look ahead to December - I need to start tackling longer games (30h+) more before they are the only ones left in my backlog! It's already a mandate for me in February to replay FFVII Remake in preparation for the release of Rebirth(!!!), but that still gives me two months to tackle a few longer games. I've been eyeing Disco Elysium and perhaps a Yakuza game (since there are a lot of those to play, if I end up enjoying them) - maybe even try Death March difficulty for Witcher 3 PS4 so I can earn the platinum... But gosh, Banner Saga probably has lots of epic Viking vibes that would be really great to play in the winter as well! (And lots of snowy environs, based on screenshots) Maybe I'll take a page from @Cassylvania's book and use RNG to determine which longer games I play. Or create a system where each month I commit to at least one 30h+ game? Too many games and not enough time to catch up on the backlog - the bane of every gamer, lol. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted November 16, 2023 Author Share Posted November 16, 2023 (edited) Platinum #109 | Little Hope (The Dark Pictures Anthology) Developer: Supermassive Games, 2022 Country: England Time Played: 18h Platinum Earned: 18 October 2023 Rating: 4/10 PREMISE The Dark Pictures is an anthology of horror games that focus on branching narratives, a cinematic interactive experience, the casts' relationships with each other, and the option to play the stories via co-op. Little Hope is the second game in the anthology. It follows a group of college students and their professor who end up in stranded an abandoned ghost town after their bus crashed. A mysterious heavy fog prevents the group from leaving the town of Little Hope, and it might also be hiding some dangers. Meanwhile, visions of the town’s history during the Salem Witch Trials seem to hold the key to understanding what is going on in the present. Your decisions will determine if everyone in the group can survive long enough to unravel the strange happenings of Little Hope. GAME THOUGHTS Alright, DPA game #2! Based on the game’s premise and the obvious potential for witchcraft with the Salem Trials, I was pretty excited about this game. I figured that Man of Medan had subverted expectations by (SPOILER) having the ‘supernatural’ events actually be the result of a hallucinogenic mist, and now it was time for real spooks and scares. Up until the ending I was prepared to give this game a rating of around 5 or 6 out of 10, as I was enjoying it a little bit more than Man of Medan. Unfortunately, while I found this game to be slightly better than Man of Medan, I was so let down by Little Hope’s ending that instead of a 5 or maybe 6 out of 10, it gets the same 4/10 as Man of Medan. (As a side note, I have a friend who actually enjoyed game #3, House of Ashes, but I probably won’t get around to that game until next Halloween season). SPOOK METER There isn’t really anything I can think of that would be a common squick for people outside of what you’d expect for a game with death and violence: some potential deaths involve stabbings, shootings, or even hangings. A few of the supernatural beings look like emaciated corpses, and many scenes have you traversing through a dense fog. I tried doing a quick internet search to see if in my disappointment with the game I forgot about anything, but only found vague comments about gore and dismemberment (but I can’t recall what those would be). Honestly, the graphical model for Megan's face was the most terrifying thing in the game... SETTING Mild Spoilers: Little Hope pulls out some classic scary settings but somehow manages to underutilize most of them. There’s an empty children’s playground where we encounter another Salem vision, and there’s a cemetery where nothing sinister happens. The pervasive fog was the strongest setting, limiting how far your group can see into their surroundings and preventing them from backtracking or leaving the town. It hearkens back to the classic and influential Silent Hill games, but also to stories like Stephen King’s novella The Mist. As you progress through the story, the game teases that supernatural horrors might be stalking the group from the mist, but the game is too scripted to be able to provide the tense, surprise encounters that one might expect with the usage of fog. I will say I did find the Little Hope Museum to be the game’s best use of horror tropes to build suspense, even though it was pretty tame. Upon entering the Salem Trial-themed museum, to one’s dismay there are wax figures in several areas, and some mannequins used in a reenactment of witch trial hangings. There’s no electricity, so you navigate through the dimly lit area while being paranoid that perhaps some sort of witchcraft will possess one of the human-shaped objects to attack you. (I should also note that mannequins in horror games definitely creep me out!) My expectations were mildly subverted when one of the hung mannequins dropped to the ground, the victim of an old rope that finally frayed out, which made me startle and then laugh afterward. CAST Here is the game's main cast, for posterity's sake. I didn't feel like writing about them or turning the images into memes because I felt very ambivalent about the characters after I reached the end of the game. EXPECTATIONS VS REALITY, AND WHY I HATED THE ENDING Spoiler Alright, I definitely went into this game hoping and thinking that it would be more of a traditional scary horror game with monsters or witches or something. Similar to Man of Medan, this game tried to lean into “rational explanations for what seems supernatural” - at least for the most part? I completely respect that, and whenever I get around to House of Ashes I will be keeping that in mind. However, the big ‘twist reveal’ that Andrew was the bus driver and has been hallucinating this entire time was SO FRUSTRATING. It completely invalidates the “friendships” I’ve made between members of the group, knowing that “jk they are just figments of Andrew’s imagination”. In my initial playthrough, I felt something close to mild accomplishment when everyone was reunited and Angela said “So the whole crew is back together”. In subsequent playthroughs, that moment felt completely empty. Should Taylor be a supportive girlfriend to Vince or be a jerk? Doesn’t matter, since they are both figments of Andrew’s imagination. Should I try to have Angela be less of a bitch to Taylor? Who cares at this point? Taylor: "One thing I didn't see coming - I feel like one of the team. I'm good with that, never happens to me." Taylor, dear, that's because even now it isn't real... I totally get that the game is trying to focus on Andrew’s guilt over being the sole survivor of a tragic event that killed his entire family, an event he believes that he accidentally caused. That it is trying to explore an emotional journey between him and family members who were suddenly ripped away from him. I’m even down for the metaphoric demons that haunt him manifesting into real or perceived-as-real demons attacking him. I was still able to find those themes somewhat interesting in my subsequent playthroughs. However, The Dark Pictures as a brand focuses a lot on the interpersonal dynamics of your group, and “everything including the rest of the group is just trauma hallucinations” hollowed out the snippets of vaguely emotional moments I had experienced related to the group dynamic. Also, how is Andrew able to hallucinate in two locations simultaneously?! (IE, the chapters where he is not present) CAN SOMEONE ACTUALLY EXPLAIN THE STORY TO ME? PLEASE? Spoiler Y’all, I’m still confused about this game. I totally get that the characters in the Prologue are Andrew and his family in the past, and the ‘present day’ group uses the same family members because Andrew hallucinates them into a college professor and fellow students. I get that the Salem Trials happened in Little Hope’s past, and there was a fucked up priest who used satanic panic and Mary to blame fellow villagers with practicing spellcraft. But like… why are the characters in 1692 also the family members? If the game is trying to imply that the souls of the people in 1692 reincarnated into Andrew’s family, why didn’t it actually give us any hints to imply that? I see some people online say that the 1692 people are just Andrew’s metaphor for processing his trauma, but the graveyard and museum tell us that they were real people. Or if Andrew just visited the town museum when he was younger, saw a bunch of people die in the witch trials who happened to have names starting with the same first letters as his family, and then his brain hallucinated the witch trials to process his trauma, why did the name never make it clear that Andrew had a past connection to the museum? Also, I’m pretty sure when Professor John brings up the Witch Trials early on in the game, Andrew is just as unfamiliar about them as the others. If there is no link to 1692 for his family members, why does the game have several lines of dialogue from various characters that wink-nod to reincarnation? (For example: “I think she was a marine sergeant in a past life.” and “No, but I [was a burglar] in a past life!”) Is there any actual witchcraft?! Sure the priest in 1692 had a bunch of witchcraft scribbles in his Bible, but we don’t actually see anyone from that time period practicing magic. At one point the priest says that someone’s witchcraft is possessing Mary and she then screams and seems to have a seizure, but that can be explained as her being scared (and implied to be abused) by a person with authority and thus she is attempting to play along with what he wants to avoid punishment. In other flashbacks, Mary often acts as if she is ‘possessed by the devil’ by giving evil-looking smirks to the ‘camera’ when townspeople are being killed or sentenced to death, but that doesn’t actually show any satanic magic stuff happening. Are we supposed to conclude that Mary was possessed by a demon who was just really good at playing the tearful innocent card when we get close to the end of the story? The only evidence I have for that is that the game tries to imply that Megan in the 1970s is also possessed, but at the same time, this is the second game out of two in The Dark Pictures Anthology that seems to be focused on debunking supernatural happenings. A follow-up question, were Mary and Megan possessed? It would explain why Megan seems to be possessed, locked her mom in the bathroom, presumably locked her older sister outside, and started the fire with her doll. However, I didn’t see any evidence tying 1970s Megan to 1692 Mary besides the fact that they had the same face - but we don’t even know if 1692 Mary actually had the same face because it’s all through the bias of Andrew’s hallucinations. Okay, if Megan wasn’t possessed, the Prologue can still make sense - after all, Andrew did turn on the stove and he believes he caused the fire. Maybe the older sister Tanya was trapped on the balcony because the door……….. got jammed by ice in the minute or two since she stepped outside? Or was Tanya just out on the balcony chilling until the fire grew too large, and what we saw of her realizing she was trapped out in the cold and trying to get back inside was just a hallucination from Andrew even though he wasn’t there? Mom Anne might not have been trapped in the bathroom from Megan, perhaps she had been taking a bath and by the time she realized the house was on fire, she couldn’t escape. But then why did Andrew see Megan just standing on the FLAMING staircase laughing as if she was possessed? Andrew seemed to be the only family member who didn’t think Megan was mean or weird, so it doesn’t make sense that he would trauma-interpret her being possessed by a demon to explain the fire - plus he blames himself for the fire, and wasn’t aware that Megan’s doll was the trigger for the house fire. When the stairs are on fire, it seems like from Megan’s POV that there is something demonic with her. This makes sense, because otherwise why show us Megan locking her mom in the bathroom when Andrew wasn’t there to see it, so surely that actually happened, right? And it makes sense that ‘possessed’ Megan saw her brother turn on the stove and then used that opportunity to cause the fire. But then what caused Megan to be possessed? The fact that there was a book on Salem Witchcraft stuff in the house? Perhaps her reincarnated spirit is being abused by the reincarnated spirit of the priest, causing the supernatural cycle to continue? Ultimately, the game doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. An argument can be made for allowing players to come up with their own interpretation of events, but so much of the game’s collectibles are about providing supporting evidence for the game’s ending - just like Man of Medan. Either everything can be explained by the deus ex machina of hallucinations - but then why do we not have any evidence to show Andrew knew about the Salem Trials, or there is also a supernatural element that is real - but then why is it not clear to us players that Mary/Megan were possessed? AN ACTUALLY INTERESTING THEORY Very recently I discovered a post by @JoaLoft here on PSNP with a really excellent explanation for their interpretation of the game’s story. This was ten times more interesting to me than what the game provided, and incredibly it only requires adding some headcanon/interpretation to the story - nothing really needs to be discarded. The developers could have done something like this, still kept things somewhat open-ended for interpretation but provided us with enough to arrive at a version of ‘what most likely happened’. I also think this would have allowed them to explore the themes related to Andrew’s guilt in a more interesting manner. THINGS I LIKED The game's soundtrack was actually pretty good! It also had a good amount of Gregorian chanting which adds to a spooky/witchy vibe. I found the Black Painting premonitions in this game to be more useful than in Man of Medan. They are still short snippets, but I was able to find pieces of information from the short flashes. And sure, what I noticed didn't always end up being helpful, but in the moment it at least felt useful. I really appreciated that the characters were experiencing visions in pairs, which drastically cuts out the amount of “we don’t believe you” stuff that normally ‘has’ to be slogged through. The game has a black cat! It gets a 2/10 Cat Rank for the brief cat cameos, and the police department including a black cat on their crest. (MORE) THINGS I DISLIKED: I found the writing of the dialogue to be really awkward at times. Even worse, it felt like characters would contradict themselves in later chapters. For example, in Chapter 1 Taylor doesn’t want to proceed into the town because everything feels like a classic horror movie, yet in “Confrontations” when Professor John wants the group to move forward she says “Those [horror] movies are dumb”. At the bar in Chapter 1, John is offered a drink. Somehow, the decision to accept it is the “rational” choice instead of the "emotional" one - how does that make any sense? It’s not like the developers are blind to the influences of alcohol, since making the “rational” choice to have a drink unlocks John’s Reckless trait... BONUS FEATURES First we have An Interview with Will Poulter, which was an interesting short watch. I didn’t even realize that Will Poulter was British, his American accent is really solid. For Abraham, since we don’t have audio recordings to know how New England pilgrims sounded, it was decided that a Northern English accent would be the closest approximation to it. Will said his Abraham accent was a riff on his father’s Yorkshire accent, which I thought was pretty funny. He also talks a little bit about the difference between traditional acting jobs (where it would take several weeks to film 4-5 deaths) and mocap work (where, by lunchtime, 4-5 deaths have already been filmed). The other video was Designing the Demons, which is exactly what it sounds like. The detail I found most fascinating was that the “Crushed Demon” (the one for John/James/Joseph) was the hardest to animate as it had no mocap. It was also neat to see snippets of the mocap for Dennis/David/Daniel’s ‘impaled’ demon and how they made that work. Just like Man of Medan, we have comic books in the forms of Secrets of Little Hope: Part 1 & Part 2. The final bonus feature was an Art Book, which also had a few interesting tidbits to discover. CONCLUSION Little Hope is a game that seems confused about its identity, and in my opinion, has a cheap ending. For the first half of the game, I was mostly happy that this Dark Pictures Anthology game had better movement controls that weren’t in tiny hallways, and was actually trying to add more spook factor beyond "claustrophobic ship corridors". I was also excited to see them lean into more spooky and supernatural tropes - even if this anthology is deliberately not trying to pay homage to various genres of horror movies in the ways that Until Dawn and The Quarry did. In the end, I just ended up being really disappointed with Little Hope. FAVORITE... Trophy Image: None. It all felt pretty lazy, just putting different icons on a few book cover colors. Trophy Moment: Dirty Little Secrets Screenshots: Edited December 31, 2023 by pelagia14 fixed half of the post somehow being italicized 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post pelagia14 Posted November 28, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted November 28, 2023 Platinum #110 | Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Developer: Insomniac Games, 2023 Country: USA Time Played: 25h Platinum Earned: 26 October 2023 Rating: 8/10 PREMISE Set six months after the events of Marvel’s Spider-Man (SM#1) [Review] and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (SM:MM) [Review], Peter and Miles have been working together to protect New York. Both are struggling to juggle their “real life” problems with their vigilante work when two big threats arrive at the Big Apple in short succession. Kraven the Hunter is looking for the greatest hunt in the world, and NYC’s concentration of supervillains makes for a ripe hunting ground. Meanwhile, Harry Osborn has returned to Peter and MJ, but he seems to have brought an alien symbiote (Venom) with him… GAME THOUGHTS SHOULD I PLAY THIS GAME? As a sequel, I’m going to cut straight to the chase on this one. Especially since this review evolved into a monster at close to 5,500 words... 😅 Most gameplay mechanics from the previous installments have been fine-tuned for the better, Symbiote combat feels phenomenal (though sadly it doesn’t unlock until about halfway through the story), and the game looks stunning on the PS5. If you enjoyed either of the previous Insomniac Spider-Man games, you’ll definitely enjoy this one - though you might finish it and feel the game played things a bit safe, narratively. If the previous games were a hard miss for you, then it’s unlikely that you’ll feel differently about this latest entry. There’s one other important note I want to make right at the top of this review. It is (sadly) refreshing to play a bigger-budget game that isn’t stuffed with XP boosters and cosmetic microtransactions, which is becoming less and less common in the gaming landscape. This game has zero microtransactions, despite having an opportunity with 60-ish cosmetic suits between Peter and Miles that you can acquire (plus many of the suits have a few additional color options). We shouldn’t feel the need to applaud when bigger studios release a game free of microtransactions, but this is where we are currently with the industry at large. COMBAT: BASICS Peter and Miles control rather similarly in combat, which is both good and bad. Good because it reduces mental overhead as you are frequently swapping between the two characters, but bad because it ends up homogenizing combat a bit. To parallel Miles’ Venom Attack controls from SM:MM, Peter now has the mechanical Spider-Arms as part of his suit (à la Iron Spider Armor from the MCU movies). As the story progresses, Peter gains Symbiote combat abilities that can be swapped in and out with his Spider-Arm abilities, and Miles eventually gains new Evolved Venom attacks that can also be swapped out with his ‘standard’ Venom attacks. Important: I’m not great at beat’em up games, so my below analysis is from the perspective of someone who played on the Friendly difficulty mode (one level below the default Amazing ‘normal’ mode). One new feature is the implementation of enemy Heavy Attacks that must be Parried instead of Dodged. Enemies will still provide a Spidey-Sense warning when they are about to launch a heavy attack, and the color of the warning tells you which reaction is required (yellow = dodge, red = parry). I’m not the best at beat’em up games, and so it admittedly took me a very long time to remember this new combat feature and then figure out the timing to pull it off. Despite my slow learning curve, I actually felt that this Parry versus Dodge system was slightly underutilized for my difficulty mode. It helps keep combat more engaging, not only from the visual side with flashy animations, but in terms of need to pay more attention to your enemy’s moves. Perhaps my desire for having enemies utilize heavy attacks more indicates that I am getting slightly better at hack’n-slash games, and had I increased the difficulty by one level I would only have struggled a little bit with it. Then again, it took me - this is no joke - probably 10 hours before I was consistently remembering and successfully executing parries. I also sometimes find some of the more scripted ‘cinematic’ boss fights to be hard to figure out at first, so an increase in difficulty level probably would have just left me feeling frustrated. On a side note, one combat ability that I unlocked very early on was the Wall Thrash, as a means of unlocking the highly desirable Web Line Double Takedown ability. As someone who sometimes frequently ends up button-mashing in my hack’n-slash and beat’em-up games, I ended up loving this move - the sound effect during each rapid blow was quite satisfying to me! My husband (who had beaten the game before I played it) would sometimes watch short segments of my fights and was quite surprised at how often I pulled of this move. He unlocked the skill far later in the game than I had, and apparently found it a bit more difficult to trigger the move even if he was near a wall. Though he also played the game on ‘Spectacular’ difficulty (aka one level above the default Amazing difficulty), which could have played a role in this. COMBAT: TEAM-UPS One really fun addition to combat are the specific fights where you’ll pair up with other characters. Those encounters are really cool, as there are moments when you’ll work together with your partner to pull off epic combo take-downs. When a group of enemies is trying to overwhelm you, your partner might dive in to help give you some breathing room, or you’ll launch an enemy in their direction for them to finish off. Sadly, despite some initial marketing that implied this game might have the option for co-op play, there is no ability to do so in the game itself. Mild spoilers for team-up moments with a few others (including two photos): Spoiler I did some Street Crimes early on in the game both because it helped me to unlock fast travel in a few key areas more quickly, and because it was cool seeing whichever Spider-Man I wasn’t controlling occasionally hop into the fray to help me out. There’s one mission where you fight alongside Felicia, maybe two missions where you pair up with Symbiote!Harry, and a short side questline with Wraith. Outside of the game’s final mission, I’m pretty sure that’s the extent of teaming up with others in combat, and while the missions themselves were fun I was always lefting wondering why the game wasn’t offering more of it to us. Had the game featured the ability to play the story in co-op, this probably would have been a 9 or 10 out of 10 for me as that would have been something truly innovative to bring to the table for this sequel. Sure, the story would have needed some adjustments to accommodate this - as it would be somewhat silly to play a Miles-required story mission with a friend helping as Peter and then at the end of the mission, Miles phones Peter to fill him in on what happened - but I don’t feel like the task would have been impossible. I would have even been okay with requiring a specific save file to be only co-op or only solo play, if it would be difficult with the game’s engine to allow for fluid swapping between the two modes of play. VENOM: DESIGN The Venom storyline doesn’t come into play until much after Kraven’s. I debated if whether even mentioning that Peter gains Symbiote abilities in this game should be considered a spoiler, but most (if not all) of the game’s marketing revealed this information, and I am writing this post a solid month after the game’s release. Honestly, I’m not even 100% sure if the Symbiote is ever formally named as Venom within the game, but we all know who it is and that’s how I think of the character mentally. Y’all, pretty much everything this game does with Venom is fucking incredible. The design alone is phenomenal - Insomniac took the classic design as a base template and then tweaked it to create something truly awesome. This game gives Venom a menacing silhouette through a hulking upper torso and shoulders. When Venom opens their mouth to display their numerous jagged teeth and long tongue, their terrifying maw inhumanely ends up being as large as their entire head was moments before. Even their movement is that of a pure predator - Venom moves in the same self-assured way that a stereotypical Tyrannosaurus Rex does when tracking prey. The voice work is equally fantastic - voice actor Tony Todd did a great job in his performance. Venom roars demands, croons promises, gleefully asserts dominance, and responds with fury to perceived slights. Todd even manages to imbue childlike senses of curiosity, fear of abandonment, and simplicity of worldview into certain moments. Insomniac did a delightful job with the audio manipulation to provide an otherworldly element to Venom’s voice as well. When they feel happy, they make a sound that is a fascinating mix between a lion’s purr and roar - the rumbly purr aspect demonstrating their pleasure, but the hint of roar lurking in the background reminds you that Venom can switch to violence on a dime. Mild spoilers: One small note - I’m not super familiar with all of the Symbiote lore. I completely understood that Venom has a sort of shape-shifting quality based on what their host “needs”, and as a result, Harry’s Symbiote ‘outfit’ looks very different from Peter’s. However, the other outfit that Venom transformed into for a specific mission based on Peter’s “need” at the time made no sense to me - mostly because it wasn’t using the typical monochromatic color palette and symbiote ‘material/texture’. VENOM: COMBAT When I reached the story mission where Peter gains the Symbiote Surge ability I was completely blown away by its controller integration. Symbiote Surge is basically a rage mode that you can use until its meter empties out, and you slowly recharge the meter as you defeat enemies in combat. Not only is it cool to have a sort of ‘Kratos Spartan Rage’, your PS5 controller’s little speaker literally emits growls and roars while Symbiote Surge is active. It’s such a fucking cool detail, and just further underscores how Peter is momentarily overcome with a sort of primal, animalistic instinct in these moments. Mild spoilers: Peter gains some Symbiote abilities for combat, as previously mentioned, but there are also two or three short story missions where you get to take control of Venom themselves. Venom is an absolute beast in combat, capable of unleashing devastating area attacks and destroying most enemies in a single standard attack. After so long playing as Peter and Miles where only special abilities can OHKO weaker enemy units, this shows you how Venom’s strength (unshackled by human standards of morality) is in a completely different league, even compared to when Peter uses Symbiote abilities. These small gameplay sections were so satisfying to play through, and the only downside was that they weren’t longer and more frequent. GAME POLISH I’ve already mentioned how gorgeous this game looks, but I really need to underline that here. Not only can you pretty much instantaneously fast travel to anywhere you have unlocked on the map, the game’s graphics are more detailed than the previous games. I personally never ran into awkward delayed pop-ins or stutters in frame rate, thanks to the PS5 running on SSD. High-rise buildings don’t just have squares of light to represent windows, you can see furnished rooms - sometimes with occupants - as you fly past the lower levels of these skyscrapers. Sure, there are probably only a dozen or so residential and commercial layouts which the developers then reskin with different colors and rearrange their contents, but considering how we never go into these rooms that didn't bother me. There are also a decent number of missions that take place in unique one-time locations. At one point Peter decides to sneak into Kraven’s “headquarters” to learn more about the hunter, and I was blown away at the graphical fidelity and sumptuous textures that they invested in this one location that makes up a small fraction of your overall gaming experience. The developers really made their big narrative set pieces stand out despite the variety of locations that they used. The developers also figured out how to have ray tracing constantly active without negatively impacting performance. I’m familiar with the concept of ray tracing but haven’t actually experienced very much of it. Most of my limited PC gaming is to indie games not available on console, and I always pick performance over graphics in my settings. As a result, I was utterly captivated at getting to experience ray tracing at its finest without a decrease in performance on a console. As a Playstation-owned studio, Insomniac is fortunate to get early access to dev kits, but I also remember learning somewhere a few weeks ago that someone who helped design the PS5 hardware ended up joining the Insomniac team during this game’s development. MECHANICS: TRAVERSAL The ‘Aerial Tricks’ system from SM:MM is continued here, and now Peter also gets to make tricks in the air for little handfuls of XP. There are minute differences in how both characters ‘play’ their tricks. To use dance as an analogy, Miles’ more flashy movements remind me of beatbox, whereas Peter’s smooth elegance (born from many more years of web-traversing experience) almost feels like a ballet. While there are a few other small additions or changes to the existing traversal mechanics, the big new feature are the Web Wings equipped to both Peter and Miles’ suits, which allow you to glide across far distances. You can also take advantage of the city’s several “wind tunnels” as a form of aerial highway to rapidly traverse across long distances of the map, or even dip into it for a short stretch to boost your gliding speed. Some people found the Web Wings to be so OP that it essentially trivialized moving across NYC, but since the wind tunnels are only along busier ‘corridors’ of the game’s map, I would disagree with that assessment. One mechanic tangentially related to traversal is the new Web Lines that allow you more free-form ability in your aerial stealth. Not only can you set up a Web Line between two solid wall surfaces, you can also use an existing Web Line as an anchor point. Sadly the game only lets you have 4-5 lines active at a time - though instead of preventing you from shooting out new lines, it just makes the oldest line disappear when you go beyond the ‘limit’. I really enjoyed how this feature allowed me to approach stealth in a new way, and sometimes even made a game out of trying to ‘decorate’ a single web line with as many goons as I could! Another thing that was fast was Fast Travel itself. The PS4 games already had rather short loading times, but Spider-Man 2 has - I kid you not - a load time that is less than a second. For districts where you’ve unlocked Fast Travel, you can select pretty much any point in that district to fast travel to, instead of 2-3 specific icons. Your camera zooms in on the map, and in less than a second it changes from 2D blue map graphics into the 3D graphics of the area, finishing with your chosen Spider-Man swinging from out of camera for you to then control. The entire animation process itself is maybe 2 seconds long? It almost makes me miss other games whose several seconds of loading time allowed me to check my phone notifications, but I somehow managed to survive without the loading times. 😜 MECHANICS: A REDUCTION IN PAIN POINTS Insomniac really paid attention to the criticisms the gaming community had with its previous Spider-Man games, and by and large did a great job addressing many of them. Getting each district to 100% no longer feels like a laundry list, as instead of a specific checklist of items to cross off, you just have to complete enough activities to get a district to 100%. Street Crimes are completely optional - they can help you to unlock fast travel in a district faster, but beyond that their only mechanical purpose is to provide you with upgrade currency that can also be earned in other ways. Probably the most common complaint of the original game were the Stealth Sections with MJ and Miles. Insomniac wasn’t entirely willing to get rid of those in Spider-Man 2, but I recall there being zero Miles stealth sections and only two with MJ. These segments did somewhat surpass my ability to suspend disbelief, though. The game explains that MJ trained some with Sable and now owns a Taser. These sections almost made me feel like I was playing Assassin’s Creed in the present day (but not in a good way) since MJ could sneak up behind guards and take them down with a single tase so long as they weren’t within sight of another guard. It brings to question Kraven’s recruiting abilities if his team of elite fighters - who, I should add, require several hits from Peter or Miles in order to defeat during combat - can be so easily rendered useless by a journalist with a taser and perhaps a week of basic hand-to-hand training at most… 😂 MJ: capable of subduing dozens of trained fighters, apparently. Finally, many people were annoyed in the previous games by how repetitive the science-related sidequests were, which brings us to the next section. SIDE QUESTS With this game Insomniac has embraced the philosophy of “less is more”, but provides us with a wider array of experiences to prevent the game from feeling bereft of activities. The Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man App has returned from SM:MM, but there are only 6 requests - one with an old man and the other featuring pigeons, and both actually being incredibly well-written for how short they are. Science side quests are also toned down in this game. For example, one of the sidequests in SM#1 was to complete the Research Stations Harry had set up around the city - I think there were 17 of them? A few would have you collect smog data-gathering weather balloons, a few have you webbing up busted water pipes, etc - though some of the research stations were very unique. Here in Spider-Man 2, Peter’s science-y side quest (EMF Experiments) has a total of 10 quests. Sure, a couple of them are centered on the robotic bee drones the Emily May Foundation is working on, but even within the subset of “bee drone” experiments, there is variety in what you need to accomplish. One mission has you testing power-generating bicycles (that turn out to not be ready for roll-out to the public), and another one tasks you with deploying sky drones high in the sky. A couple of them ask you to design GMO plant strains to solve specific needs or remove problematic nucleotides from a polymer design - admittedly these retain the repetitiveness of SM#1’s Spectrometry ‘puzzles’, and with only 10 total EMF Experiments it isn’t that bad. Yeah science! Not only are the game’s side quests shorter in number of locations and wider in their content, but Peter’s in particular are integrated much more smoothly into this game. Collectible Photo Ops are positioned as Peter’s way of earning income since he was fired from his new job at the game’s start. EMF Experiments across the city are Peter’s way of helping out the Emily May Foundation and an opportunity for him to do something cool with science. The Flame is a set of four missions related to a new gang in the city, and its conclusion hints at a potential villain in the next game, assuming Insomniac continues with Spider-Man 3. I found Peter’s Symbiote Nests to be a bit meh as they were basically “fight goons while protecting the objective point”, but at least it was with an enemy type I didn’t fight very much elsewhere in the game, and protecting an objective point was something slightly different if not innovative. Sadly, I found Miles’ unique side quests to be less interesting, with several of them not being uniquely tied to him as a character. Three of Miles’ side quest ‘categories’ relate to Kraven - who doesn’t have a personal connection to Miles - and so it feels somewhat arbitrary to lock these sidequests to Miles even though it makes sense in terms of the wider narrative. Hunter Blinds and their follow-up Hunter Bases were pretty generic, essentially being “incapacitate all the goons via stealth and/or combat”. Surprisingly, I actually really enjoyed the Unidentified Targets quests. They ask you to chase after Kraven’s robotic raptors across the city with your Web Wings, and I often found these “races” to be a nice change of pace. It forced me to get better at making sharp turns with the Web Wings, and there were a few cool ‘set piece’ moments - like following a raptor through a broken window in a skyscraper or chasing another raptor down a very narrow corridor formed by two close high-rise buildings. Miles had one more side quest tied to a random villain, the Mysterium locations which reminded me of the Combat Screwball Challenges in one of SM#1’s DLCs: you’re tasked with defeating enemies in specific manners and are graded on how quickly you accomplish them. Even more frustratingly, the very first Mysterium was actually somewhat interesting, having Miles under the illusion that he is DJ’ing for a crowd with a short rhythm mini-game. I thought all of the Mysteriums would be rhythm-based mini-games to expand on Miles’ musical career plans, so all subsequent locations instead revolving around ‘fight a bunch of mooks’ ended up even more disappointing as a result. The rhythm game itself wasn't great - other non-rhythm games like Final Fantasy VII: Remake have done much better implementations, but it was still a nice change of pace. Miles did have a few side quests that were tailored to him personally. There are five Brooklyn Visions missions that show him being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to his school. Some of them were a little silly, but they help to underline that Miles is still a teenager and not yet as world-weary as Peter has become. The Cultural Museum missions were an interesting idea, focusing on thefts targeting a museum of Harlem’s musical heritage, but it was extremely brief as there were only two missions. One of them has you operating Spider-Bot, and considering I can only think of one other time this game uses Spider-Bot (right after the fight with Sandman), adding one or two more Spider-Bot missions to the Cultural Museum would have been an easy way to both flesh it out a little and give us a little more time with this unique gameplay mechanic. The sidequest ‘category’ that I found the most boring was Miles’ Prowler Stash. Thematically they were tied to his Uncle Aaron which is great, but mechanically they were kind of… pointless? The stashes are very simple environmental puzzles that you solve with the help of magical purple particles, and the occasional venom-powered recharge of a generator. I’m not kidding. Apparently, if Uncle Aaron needed to slide open a door to access a stash, some magical property of the tech stash inside caused the change in the environment (the repositioned door) to generate these purple particles that can then be seen who-know-how-long-later with a special lens. A before-and-after example of these super basic 'puzzles'... Besides Peter’s Photo Ops, there are two other types of collectibles to collect. Marko’s Memory tasks you with collecting Sandman crystal fragments and was pretty meh in my opinion, asking you to fight a few waves of Sandman sand goons at each location. I loved the Spider-Bot collectibles though! There were 43 total Spider-Bots to collect from alternate Spider-Man universes, each with its own unique design - a subtle yet delightful nod to the Spider-Verse movies. One downside of sidequests being more integrated into the narrative is that some of them only became available towards the end of the game, such as the Unidentified Targets one that I liked for how unique it was. Overall, I was pretty satisfied with the sidequests because of their variety. While I disliked some of them, they didn’t overstay to the point where I grew to despise them. DUAL-SENSE The integration of the PS5 controller in this game is the best I’ve come across thus far. When your health gets low, the controller provides haptic feedback in the form of a very faint ‘vibration’ patterned to mimic a beating heart. Unlike the distractingly loud rumbles of the PS3 controller’s vibration feature, this murmur of a vibration is so unobtrusive that it is easy to forget about, yet it further immerses you during dicey combat moments. The controller’s speaker isn’t only used during Symbiote Surge - I noticed that whenever a metal barrel rolls across the (concrete) ground, the speakers create a rather spot-on sound of the reverberating echoes that ring inside the hollow barrels. One feature I disliked was that by default the game’s two podcasts (Danika’s and J. Jonah Jameson’s) play from the controller. Danika’s podcast always begins with a sort of “breaking news ringtone” that was startling to hear so close to me, so I greatly appreciated that I could stop that from playing out of my controller’s speaker separate from everything else. The developers integrated haptic feedback into other small details, like if you end up ‘water skiing’ across the river and (somehow) the feeling of air currents when you are flying. Peter’s final story-related ‘suit’ has its own interesting heartbeat vibration that I noticed if I just stood still;, and standing on top of a building’s air conditioning unit will make your controller vibrate! There are also certain story missions and side quests that require you to pull back on L2 and R2 to different points, which was an interesting use of the adaptive triggers. A FEW MISSES I already mentioned that the lack of co-op in a game with two Spider-Men was a negative, as well as how ridiculously ‘powerful’ MJ is with her brief Sable training and taser. There are a few other complaints I have with this game, even if most of them are nit-picky. The Venom storyline doesn't get any real traction until over halfway through the game, and it's the best part of the story. With how epic all the Venom-based mechanics are, they should have just gotten rid of all the Kraven storyline stuff. I understand that thematically the Kraven storyline ends up providing some growth for one of the characters, but it happens so late in the story that it could easily be swapped with something else. When you are free roaming around the city, there is no ability to change between day and night! Why give us a lovely photo mode, but not the ability to change the sun's position or even time of day! This game was in the unique position of sometimes having two Spider-Men speaking in the same conversation, and so they needed to distinguish the speaker tags in the subtitles. I liked the idea of using an icon of each Spider-Man’s mask, but it was actually very hard for my brain to distinguish between them! When you are focusing on the game, and only quickly looking at the subtitles at the bottom, both mask icons actually looked somewhat similar to my brain - they had dark areas and red areas that broke each other up. Instead of adding the small ‘webbing’ detail from the masks to the icons, I would have preferred that Insomniac just made a solid-color mask, like this: Puerto Rican Flag Controversy Miles Morales is well known to have a Puerto Rican mother, and their new house proudly displaces a framed Puerto Rican flag… …except that it is using the colors of the Cuban flag, which has the same essential design but with the red and blue swapped. Essentially, the Puerto Rican flag looks like a mini American flag - a star on a blue background and red stripes, whereas the Cuban flag has a star on a red background with blue stripes. Makes sense, since Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the US. Interestingly, the flag displayed in the Morales home was correctly rendered at the Puerto Rican flag’s 2:3 proportion instead of the Cuban flag’s 1:2 proportion, making it even more odd how this mistake happened. Pride Flags / LGBTQ Controversy In order for the game to be approved by the Saudi Arabian government for release within that country, Insomniac had to do remove: All pride flags and graffiti’d street art containing LGBTQ symbolism The side quests involving bisexual and gay characters Any dialogue referencing LGBTQ content in general While many companies have gone this route with their content offerings in the Middle East, many (including myself) are disappointed that Insomniac also followed this route when the studio claims to be proudly LGBTQ-positive. Story Spoilers: Spoiler Kraven killed a lot of villains off-screen, which was very anti-climactic. We would literally be told that X, Y, and Z villains were killed by Kraven, either from other characters or from Peter/Miles talking to themselves while examining said villains destroyed gear within Kraven’s possession. Fixing a particle accelerator from the inside felt rather implausible to me, but it falls under ‘ridiculous comic book shenanigans’ that I begrudgingly tolerate. A FEW (MORE) HIGHLIGHTS Overall I’ve spoken very positively about this game, and yet there are a few details I want to preserve for my future memory that don’t fit well anywhere else. Yuri Lowenthal really knocked it out of the park with his vocal performance as Peter in this game. The ASL (American Sign Language) representation was awesome. One of my childhood friends has a sister and mother who are deaf, and so while I’m not part of the deaf community personally I have some tangential awareness of both their culture and some of the issues they face in society. A lot of media falls on the trope of having deaf people as perfect lip-readers, so it was very refreshing to see Ganke and Miles incorporating some sign language while they talked with her. I think the “ASL to Speech” setting is turned off by default, but it’s awesome that they had a deaf actor perform Hailey’s lines when that mode is turned on. RIP Spider-Cube A glitch normally wouldn’t be a positive - and I never personally experienced this early release glitch - but I found the memes relating to what the community dubbed as 'Spider-Cube' to be hilarious. STORY THOUGHTS Spoiler This game’s main conflicts are internal for Peter and Miles. While I preferred how SM#1 had Peter’s personal conflict tied in to the main villain in classic Spider-Man fashion, I did like how at the end of the story Peter and Miles were able to help each other in different ways. The Kraven storyline was pretty weak. While Kraven as a standalone villain is an interesting concept, he spent most of this game doing his own things (capturing and killing other villains) while Peter and Miles dealt with his goons. Villains that Kraven kills: Scorpion (the only on-screen kill) Inside of a single mission, MJ also learns of: Vulture Electro The Shocker Villains that Kraven attempts to capture, but we either prevent the capture or prevent Kraven from killing: Sandman Mr. Negative Lizard Tombstone Black Cat Our fight against Lizard was actually pretty cool, though. Lizard was growing into a behemoth compared to Peter, it almost felt like fighting a baby Godzilla. And Lizard pulling both us and a military tank up the side of a skyscraper was a pretty epic spectacle. I found the Symbiote storyline to be stronger because of how it impacted Peter’s treatment of his friends, plus everything that went into Venom’s design. I loved how the developers showed Peter’s heightened emotions and prolonged influence from Venom when he went to Kraven’s mansion for the rescue mission. The timer on Peter’s Symbiote Surge mode became much longer, and I was even able to essentially OHKO shielded enemies! The Symbiote enemies at the end of the story were a bit meh for me personally, but I appreciated Insomniac trying to bring us a new enemy type. I despised the green fuckers though with how they constantly dodged punches, so I quickly turned to saving my web shooters exclusively for taking them down. It was also annoying how in the end game, it seemed like Street Crimes exclusively had Symbiotes. I had to go to a Mysterium to get my final combat-related trophy since I hadn’t made multiple save files with my playthrough. I didn’t find Symbiote!MJ to be very interesting. Apparently MJ’s big internal conflict was that Peter never supported or prioritized her, but the game didn’t show a lot of that to us despite the many scenes between the two. Yeah, sometimes date night/dinner was interrupted because the city needed Spider-Man, but MJ understood that. We never saw Peter devaluing MJ’s job (except for towards the end when the Symbiote had a strong hold of him, but at that point everyone knew Peter had been acting out of character for a while). Heck, in SM:MM Peter had even gone to Symkaria with MJ to serve as the photographer for her journalism work. RANDOM There were several possible images that great you for the game’s main menu, and I thought it was neat that the image (being set in either daytime or nighttime) matched up with the time of day for your console’s timezone. Miles’ musical career containing a song called “Swinging” is hilarious. Though I don’t know if he realizes the connotation that most people would come to, lmao. Downtown NYC actually being covered in sand after the first mission against Sandman was pretty cool. We normally don’t get to see the immediate aftermath of first responders and clean-up following a villain’s large-scale destructive attack. This game gets a 😺/10! Not only did Hailey meet an adorable cat that liked to cuddle with its Spiderman plush, but we also met a less domesticated cat as well! The first half of the credits were gorgeous! PHOTO MODE! While many of you probably think this post is already full of pictures, I haven't yet preserved all of my favorite photo mode snaps for posterity! FAVORITE… Trophy Image: I Quit Trophy Moment: Funky Wireless Protocols Screenshots: Spoiler Screenshots: Spoiler . 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post pelagia14 Posted December 15, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 15, 2023 (edited) Platinum #111 | Saltsea Chronicles Developer: Die Gute Fabrik, 2023 Country: Germany Time Played: *34h Platinum Earned: 1 November 2023 Rating: 6/10 *Without any guide. Platinum is probably close to 15h with one. PREMISE Saltsea Chronicles is a narrative-centric game that is a cross between point-and-click and I would say visual novel. You follow the crew of the De Kelpie ship in a post-flood world known as the Saltsea. Ostensibly the story is about finding the crew's captain who was kidnapped at the start of the game, but the true story is about the crew's collective journey. The crew of misfits will encounter a variety of island communities throughout their expedition, and unearth (unwater? 😂) a large conspiracy in the process. GAME THOUGHTS I don't remember where I first learned of this game, but I was intrigued by its setting, art style, and its collectibles being in the form of a sticker book Almanac. I ended up enjoying the story, despite it starting fairly slow. The story's focus on community in different forms is what drew me in, and it wasn't until halfway through the game that I started to see how the developers were exploring the concept of community. The story's plot is decent, but what is stronger are the emotions and reactions of your crew to the events. MECHANICS: DESTINATION EXPLORATION The story takes place over 10 chapters, with each chapter taking place on a different island. A few of the chapters have more than one location to pick from, so a minimum of two playthroughs (plus one chapter select) are required to see each destination in the Saltsea. Most island locations are composed of 3-4 screens where you can point-and-click with various icons to speak to the island residents, observe things of note in the environment, and progress the story. Some of the screens will have one or two door icons that lead to an interior destination screen, but you do not get to freely move your characters around. MECHANICS: CREWMATE SELECTION At the start of each chapter, the story dictates a primary crew member that will 'take point' for that destination, and you are asked to pick a second crewmate to accompany them. Typically you will have two choices to pick from, as each location will have various crewmates needing a break or not interested in going ashore - though one chapter has four options. There is some amount of unique dialogue for each crewmate that you pick, but for most chapters, it wasn't enough to keep me invested in my subsequent playthroughs. Additionally, Saltsea has several languages - and when you are on the crewmate selection screen, you can see which languages each person speaks as well as which ones are spoken by the destination's inhabitants. At first, I thought that this would be used a lot - even if it relegated solely to optional conversations that flesh out the worldbuilding. I was pretty disappointed to see that it rarely made much of a difference whether you had someone who could speak a specific language - since the Patta language seems to function as a "Common" language across the Saltsea. MECHANICS: CREW ISSUES The game has an interesting "Issues" system. Throughout the story, various interpersonal issues amongst the crew will become "Active". Depending on the dialogue choices that you make, each Active Issue eventually becomes Resolved or Scuppered. I do wish that the game had spent a little more time fleshing out the crew conflicts with more conversations aboard the De Kelpie at the start/end of each chapter. Nevertheless, the final chapters of the game had a few moments that made me feel something, so there is some success in that regard. MECHANICS: SPOILS There is a neat card game called Spoils that you can play in most destinations. It's very similar to Euchre, for those familiar with the game. (On a side note, I find it fascinating that Euchre is played in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand... and the Midwestern US. 😂) For my fellow Americans who are unfamiliar with Euchre, a very basic overview is that you play with 4 people in two teams, and only some of the cards from a standard card deck (ie, at least in the Midwest it is AKQJ10987). Each round is a 'trick', and a trick is won by the team who plays the highest card of that round's trump suit. Spoils uses most of the cards in a deck, but several cards have no point value - making them great to save for when you know your team is going to lose a trick. Saltsea's Spoils is played in three rounds, and what I found really interesting is that you never want your round score to reach or surpass 100. If you hit the triple digits, at the end of the round you automatically get 0 points and the opposing team gets 100 points as a punishment/reward. A lot of times I just had a decent hand and I didn't have to worry about this rule - however, the times where I would get a really good hand were actually very difficult, since it isn't hard to go over 100 with a good hand. A few destinations have their own 'regional rule variations' that you get to play as well, which was neat. It was a bit annoying that you can only play Spoils once per destination visit, but the game's main menu allows you to play any of the standard or variant versions of Spoils that you have unlocked. I initially had one gripe with Spoils which will sound odd at first: it is a chill game. The pacing is deliberately slow - it is typically 2-3 seconds before each NPC plays their turn. My first several games had me impatient to get to the result of each trick and move on, but over time I grew to appreciate the calm, serene moments playing this game. Having each NPC wait a few seconds (sometimes even making a short comment before they play a card) helps make it feel like you are playing against random people instead of AI. THEMES The game's biggest theme is community, if you haven't figured that out. A few destinations have you visiting islands whose community is split for one reason or another, and I found those were usually the most interesting chapters. The theme of belonging is explored in several other places - whether it is feeling like an outsider where you grew up or a place that welcomes anyone and everyone. Some destinations were focused more on storylines related to members of your crew or the overall narrative. Grief and loss are explored a bit in later chapters, in ways that treat the topic seriously without being long, depressing segments. One of the optional crewmates you can recruit is a Guide, which is sort of a counselor-slash-eulogist, and their moments often focus on how performing emotional labor can be very draining. There are also a couple of LGBTQ characters in Saltsea. While one queer relationship develops during the game (and certain playthrough routes can have a second one), I would say it is not very prominent. That's not a criticism, by the way! Plenty of stories have background straight romances/relationships that are not important to the plot, and the queer relationships in this game are present in that manner, where it's there but without fanfare. One character has a short scene where they express that they prefer gender-neutral pronouns, and then everyone moves on. The conversation was thoughtfully written, and queer identity never created drama in the plot. It's a society where queer relationships are as normal as straight relationships, and so I think this game is great for anyone who wants to see queer representation in a story that doesn't emphasize queer trauma or reduce someone's entire identity to being 'the queer character'. (Though note that there aren't any overt gay relationships, for people specifically seeking that representation.) NARRATIVE This section will not mention any end-game spoilers, but it does concern the game's ending. It's interesting because I both liked and disliked the ending. I liked it, because we got to confront some people. Some of the crew were rightfully angry at these people, and hearing these people's narcissistic justifications made me ticked off on the crew's behalf after their journey to reach that point. I'm always going to appreciate when a narrative makes me feel something. The ending kind of pulls a Hunger Games: Mockingjay, though. Imma use that book as a metaphor, so spoilers I guess for a decade-plus-old book/movie. Anyways, in that book you learn that District 13 was NOT destroyed by the Capitol 75 years ago, but instead seceded from whatever the nation with Capitol was called. In the final 10-15 or so pages of Mockingjay, Katniss learns that President Snow is *not* the only big villain on the board - District 13's President Coin wants to take control over all thirteen districts. I vividly remember reading this and thinking to myself "ho shit, there's gonna be an entire other book exploring this plot twist!" - but then Katniss just kills President Coin a few pages later, and the end. So the author brings up a plot development that has a ton of implications, and then just stops there. While Saltsea doesn't have "Katniss kills President coin a few pages later" - so the devs could go on to make a sequel - my gut feeling is that they are not working on one. Especially with how hard it is for smaller dev studios to survive. Of course I would absolutely love to be proven wrong, in which case my issues with this game's ending would change. As it stands right now though, the game has a relatively satisfying emotional ending but the plot development leads you into thinking that you are in the penultimate chapter. PLATINUM JOURNEY I played this game shortly after release and it was a refreshing change of pace for me to figure out some of the trophy requirements after the Internet provided no results. I'm still definitely going to rely on trophy roadmaps and guides for a lot of my games - considering how large my backlog is - but it's always good to step outside of one's comfort zone every once in a while. My last trophy to get the platinum (Memory of a Dream) took me literally ages to figure out. Initially, I thought it just required me to play through either Chapter 3 or Chapter 10 with a specific character, so I replayed both of them several times - even with crewmate companions that I thought didn't make sense for the trophy. Later I realized that the trophy spanned from Chapter 3 *to* Chapter 10, and the platinum was finally mine. Even though I feel that the developers could have done a little more with unique dialogue and furthering crewmate interactions, I still enjoyed this game overall. I've been working on a PSNP Trophy & Collectibles Guide for this game, and golly! It has certainly been a time investment, and it is nowhere near as long or complicated as most RPG games! This all makes me even more appreciative of the dozens to hundreds of hours that guide writers spend each year writing free guides and resources to help out fellow gamers within the community. For anyone considering playing this game, I think the platinum can be done in around 15h with a guide - and hopefully, I will have the guide completed around the new year. RANDOM THOUGHTS I wish there had been more than 5 save slots. However, on the 'Load Save' screen I liked how playthroughs with similar choices would have their respective pieces of seaweed overlap in the background. There is an island of people who are cat lovers! This game gets a 😺/10 for that! My first playthrough was Grace/Minta/Alcazar/Sky's Eye with Zo. Second playthrough was Sisao/Los Gatos/Biomes/Light with Sanni. FAVORITE... Trophy Image: Deal with it! Trophy Moment: Memory of a Dream Screenshots: (will fix this later, forgot to grab a few screenshots from my PS5) Edited December 15, 2023 by pelagia14 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post pelagia14 Posted December 21, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 21, 2023 Platinum #112: Killer Frequency Developer: Team17, 2023 Country: England Time Played: 10h Platinum Earned: 9 November 2023 Rating: 7/10 PREMISE You play as Forrest Nash, late-night radio host of KFAM 189.16 - The Scream. The Whistling Man is a serial killer that has almost faded into legend for the small town of Gallows Creek, until one fateful night when he returns. With no Sheriff on duty and the town’s sole 911 Operator gone to seek more help, it’s your job to answer the emergency calls this evening - and hopefully help The Whistling Man’s target avoid death. GAME THOUGHTS Wow, this game was an unexpected delight! It’s sort of like a podcast where you get to pick dialogue choices sometimes, paired with a hint of radio host simulator, mixed with logic puzzles you solve by exploring the radio station for information. The game has excellent writing paired with solid voice performances. It is confident in its silly premise, and the variety of logic puzzles for a narrative of a few hours was very nice. I recommend this game to anyone seeking a comedic mystery game or looking for a solid, unique experience. BUT THIS IS A HORROR GAME, RIGHT? Wrong! IGDB lists the game’s themes as Horror and Comedy, but whoever set that information really should have chosen Thriller and Comedy instead. While both Horror and Thrillers can have plenty of suspense, Horror focuses on creating fear while a Thriller instead emphasizes tension and drama. Sure, wandering around an almost-empty radio station after hours can have creepy moments that increase one's blood pressure a little bit, but there is never any gore or even any violence on screen. You are also never on a timer in this game - typically you receive the initial emergency call setting up the problem, you tell the caller that you’ll try to find a way to solve their problem, you explore the radio station to find the information you need, and then the caller happens to be ready to call you back immediately upon your return to the radio booth. The game isn’t seeking to get your heartbeat racing with invisible countdown timers or accusatory failure messages if you don’t complete objectives within short time frames. Granted, people can end up dying, but only if you make errors with the logic puzzles that indicate the appropriate instructions to give. The Whistling Man is very patient and polite, apparently - and since this is a comedic game, that sort of implausibility doesn’t bother me. SO… LOGIC PUZZLES? If you’re thinking of the ‘traditional’ logic puzzles where you have to deduce which 5 people did which 5 things at which 5 places and times, this is nowhere near that involved. The first emergency call you receive is from a jazzercise woman who was being followed by the Whistling Man. She fled to her car but dropped her keys along the way, so you need to figure out how to help her hotwire her vehicle. Within the radio station there happens to be a car magazine with simple hotwiring instructions, allowing you to call her back and guide her through the process. That puzzle is like a 15-second version of the excellent game Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes, where you are given “If A, do X. If B, do Y. If C, do Z.” instructions that allow you to pick the appropriate responses. Another puzzle involves using a Friendship Quiz to figure out who amongst a group of teens would be best at carrying out various steps of their plan to escape the Whistling Man. I would like to list some of the other creative ways in which you are present with puzzles, but there aren’t that many in the game and I don't want to ruin the feeling of novelty future players. I wish the game held more logic puzzles, but then it could run into the issue of having repetitive or poorly-written caller/puzzle pairings, so I’m happy to have something that was well-executed even if it left me wanting a bit more. FORREST AS RADIO HOST This game makes you feel like a radio host. Whenever someone calls in, you need to hit pause on the vinyl record because you can hit the switch that will put their call on speakerphone. At a couple of points, Peggy tells you that it is time for an add break, and - since it is the 1980s - the ads are on prerecorded cassettes that you put into a player and hit the play button on. Some callers seem to love the sound of their voice, and there is even the group of drunk frat bros that you talk with. At the end of phone calls, you have a selection of several song tracks to pick from for the radio airwaves - plus a couple more hidden tracks within the station that you can add to the collection. FORREST AS “911 OPERATOR” I was pretty impressed with the small 911 Operator/Emergency Dispatcher elements incorporated into the game. Back in my university days I worked as a Public Safety (campus police) dispatcher for a few years, and after graduation I worked as a 911 Operator for the county for a year. Killer Frequency doesn’t make you do a lot of the boring-but-necessary 911 stuff, such as dispatching ambulances to a scene or determining which patrol unit is best to respond to a call. All the game really does is take the premise of people who are in emergencies getting help over the phone - which is totally fine! Trying to integrate more authentic elements of 911 would take away from the comedic aspects of the game. Nevertheless, I was happy that what elements the game did present (knowingly or not) were fairly accurate and did not portray the media stereotype of the rude, unhelpful, or bored 911 Operator. Forrest of course has zero training in answering 911 calls, and in this game's premise has no way of knowing whether he is answering a radio call or emergency call, so he is quite verbose introducing himself to callers. However, he usually asks pretty early on in the phone call for the caller’s location - and modern best practice for 911 is to always first ask where an emergency is, in case the call gets unexpectedly disconnected. The residents of Gallows Creek are often quite distressed and scared when they call, to which Forrest will try to calm them down with a soothing voice - as panicked minds are not great at answering questions. Forrest does get one medical call (still tied into the Whistling Man, of course). The medical information that you find is pretty accurate, especially in regards to not removing the knife from a stab wound as it is also preventing the injured person from bleeding out right away. The game also creates situations where Forrest and Peggy need to use creative problem-solving, such as when it’s discovered that medical help is needed but there isn’t an ambulance. A lot of 911 response is ‘fact-based’ - procedures for determining which units to dispatch and medical software that provides triaging questions, but there are also plenty of calls that just require common sense and out-of-the-box thinking as well. The one nice “inaccuracy” in Killer Frequency is that, unlike with real 911 calls, we as Forrest get a bit of resolution on our calls. Either one caller was able to get out of a burning building thanks to our help, or they died. Jazzercise lady was able to hotwire her car and drive away safely, or she suffered a grizzly death. 911 operators don’t get to know the outcome of most of the calls they receive, which I’m sure is a small part of why there have only been a few attempts at creating 911 Simulator games. RANDOM Of course the radio station would have a “Guess That Scream” game at the beginning of that evening (before it’s known that the Whistling Man has returned). I loved that we got to pick what kind of scream Forrest tries to make for the audio clip. At one point, Forrest and Peggy think that the Whistling Man could go by the name of Clive, and not long after we get this interaction after a time skip: Forrest, in a long-suffering tone: “Thank you caller, for reporting the librarian as another suspicious Clive.” Peggy, in a wise tone that shares oft-spoken advice: “Remember callers - Report a Clive, Stay Alive.” The persistence of PONTY’S PIZZA was hilarious. Especially in the final call when he managed to trick Forrest and make him angry. I loved how ridiculous the radio ads were for Master Robbie’s Dojo and the Harvest Festival promo. The radio manager has an idea for a movie called "Deep Cuts" about a 'Pizza Delivery Killer who kills with a pizza cutter'. The notes on his computer even have the idea of doing a promo for Ponty's Pizza for marketing. The secretary is a cat person! 😺😂 Spoiler I loved the moment where you have to exit the safety of the radio station to get the fire escape key outside… and realize that you are in the same alley where Prologue Person (probably Janitor Clive) was murdered. Conversely, for the most part I didn’t mind that the game was not trying to be as authentic as possible. However, I wanted to yell at the screen when Forrest returns inside and does not lock the exterior door behind him! I knew it was so that we could get a dramatic ending, but I really hate when people do dumb stuff in horror/thriller movies. 😂 Janitor Clive’s little murder-solving secret hideout was creepy in a cool way. Having to walk through the box-stuffed dark basement was creepy in an anxiety-filled way. 😂 Somewhat early in the story, we get caller 'Dawn' (later revealed to be the mastermind behind the return of the Whistling Man for her revenge) who requested a specific song. After the call we learn that Peggy had thrown it out the station window earlier that week because a coworker kept playing the song to annoy her even though he knew she hated that song. On my second playthrough, now knowing who Dawn was, I realized that Peggy probably hated that song because it was her lost sister’s favorite song, and hearing it likely just reminded her of how much she missed her sister. FAVORITE… Trophy Image: Certified Platinum Trophy Moment: From Beyond The Grave Trophy Reference: Keep Talking And Nobody Dies & Master of Unlocking Screenshots: Spoiler Screenshots: Spoiler . 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted December 22, 2023 Author Share Posted December 22, 2023 Platinum #113 | Call of the Sea Developer: Out of the Blue, 2021 Country: Spain Time Played: 4h Platinum Earned: 11 November 2023 Rating: 7/10 PREMISE It is November 1934, and you play as Norah Everhart - a young woman slowly dying from a mysterious illness she seemed to inherit after her mother passed away. Norah’s husband Harry had previously led an expedition to find a cure for your illness, and had written in letters that he believed he was on the verge of discovering it - and then the expedition seemed to vanish, as it has now been months without any word. At the start of the game, Norah has tracked the expedition to an island 74 nautical miles east of Otaheite (Tahiti) that the locals refuse to visit. Armed with just her trusty journal, it’s up to Norah to find out what happened to Harry and discover the strange secrets hidden within the island. GAME THOUGHTS Y’all, I played this game by pure chance and ended up really enjoying it. I was trying to find another game that had orange in its thumbnail for PSNP’s Trophies to Fight Cancer Event, and had seen a few people used this game which they mentioned was part of the PS+ Catalog. I was also in dire need of a brown thumbnail for my PSNP Kaleidoscope card, and figured I had nothing to lose by downloading a game for free which looked like just a couple of hours to platinum. You need to solve puzzles in order to explore the island and learn its secrets, and Norah will helpfully sketch down important clues you find into her journal for your later reference. It reminded me of Nathan Drake and his puzzle-solving journals in the Uncharted series… except I didn’t have to deal with enemies and explosions, the puzzles were a lot more interesting, and my character spoke with a Transatlantic accent. I went into this game absolutely blind, besides confirming that there were no missable trophies and that the game seemed to have mystery themes and puzzles. The people who played it for the PSNP Event spoke well of it, and it could apparently be completed in 3 hours so I made the rare choice of not looking into it further. This is not a game like Inscryption or Outer Wilds where going in blind is essentially a requirement to truly experience it - but for me, not even being aware of where the developers took their inspiration from meant that I was able to really enjoy the slow reveal of the game’s direction. If you are interested in the game and want a similar experience, then you should stop reading here. NORAH’S JOURNAL Norah’s paper companion is separated into two portions - the front half is a diary that summarizes what happens in each chapter, and the back half is where all the puzzle-related info is sketched down. It’s a really small detail, but I love how the journal opens up to the most recent date. I randomly tried to flip to a page backwards and was surprised to find two full spreads of entries providing further details about what I learned in the game’s prologue. I also liked that Norah had read up on Polynesian culture during her trip. I now know that outrigger canoes are called Va’a in French Polynesia, and the carved wooden boards (that reminded me of Planky from Ed, Edd, n’ Eddy 😂) are called Unu. INSPIRATIONS At the start of the game I had zero idea that the developers were heavily inspired by the surreal aspects of Lovecraft’s works, among other things. I figured that the sea would be important to the game’s mystery as it is literally in the title, Norah had the strange underwater dream, and it seemed like her health had taken a turn for the worse when she moved away from the sea to Denver with Harry. While a great deal of Lovecraftian lore relates to the oceans I’ve not gotten around to reading any of his works, so I figured that supernatural elements relating to the sea would be tied into something like Tahitian mythology. I really love how this game ever so slowly introduces the Lovecraftian themes at first. At the start of the game a strange, alien voice says “Nogephaii wgah’nagl, mgepr’luh fhalgof’n…”. After completing the game, I learned that this was the Cthuvian language Lovecraft created called R’lyehian, and so the handful of phrases in that language can actually be translated. (This first phrase would be ‘return home, lost daughter’. When I first saw the carned Unu boards on the island, I noted that one of the symbols seemed to represent a powerful creature or god that seemed to have tentacles. Then Chapter 2 shows us that the previous inhabitants of the island seemed to do some weird ritual shit, but Chapter 3 was when the Lovecraft vibes started becoming unavoidable. ENVIRONMENTAL WORLDBUILDING Chapter 1 sees Norah arrive at the island, where she is greeted by six carved Unu boards, among other things. I spent about 25 minutes just looking at the carvings, trying to understand their messages and put them in a coherent order. (Of course, after about ten minutes I realized they were literally numbered. 😂) Anyways, I found it interesting what I came up with in that very early part of the game, and so I'm documenting it here for future reference. Spoiler Unu #1: Carvings: Top: 8 people Bottom: 3-peaked mountain [aka ISLAND/our location], highest middle peak has a diamond. Interpretation: Since Norah had visions of the island, perhaps these people were similarly drawn there? Unu #2: Carvings: Top: Person + crosshatch area + Person, all on beach. (Deity?) in the waters below. Bottom: (Deity) on land, surrounded by 8 flowers and 4 people Interpretation: I assume the large figures with 6 curly (probably tentacle) limbs are one or more deities. There is just one eye, so the face is probably a side profile with their jaw open (instead of just having cat ears on top). Not sure about what would be coming out of their jaws, though. Another reason to assume they are deities is that they are always carved as almost three times as tall as the human carvnings. The crosshatching in the top panel probably shows that the people had barren land while deity was in the ocean. When the deity visited them, it blessed them with fertile land. Unu #3: Carvings: Single Panel: At the top are four people arranged into two columns on the left and right. In front of/below them are two boxed off areas or pillars that each have 4 diamond. In the center middle is a person with a tall stick extending from their forehead, and their torso has a triangle (maybe they are a priest?). At the center bottom is a (deity). Interpretation: After looking at Unu #4, I think that (priest) might actually be (leader) instead. Perhaps the deity bestowed leader with a journey to ISLAND? Not sure what to make of the tall stick extending from the head, though. Unu #4: Carvings: Top: Left has three people with spears, right has one unarmed (priest/leader). Bottom: ISLAND, followed by person on a va’a boat, followed by a lone mountain peak island. Interpretation: The one unarmed (leader?) leaves the warriors behind and travels to/discovers ISLAND. Unu #5: Carvings: Top: One person on a boat, followed by three people on land, all unarmed. Interestingly, the three people have squares on their torsos. Bottom: ISLAND followed by 3 boats carrying armed people, followed by lone mountain peak island. Interpretation: Leader came back, told everyone about ISLAND, then had warriors travel to ISLAND. I feel like the triangles and squares on torsos indicate different castes/ranks, but warriors do not have a torso symbol so I’m unsure what the square torso means. Unu #6: Carvings: Top: Left has 3 people, I assume wounded by javelin spears. Middle has spears being thrown at those on the left. Right has 6 people with square torsos, two still brandishing spears. Bottom: Presumably a depiction of the wooden gate in front of me. (Deity) is in front of the entrance. On the "rampart" section of the gate are four unarmed people, and the center has two crossed spears. Interpretation: First part seems pretty clear, the Lone Mountain warriors killed whatever natives lived on the ISLAND. The second part is less clear to me. Is it showing that after the natives were killed, the warriors welcomed the (deity) to the island they had taken over? PLAYTHROUGH NOTES: Spoiler Chapter 2: Totally called that the deity thing might have tentacles! An audio cassette made mention of a sea creature. Okay, the eye thing in the ritual area was fucking disturbing Then there are the murals right next to it... Left mural shows priests sucking out the (souls) of bound (slaves)? Right mural is a triptych. On the left are six (priests), on the right is one (leader), and in the center are 3 people with “kawaii” eyes and stars above. Are these people having visions? Are they sitting in a river? The ritual area IS right next to a waterfall and pond… Alright, apparently these people had the genius idea of injecting the black ooze shit straight into their eyes, hence the kawaii sparkles on the murals. I’m just glad that Norah was able to see the resulting constellation using a specially-modified telescope (Tillinghast Spectactles Leens Aligner), as I am super squeamish when it comes to eyes! Chapter 3: Yo okay so first of all, Norah can’t stop her legs from walking. But more importantly, there’s a great sea creature in the far distance?! Then the vision/dream whatevs has us underwater, two big red glowing eyes… I love the mysteriousness of all of this. Okay on the stormy beach I see 3 sets of tiny blue eyes on rocks in the distance…. that’s creepy af. Organ puzzle makes no sense. I tried closing all the ‘organ pipes’ except for the three frequencies that I got from the floating stones on the ship. I tried have those three frequencies closed and all other ones open. Finally had to pull up a guide for the solution, and I still don’t understand it unless the devs made an error. Chapter 5: Abzu, lol Chapter 6: Okay, so the full story is revealed. Harry deceived Norah into thinking he had died, so she would go to the island and become a mermaid. All because he knows that she loves him too much and would pick a slow death over the transformation. I get that it’s probably supposed to be romantic, but I hate that trope because it’s someone else making a decision for you, in a weird mix of selfishness and patronizing “they know what is best for you”. Harry broke his promise to never lie to her. ALSO, from July through November he knew she would think he could be bead, and knew that would cause her a huge amount of worry. So the plan is basically to betray her by lying, let her spend her last few months as a human full of anxiety and stress, then after she learns about her heritage try to force her decision for her. Brilliant. /s RANDOM: The little crosshair pointer is TINY. I wished there had been a setting to increase its size slightly, or at least how thick its shape was. The game lore has an artifact that references the mythical lost continent of Mu and the supposed superior Naacal civilization, which is some hilarious pseudoscience from a century ago. FAVORITE... Trophy Image: Written in Stone Trophy Moment: Deep Cut Screenshots: Spoiler Screenshots: Spoiler . 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post pelagia14 Posted December 24, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 24, 2023 (edited) Platinum #114 | Outer Wilds Developer: Mobius Digital Country: USA Time Played: 28h Platinum Earned: 21 November 2023 Rating: 10/10 I’m going to do something a bit different with this game and split up my post into 2 parts. This first part is free of major spoilers. PREMISE I don’t think there is a more succinct summary than what the developers already wrote: Outer Wilds is an open-world mystery about a solar system trapped in an endless time loop. The game starts with your humanoid character opening your eyes. This is the day when you get to officially join the Outer Wilds Ventures space program to help your people learn more about the remains of the ancient Nomai space-faring civilization that came before your people. Equipped with your people’s first translator device for the Nomai language, once you launch your ship into outer space it’s up to you what you will do next. (Shout-out to Platinum_Vice for sharing DrBloodmoney's discovery of Spotify embedding!) GAME THOUGHTS - PART 1/2 This game is an absolute masterpiece. It was thought-provoking, evoked a range of emotions in me, and was an unforgettable experience. You don’t have to just take my word for it, either - for example, @Platinum_Vice awarded it a Silver Trophy for his 2023 GOTY category (as well as a few other awards!), and @DrBloodmoney has scientifically ranked it as his third best game of all time. Important - For those who have not yet played this game: Outer Wilds is a game that loses almost all depth if you know its secrets from the beginning. If you could only pick one game in your life to play without being spoiled, I would say it has to be this one. I've purposefully included no screenshots outside of the starting area in this post, since while many game images don't have obvious spoilers, I think it would detract from your experience of discovery. AN OVERHYPED GAME? I think it’s really important to have the right expectations going into Outer Wilds. This game is not going to win awards for best graphics, controls, "gameplay", etc. When we think of the different components of what makes great games, I think most people would agree that Outer Wilds is a solid contender for Best Music and Best Puzzle Game. What Outer Wilds truly excels at, however, is creating an unforgettable experience: one that just happens to be something you can only experience with a controller. Speaking about Outer Wilds not being the most traditional of video games, it's important to know that there aren't mechanics or systems such as loot management or ship upgrading. Everything in the world is reset at the start of each time loop - except for the knowledge you’ve acquired. That knowledge comes in the form of shortcuts, paradigm shifts, and key insights into the ‘laws’ of the solar system, all of which take you a very long way. There is even a trophy for completing the game in a single loop - though it will take you many, many loops before your understanding of the universe allows you to pull off this seemingly impossible feat. I’ve never seen a better execution of knowledge as a game mechanic. I’ve had occasional moments of melancholy in the past month, knowing that I will never again be able to experience this game for the first time through fresh eyes. I think anyone who enjoys thought-provoking games will at the very least like this game, even if they don't fall in love with it. At the same time, I know of people here on PSNP who just didn't click with the game at all! That's absolutely fine, since they've been asked to try a highly-praised game without being able to look into it a lot to see beforehand. For example, I hope @Cassylvania doesn't mind me referencing their review of the game. They enjoyed it but didn't like a few things - and all the talk of Outer Wilds being a masterpiece gave them very high expectations that the game didn't meet for them. So while I will definitely preach about my love of this game from time to time - as I hope that other people have a similar experience with the game as I did - I get that it won't be universally beloved. Honestly, there really isn't very much in life that has universal acclaim anyway! A GAME ABOUT EXPLORATION Besides needing to talk to a specific person on your home planet’s small settlement to get your ship’s launch codes in your very first loop, the game lets you decide what you want to do. Do you want to see what else is on your planet? Visit the solar system’s tiny frozen comet? Track down one of the couple of initial leads you are given? It’s your choice. You aren’t even required to do the little ‘tutorials’ in the settlement that help you learn to navigate in Zero-G environments, use your Signalscope (frequency locator) and Scout (camera) Launcher, or control your spaceship’s thrust. Even many of the game mechanics are left for you to discover. Right away, I want to clarify that this is not typically a frustrating experience, such as a Soulslike game where “learning a boss” might mean dying to them over and over and over again as one gradually learns more of how each fight works. Rather, it’s more like when a child puts their hand on a hot stovetop for the first time - the experience has taught them something that allows them to avoid repeating that mistake in the future. Of course, some details just require being observant. On my eighth loop, I finally ran into a situation where I ran out of fuel (and died), lamenting that I had only seen two fuel canisters across the entire game at that point. Three loops later, I realized that I had only looked at some posters near the cockpit of my small spaceship, and had completely missed that there was also a sign in a nearby area - which just so happens to provide information on how to refuel 😂. A GAME ABOUT DISCOVERY The developers trust that you are a curious person who doesn’t need everything spoonfed to you. In many games, when you learn a vital detail that ties several important things together, they make sure to then spell that revelation out via dialogue. That’s fine for games aimed at young kids (see any random example of a character saying “Hey, now that we’ve found all the [MacGuffins], we can go confront [the final boss]!”), but it often feels patronizing for games targeting older demographics. I’m going to speak in metaphor to not spoil things, so bear with me. Outer Wilds knows that if they present you with an obstacle whose solution is “A + B = C”, where C unlocks a door, then at later points shows/teaches you things like “A=3” and “B = A+2”, well that’s all the information you need to solve this puzzle. Except instead of numeric values, A and B could be laws of physics, times of day, how you interact with the environment, etc. For those (like me) who enjoy puzzle games but sometimes get stuck, you don’t have to worry - these aren’t super smart brainteasers or complicated riddles. If you ever feel stuck, the ship’s computer terminal will show you if there are still important pieces of knowledge you have yet to discover in an area. Sometimes that knowledge will lead you to an entirely different destination, and further exploration in that new area will lead you to a new insight about the area you were previously ‘stuck’ at. The ship terminal also contains a summary of all the important knowledge you’ve learned from each planet, so you don’t need to worry about forgetting important knowledge if you don’t play the game for a couple of days. A GAME ABOUT MYSTERY The time loop aspect of the game is fantastic (if I haven’t indirectly praised it enough already). Within a few loops, you’ve caught a few snippets about the game’s ultimate ‘mystery’. Whether you try to fully explore the first place you arrive at or start with an initial survey of every location you can find, you’ll find snippets of information that slowly allow you to understand how this universe works and what the ancient Nomai spacefarers were up to. While you might be able to anticipate one or two of the big puzzle pieces as you progress through the game, it’s almost certain that some of them will be paradigm shifts. Thankfully, your ship has a sort of computer terminal that helps you keep track of all the ‘rumors’ you’ve found and how they link together, which is helpful if it’s been a few days since your last play session - or even if you devour the game in just a couple of days, like I did! A GAME ABOUT WONDER, AND MORE Much of the game’s magic comes not just from figuring out the solar system’s secrets, but the moments of awe when you first arrive at some destinations and ask yourself what the hell is happening. Then you figure out how it works and find something equally wild behind it. While your home planet is safe and cozy, there are many ways for you to die once you leave it. There aren’t any enemies to fight - it’s just that outer space is inhospitable and incompatible with life. The solar system is just chugging along doing its thing, and it doesn't "care" about whether you live or die. You’re likely to have at least one instance where you are adrift in outer space. Even if your spaceship is within reach of your jetpack’s fuel levels, it’s hard not to feel at least a sliver of apprehension or dread in those moments, surrounded by the vast emptiness of space. The end of the game is beautiful. There is sadness, but also joy. Acceptance, but also hope. And it’s made all the more special by how hard you had to work at uncovering the solar system’s lore to reach the ending. TIPS FOR NEW PLAYERS: While the short, optional tutorials on Timber Hearth seem pointless (“I’m a gamer! Game mechanics aren’t that complicated to pick up!”), some of them contain valuable tidbits that will help you to more quickly become proficient with the game. Always translate and read the Nomai text! While most games have optional ‘lore’ that provides flavor text and/or non-vital worldbuilding, that is not the case with this game (even if your initial translations don't seem very useful). Yeah, the Zero-G controls are kind of clunky. But space travel isn’t meant to be easy - we’re dealing with literal rocket science, and traveling in frictionless space! Once I’ve picked a planet, I like to 'set' it as my destination at my spaceship's computer terminal so that I get a ‘quest marker’ icon for the planet that displays its distance from me. It helps me ensure that I am traveling in a direct line to my destination, as well as when I should start decelerating so that I don’t get there too quickly and crash, or too slowly and waste time. - TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2 - Edited December 24, 2023 by pelagia14 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post pelagia14 Posted December 27, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 27, 2023 Platinum #114 | Outer Wilds !!! --- WARNING: This post is full of MASSIVE SPOILERS for Outer Wilds, including screenshots --- !!! GAME THOUGHTS - PART 2/2 Alright, now I can share more spoilery-stuff with the cool kids, aka y’all reading this who (I hope) have already played Outer Wilds - regardless of your opinion of it. ADDICTIVE GAME LOOP This was another game where it would be 11:30 at night. A loop had just ended, and since they are 22 minutes long I should probably just call it for the night. But… I had just figured out how to reach the Sunless City in Ember Ash, and I didn’t get a chance to explore it since I stupidly went to translate text right outside of the entrance! I’ll just play one more loop (famous last words) so I can nab all the translations in that area before bed. Then that loop ends, and holy shit I just figured out something cool so how could I possibly go to sleep without seeing what that discovery leads to? It’s maybe 11:50 by this point, I can probably squeeze in one or two more loops, right? Suddenly I look at the clock again and it's past 1am. Whoops. This game got its hooks deep into me, y’all. I think part of it was the frequent drips of dopamine from seeing new places, increasing my understanding, solving puzzles, revisiting old areas with better understanding, unearthing more in old areas, and so on. Even when I was stumped by something, I almost always had several other ways I could try to approach the problem, or more importantly several other areas/topics of investigation to search - whether on that same planet or elsewhere. I think part of why I usually refer to a guide when I get stuck in puzzle games is that they are typically fairly linear experiences. A game might be kind and provide us with two or three different puzzles to pick from to solve, but if you get stuck on one of them you typically can’t advance pretty far (if at all) until you solve it. Once I run out of ideas for how to approach a puzzle, I quickly get frustrated. I want to move on to the next thing, see what else the game has to offer, but instead I’m stuck here! Outer Wilds has helped me realize that a large part of my impatience and frustration is that typically I can’t meaningfully progress in other areas of most puzzle games and then later come back to what has stumped me, to give it another go with a fresh mind and perhaps new ideas. (Yes, I’m aware that I can just take a break from the game for the afternoon or switch to a different game, but that’s not the point of this.) I don’t have much more to add to this except to hope that more puzzle game developers will create games like Outer Wilds that rely on a less-linear puzzle-solving experience - which I’m aware is not an easy feat! THE NOMAI I loved how the developers handled the Nomai and their written language. Writing sentences out in curled lines with subsequent sentences branching off into different directions was very unique. It was cool to see how one Nomai would leave a note that would evolve into a conversation. Considering how there seemed to be only a few dozen Nomai in our solar system, it makes sense that they would have these conversations written down - even for those who were together on a shared planet, they were often in different areas for long stretches of time working on projects to help with the collective goal, so each conversation could have taken place over weeks, months, or even years. Over time, we also got to know snippets of these Nomai’s personalities. Each Nomai sentence has a speaker identified (I would posit via a name glyph at the start). Through their banter and teasing, you learn about their relationships to each other and their personal opinions. If you took some notes on the individual Nomai like I did, you even come to learn which Nomai were alive when their space ship landed disastrously inside Dark Bramble, and which Nomai were born afterwards because they were the ones who “grew up hearing” about the Eye of the Universe and sometimes even questioned whether it was still worth pursuing so whole-heartedly. Some examples: Yarrow was in love with Clary and frequently teased by the others about not understanding how the warp portals work. Idaea was deeply opposed to the group’s construction of the Sun Station, which he helped to work on despite his ideological disagreement. Avens and Mallow are not the most safety-conscious of the bunch, to the point where the others specifically discussed giving them a lower max power limit for the Orbital Probe Cannon. Of course, the duo decided to go past the max power limit because they anticipated this. 😂 They sound like a pair of chaotic troublemakers! Clan leader Escall, who seems like the kind of person to act rashly when excited. He didn’t want to wait the extra (seconds? minutes?) to send a message to other Nomai Clans about their destination before warping to the signal they found. I was incredibly impressed at how much personality I gleaned from the “random” conversations I found of individuals who were long dead. I wish that the ship terminal could have separately kept track of some of these things, though I understand it isn’t essential to the game’s narrative. However, earlier today, I discovered that one Steam user created a guide about the Nomai working on each project, based on what we know from the game’s lore. So at least that exists! While we don’t get a lot of insight into what Nomai culture would have been like, we do get little snippets here and there. Many of them seemed mindful of their impact on a solar system that already contained life forms. While Timber Hearth provided the best ore (it burned much longer than ore from other planets), the planet’s ore was only mined for their most important project so as to not completely deplete the planet of resources for when the Hearthians would evolve into more intelligent life. Some Nomai were also concerned about how their projects impacted local environments and flora, or hesitant about the consequences of the Sun Station for the solar system’s life forms should the project fail. I even loved little details like how the Ash Twin construction that holds the warp cores has a design reminiscent of a plant with leaves and roots! THE IMPORTANCE OF SILENCE Outer Wilds is a game that truly understands the value of silence. Sure, most people by now know that sound doesn’t travel in the vacuum of outer space, but most games will still have music quietly playing in the background - especially when you spend more than a couple of minutes in outer space. Much of your time exploring in Outer Wilds has no music. All you have for company are your thoughts and the sound effects of your gear. The lack of music in much of the game allows you to really appreciate the moments when it does kick in, whether it is for narrative reasons or triggered by your actions. I also think the wide stretches of ‘silence’ make it easier to just sit with your thoughts during your adventure - there isn’t the ‘distraction’ of music to occupy a portion of your brain as you play. Whenever you approach ancient Nomai text a soft harmony starts to play in the background. Since the game is breaking its self-imposed ‘silence’ to play music, this is the game’s way of signaling that you should pay attention to the text instead of just discarding it as typical, insignificant videogame lore. The other significant trigger for music is the song aptly named 🎵 End Times, played when you reach 20 minutes into each 22-minute cycle as a sort of “heads up” that your time in this loop is coming to a close. I found this gentle nod to be incredibly helpful. Time is a concept that my brain struggles to understand, and it becomes worse when I’m engaged in something. Some loops felt like they were 30-40 minutes long - in the best of ways, in that I felt like I did so much during that time. Some loops felt like they were only 10 minutes long - I had stumbled across something interesting and was only just starting to learn more about it, so what do you mean my time is almost up?! So yeah, time blindness is something I deal with, and I relied a lot on that auditory cue. Or at least, I appreciated and relied upon it after I understood what that music being triggered meant! 😂 The choice of instruments for the songs was also really cool! The Hearthians gravitate to wind instruments and the more ‘refined/advanced’ Nomai are associated with piano sounds (stringed percussion instrument). 🎵 Travelers was stunning to hear the first time. You encourage your (friends? brain’s method of processing something beyond your comprehension?) to join into the harmony of creation. One by one, each of their instruments adds to the harmony, providing it with richness and depth - a beautiful detail that really added to the emotional climax of the ending. Finally, the end credits add a new category - string instruments. 14.5 billion years in the future sees a cello joining the song of creation, showing how they will add onto the influences of the Hearthians, who have added onto the influences of the Nomai and however many cycles before them. BACK TO THE START I think the most common complaint I've seen about this game is how at the end of every loop, you start back on Timber Hearth. You need to get back on the elevator, hop back into your spaceship, and then often you are flying back to whichever planet you were just on. As I said in my Part 1 thoughts, I'm normally very sensitive to this sort of friction as well. I think part of why it didn't bother me in Outer Wilds - beyond the immersive quality for the narrative - was that this game was essentially a giant 4D puzzle centered on the physics of the solar system, of which one component is time. I also don't see a good solution for fixing this problem, since warp points wouldn't save you that much time for the planets that start near Timber Hearth, and the two distant locations of Dark Bramble and the Interceptor don't have a good narrative reason for having warp points. This friction is a big part as to why I understand that not everyone considers this game to be a masterpiece. (Funnily enough, I was more annoyed by having to sit through the 2-8 seconds (estimate) of the Nomai "memory rewind" animation than I was by spending maybe 10 seconds getting back to my ship and the subsequent time to return to my destinations!) One detail that I wish the developers would have handled slightly differently with the time loop is the Nomai text. I understand that your translator needs to translate things 'for the first time' in each loop, but once you've translated a whole conversation it would have been nice for the full set of spiral sentences to already be displayed on subsequent trips. After all, while your character wouldn't have the text memorized, they would retain the memory of having seen how all the loops branched off. This is just the tiniest nit-pick though. Occasionally I would come across Nomai text in more obscure areas and find out after translating it that I had already done so in a previous loop, but I also had my settings to where time was paused while reading. THE MEANING OF THE UNIVERSE SOLANUM: As a child, I considered such unknowns sinister. Now, though, I understand they bear no ill will. The universe is, and we are. This game allowed me to experience moments of nihilism, as beautifully described above by Solanum. The only thing that "matters" in the solar system are the laws of physics. There are no game mechanics that allow you to 'conquer' the various natural forces you encounter. All you can do when faced with them is to either adapt or die, just as in real life. The progression of time causes certain areas of the game to become inaccessible after several minutes into a loop; these areas are as easy to miss as the morning sunrise if you don't wake up in time. Your success or failure to survive has no impact on the solar system - time keeps on ticking, and the planets keep on spinning. Escall's Nomai clan spent three generations consumed by a search. Many of them - particularly in the first generation - thought that the Eye had "chosen" them for a reason, and this made them special. I don't think the Eye of the Universe has any sentience - it's just a repeating signal, a sort of music that has been echoing in a loop since the moment this solar system was created by a previous species. Escall's clan wasn't chosen, the Eye did not bestow upon them a great purpose, and ultimately their tireless search was pointless. However, just because their search was pointless doesn't mean it was devoid of meaning. The Nomai made fascinating discoveries about how this solar system functioned, and they devised a brilliant plan that led to astounding constructions. There were challenges, setbacks, triumphs, and defeats. It's the spiel about how "it's the journey that matters, not the destination". Humanity has long questioned what the meaning of life is, and Outer Wilds responds by saying that while there is no grand purpose to our lives, that doesn't mean that our lives have no purpose. Another nihilistic message of this game is that there is no way to prevent the destruction of the Hearthian's solar system. Even reaching the fabled Eye is not enough to avoid the catastrophe of the dying sun. Once again, while this fatalism might seem depressing, Outer Wilds pairs it with hope. Ultimate destruction was followed by ultimate creation. Death was followed by new life. The end of the Nomai was followed by the growth of the Hearthians. We may be insignificant to the vast emptiness of space - but if anything, that just makes life all the more incredible. HOTSHOT This trophy took me around 3-4 hours to achieve over the course of two days. Goddamn, but I felt like an absolute victor once I earned it. First I found a video with a method that works “100%” of the time. You line up your ship so that the horizontal wayfinding line intersects with the Ash Twins, get about 4,000 meters way from the core of the sun, and wait. As soon as the Sun Station peaks out from the left horizon of the Sun, you go max on your right thrusters as you move in towards the sun, which in theory ends up with your ship just a couple dozen meters above the station. Tragically, I actually managed to land on the landing platform of the station on my fifth attempt(!), but I didn’t realize that I need to constantly push with my down thrusters so I was thrown off it and into the sun practically a second later. 😂 A solid hour later, I still hadn’t managed to land on either the landing platform or the station itself. The next day I found this supremely helpful video that takes a little longer to pull off, but doesn’t rely on precise timing. The idea with this strategy is to get about 3,200 meters away from the sun’s core, horizontal to where the Sun Station travels, and then just focus on getting your spaceship to a velocity that matches the rotational speed of the Sun. Once your ship is on par with the Sun’s velocity (which you can tell because you don’t need to keep using your back thruster to counter the Sun’s gravity) then you can start slowly moving in towards the Sun’s core. The Sun Station moves faster than the Sun’s rotational speed, so after what feels like eons but is maybe a dozen or so seconds, it should show up - and now you are really close it without flying so fast that you’d just bounce off. It didn’t take me very long to be able to consistently get my space ship super close to the station using this second method, though getting my ship to actually land was a different story. This strategy has the spaceship land on the landing platform and get one of the landing gear legs ‘trapped’ under the glowing Nomai shape, and that just wasn’t working for me. Finally, I decided to stick with this strategy for the approach to the station, and then follow the first video by landing on the roof of the station instead. It still took me about an hour to successfully pull everything off and jet myself into the station, but I kept getting closer and closer to my goal each time! DLC I purchased Outer Wilds before the DLC was released. I'm trying to wait a little bit before playing the DLC, just to extend my Outer Wilds experience a bit longer. I doubt that the DLC will answer how the first Dark Bramble seed arrived in this universe, which is the game’s one big unresolved mystery for me. At the same time, I think it’s kind of fitting that we don’t have answers for everything in this game - just as with real life - so the (I assume) lack of resolution on Dark Bramble won’t bother me too much, if that is the case. RANDOM I love how the developers implemented planetary physics in the game. Since the planets both orbit around the sun and rotate on their own axis - and the atmosphere is so thin on some planets - you can look up at the night sky and see how the stars ‘move’ across it. After my first death where I forgot to put on a suit, I forced myself to make it a routine for each loop that the first thing I did upon entering the shuttle was equip the suit - even before I would allow myself to look at the Rumors screen. Otherwise, I probably would have died a bunch more times forgetting my suit. 😅 Instead of the home planet being called Earth it is Timber Hearth, which I thought was really clever! The scout launcher is such an MVP in this game, despite it taking me ages to truly appreciate it. Gabbro’s idea to create Quantum Statues to fright people - I both loved and hated this reference to the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who. I hate how Ghost Matter is only visible in photographs. Knowing that something is in front of you but not being able to see it with your “own” eyes… //shudders One musical detail I learned: the “Timber Hearth” song is timed to start with that planet’s sunrise and end with its sunset. FAVORITE... Trophy Image: Mmmm, Carcinogens... Trophy Moment: Hotshot Screenshots: 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted December 27, 2023 Author Share Posted December 27, 2023 (edited) My Outer Wilds Experience Surprise! My Outer Wilds review has a secret third part, which is to preserve my blind playthrough experience for future me! This post will have massive spoilers, both via text and screenshots. Shortly after completing the game, I fleshed out the short bullet points I jotted down during gameplay. I’ve also added some commentary/clarification [from post-endgame Pel]. Disclaimers: I totally used the setting where time was paused while reading things. Also, in retrospect, I’m sad I didn’t document how many/few short loops I had (with a few notable exceptions) because I killed myself trying to land in ill-advised areas. Most of the “numbered” loops below are just the visits in which progress was made - I went through a lot more than 36 loops! STARTING KNOWLEDGE: One benefit to having this game in my backlog for quite a long time was that I went into the game basically only knowing or remembering the following: The game had a time loop that was 20-ish minutes long. (I did not know or remember why there was a time loop mechanic) The ‘objective’ of the game was something along the lines of seeing how close you could get to the center of the universe. As I played the game I would discover secrets/shortcuts that would let me make further progress each time. One planet had terrifying waterspout tornados. MY JOURNEY Timber Hearth: Visit 1 Lmfao, I died less than 2 minutes into the game. Was curious about the water geyser in the center area, got caught by it and launched into the sky, and then died from the resulting impact when I landed. 😂 Timber Hearth: Visit 2 Ooooh, a museum with little tidbits about our solar system! The intact Nomai statue was found by Gabbro the flute-player in Giant’s Deep. [Ironically, despite making the above note, I would not meet Gabbro until at least 10 hours into the game. Too many interesting things to explore, so I kind of forgot about him… 😅] Just as I finished exploring the settlement area I died. [Future Pel knows it is because of the supernova, Past Pel was wondering what she accidentally did to die so quickly!] Interesting how the Nomai statue ‘recorded’ my memories during the loop, it’s awesome to see how the developers have integrated the repeating loop into the narrative. Loop 1: Attlerock (Moon): Visit 1 Huh, Feldspar’s harmonica signal is in two locations - somewhere in outer space and Timber Hearth, at the same time. Some sort of blue flames killed me? [I was facing away from the supernova, and I'm pretty sure my POV happened to be looking at the ground in that moment!] [While I revisited Attlerock once or twice just for the nostalgia, I had found everything of note in this first visit.] Loop 2: Giant’s Deep: Visit 1 I thought about exploring Dark Bramble, but wasn’t clear on where I could land, so came here instead. HOLY SHIT THE TORNADOS. SO MANY WATER TORNADOS. (technically they are waterspouts, but still) Lmfao, as soon as I get out of my ship in the area that has some Ghost Matter and a frozen jellyfish, I accidentally get out my signalscope instead of my scout launcher. Randomly got the Harmonic Convergence trophy as my first one without even meaning to. I reached [Statue Island]. The first time I crossed the second set of gravity stones, one of the tornados blew me into outer fucking space. Almost died getting back to my ship. Managed to reach the Nomai ruins in a second attempt. There are purple icon/tiles of tornados… do they protect us from being flung out into space if the tornado comes onto land? [I still wonder what exactly the purple tile spots were for…] Wait, there was a little land bridge leading to a raised area with trees. I died right after I reached it - was there something toxic there?! [Ah, I was still so naive…] Loop 3: Ember Twin: Visit 1 Okay, found the first Nomai escape pod. Two of the 3 Nomai headed to the planet’s core due to strange sounds they detected… There seem to be lots of planets with strange sounds in their cores… There’s a warning that sand in the caves rises gradually. That’s delightful, and not at all terrifying. What’s definitely terrifying is the GIANT Anglerfish skeleton I discovered… Dammit, I got to the entrance for the Sunless City but I got distracted by a detour that had Nomai writing so I got crushed by sand before I could enter. Loop #4: Ash Twin: Visit 1 Oh, the dark pillar/stream connecting Ember and Ash together is like a gravity thing. Well, my first trip to Ash was super short, now that I've been sent to Ember Twin! Ember Twin: Visit 2 Huh, found a short cave that talked about a strange [Quantum] rock that is sometimes here and sometimes at the 'Lakebed Cave' to the north. Holy shit, I turned around and now see the strange rock that wasn't there a moment ago. For a split second I thought it was like a blob monster jumping out for a surprise attack or something. Damn “wandering rock”! //shakes fist 😂 There’s a tracker to a Quantum Moon?! Also, the implication that it visits a sixth location in this star system, when we only know of 5 planets, is fascinating! Wait a second. I looked up at Ash Twin, and now there is a giant antennae thing and towers on the planet?! Where did all that shit come from?! [At this time, I hadn't put 2 and 2 together that the 'dark pillar' connecting the planets was a transference of sand] I died… was my death from the ice comet thing crashing into Ember Twin?! [I’m shocked that I still haven’t put two and two together about the supernova. I blame it on all the constant mysteries I’m discovering and trying to understand.] Loop #5: Ember Twin: Visit 3 Side note, this time when I “reincarnated” or whatever, I noticed how hoarse/startled the GASP of breath is upon waking up. To be fair, remembering your death and then waking up again in a time loop has to be pretty jarring. Alright, hopefully this time I can reach the Sunless City! I ended up in the caves MUCH earlier than last time, so it was pretty confusing to try and 'retrace' my steps earlier in the loop. Nevertheless, I made it! Apparently the Nomai were building the Sun Station to power a mysterious Ash Twin Project here. Later I was killed by crushed sand as I was exploring some abandoned ruins in the city. Alas, the sacrifices we make for science. Loop #6: Ember Twin: Visit 4 As I’m landing on Ember, I’m realizing that Ash Twin gets all the extra shit when the sand is completely moved over to Ember Twin. It's just initially buried beneath the sandy surface. The sand is a lot darker in the pillar than on the two planets, is there some sort of physics/Quantum thing being applied to it? [Probably just the developers trying to show how there are millions of tiny pieces of sand, and then the darkness of space behind it. And the game engine's lighting wasn't advanced enough to make it properly transparent so that when your POV has one of the Twins behind parts of the pillar, that would change the background color.] Ash Twin: Visit 2 Made it over here with my ship, this time the planet is half empty of sand.. Goddammit, found a Nomai scroll at one of the towers to translate but died from falling from the sand pillar before I could read it. Note to self: there is a fuel canister by the glowy yellow spiral runes. Loop #7: Brittle Hollow Visit 1: Oooooo, a Gravity Crystal Workshop?! Are we gonna be able to manipulate some of the gravity crystals we come across? Ah, nope, this is just where the Nomai worked on them. Wait wait wait, there’s a Tower of Quantum Knowledge?! I like knowledge, and this game is all about hoarding knowledge. What secrets are within this tower?! [Future Pel: Almost nothing. 😂] Hm, there are mosaic strips that seem to be the ‘stairs’ up, but they are broken. Okay, game is paused and I’m super confused. I was standing on top of the Tower and looking at my map screen. I exit out of the map and I’m suddenly 16km away from my ship, just floating in Outer Space?! There’s no way I have enough fuel to get back to it. Found a space station thing nearby, almost missed it due to the lack of light out here. There’s an Ember Twin Projection Stone, whatever significance that holds. OH. I am at the White Hole station. I must have (somehow) fallen into the black hole on Brittle Hollow while I was in my map. [Somehow I had the terrible timing to pause and look at my map exactly when the Tower of Quantum Knowledge dropped into the Black Hole. What (good+bad) luck!] Finally realized that the occasional ‘blue flames’ that would kill me was the sun going supernova. Loop #8: Interloper - Only Visit Let’s explore the tiny little comet! //excited Holy SHIT it is difficult to land on this tiny little comet… //annoyed that the comet has practically no gravity Let’s just say if you fail to land on the comet right away, don’t continue to try to land on it when it’s near the Sun, which obviously has much greater gravity… Alright, after a few false starts and loop resets, I’m finally here. Kinda cool that you have to wait for it to be close to the sun for the ice to melt so you can explore within. This comet is the origin of Ghost Matter in this system? Its somewhat-sinister name makes more sense now. Saw my first real Nomai face! Interesting how they seem to have three sets of ‘horns’ around their face, where the statue in the museum has like two half-horns. Maybe the other horn parts were broken off, or maybe Nomai space suits are just kind of weird. The number 3 seems to be a recurring pattern with the Nomai. 3 eyes, a triangle shape of horns or space mask, 3 emergency shuttles… With some of the projection stones, I see three statue masks that glow purple… [I love how some things that I thought would become relevant were either red herrings or just me overanalyzing everything, haha] Loop #9: Timber Hearth: Visit 3 Yeah - I dunno how, but I have only just realized that I can land my spaceship elsewhere on the home planet. //facepalm (Previously I had only used my Scout Launcher to view in the four directions of the planet’s surface.) Woah woah woah. There’s a Dark Bramble seed here on Timber Hearth! That means this planet is gonna get devoured by the seed. 🥲 (Well, if the solar system had more time) Sending my Scout into the seed is really cool but also really fucking eerie. Some sort of ghost mist thing… is that what’s waiting for me at Dark Bramble?! 😱 Interesting how the seed seems to duplicate Feldspar’s signal. There’s one little piece of the mystery solved. There’s a broken bridge leading to “Mining Site 2B”. The Nomai are awfully considerate of native life forms in this system, that’s sweet. …………Goddammit. I’ve only JUST discovered that my ship has a med station that also lets me refuel. I blame it on doing a full examination of the ship before I ever launched it, and since I was at full health/fuel it didn’t show me the interact icon. Loops #10-17 Brittle Hollow: Visits 2-8 It may have taken me seven loops, but I managed to explored the Hanging City! Though dear LORD I kept falling into the Black Hole. Sometimes I fell into it twice in a single loop. 🥲 Loop #18 Brittle Hollow: Visit 9 Found the Southern Observatory! I’m starting to get tired of the frequent visits to White Hole Station, so I might start referring to a guide soon. Loop #19 Brittle Hollow 10 to Ash Twin 4 (and back) Yeah, time for a guide. Especially since the Black Forge needs to be activated in Brittle Hollow but then I have to go to Ash Twin to visit it. Made it to the Black Hole Forge! AKASDFKL;JDSAF. First thing I did was use my jetpack to travel more quickly to a Nomai rune. Didn’t realize that gravity stones were keeping me to the surface (though it makes absolute sense in hindsight), SO I FELL INTO THE BLACK HOLE AGAIN. 😭 Loop #20 Brittle Hollow 11 to Ash Twin 5 (and back) Huzzah, successfully explored the Black Hole Forge! I’m really not looking forward to Giant’s Deep and Dark Bramble, so I’m going to continue referring to a "spoiler-light" walkthrough to help guide my explorations when needed. Loops #21-22 Ember Twin: Visit 5 Discovered the High Energy Lab on this trip! Ember Twin: Visit 6 This time I found the Lakebed Cave! Loop #23 Ash Twin: Visit 6 to Sun Station It’s awesome that there is somewhere in the game where we can see how much time there is to the supernova. Sadly, since the Sun expands pretty large towards the end of the cycle, it’s not very practical. I’m also aware that there’s a tough trophy for landing on the Sun Station with my ship. I knew there would be a small landing zone (it’s bigger than I thought, though) but shit this station fucking books it around the sun. Loop #24 Orbital Probe Cannon The final place I can explore before I finally have to return to Giant’s Deep. Damn, it took the 9,318,054th launched probe to find the coordinates to the Eye of the Universe… Loop #25 Giant’s Deep: Visit 2 I’m straight up gonna be a coward and just follow the guide on this planet. For some reason, in videogames I have a mild, weird sort thalassophobia with videogames and so I don’t want to be on this planet longer than I need to. Bahahaha I totally forgot that I hadn’t met Gabbro before. Apparently I can learn to meditate from him, which I’ll have to do next time. Would have saved me some time in a couple of previous loops. There were a couple where I forced my jetpack to run out of fuel so that I could then use oxygen to power it so that I could suffocate, in order to end the loop quicker… 😅 It’s also interesting to meet a second person in a time loop with the Nomai statues! Poor guy is stuck here with a spaceship, though. asdlfksdjas; While talking with Gabbro a tornado decided to fling our island into outer space. I would have freaked out if I hadn’t seen Gabbro chilling on his hammock. We smashed back down onto the oceany planet surface. Less than 3 minutes in and already I cannot WAIT to be done here. I reluctantly admire how well the developers have made me dread this planet. Ah! I’m back at the island I visited way back in…. damn, Trip #2: Statue Island! Okay, there being 3 Nomai “memory” statues explains why some Projection Stones show me 8 or so Nomai masks with only 3 of them glowing purple. Loop #26 Giant’s Deep: Visit 3 Time to finish this planet. All I have to do is deliberately fly into a counterclockwise water’nado… so that I can go deep underwater towards the planet’s core. Delightful. I’m only somewhat joking in wondering if this should be labeled as a horror game or even a non-horror game that nonetheless contains horror elements, lol. Well, the electrical barrier I’m expected to get through almost distracts me from my intense uncomfortableness being in this deep underwater realm, lol. Aaaaaaaaaaaah, first time I tried to enter the jellyfish failed. I knew that I had to enter from the bottom and try to avoid the electrical tentacles, but right around the ‘head’ there are so many UNNECESSARY LAYERS of jellyfish frills that I guess I hit the outer shocky areas. Honestly, what evolutionary purpose did all those frilly layers serve for these jellyfish? There aren’t any fossil remains of other aquatic species, there’s no debris in the water that needs to be kept out…. Though that brings to question what the jellyfish eat. Unless there are invisible…. electroplankton or something? Phew, made it into the jellyfish and then into the core of the planet on my second jellyfish-traversing attempt. Rumor Evaluation At this point I’m around 14h into the game. The big mysteries I still need to solve: What exactly is the Eye of the Universe, and where is it? Where is the 6th location of the Quantum Moon? (I’m assuming the Eye, but then how do I get there?) Where did the seed that destroyed Dark Bramble come from originally? How do I enter the Ash Twin Project? Loop #27 Dark Bramble: Visit 1 Nothing left but to explore the creepy as fuck Silent Hill-esque Anglerfish planet. Gonna be fun times… This is another planet where I would be too scared to explore without a guide to hold my hand. Sometimes I marvel at people who are willing to play through scary games before a guide exists… Thank goodness we can take advantage of Dark Bramble’s duplicate signal feature to use Scout for navigating these mists. Okay, as much as this place really creeps me, it’s super cool how the seeds are like matryoshka realms stacked within each other. Successfully found Feldspar and the frozen jellyfish! I am really curious how a Giant’s Deep jellyfish came to be inside here. Especially since there aren’t any Bramble seeds on Giant’s Deep, as far as we can tell. Also curious as to whether the Anglerfish are native to these seeds, or just a happy convergent evolution type of thing that allows them to live and breed in here. Loop #28 Dark Bramble: Visit 2 Now we get to follow the eerie siren-like distress signal into the fog, wooo…. I kept thinking of this scene from Spongebob. Alright, found the escape vessel and the Nomai graves. It’s sad that they went to the wrong distress signal, though I suppose they wouldn’t have had enough oxygen to make it to the farther one where their ship was. Dammit, was entering the seed to the vessel room and somehow I accidentally hit the inner walls of the seed. Was eaten up by an Anglerfish right away. Loop #29 Dark Bramble: Visit 3 Okay, made it past the first 3 fish successfully. Thought I was close enough to the red fish eggs to use my booster (I was about 1.6km away from Scout) but I guess I was still close enough for them to hear me. [Note from future pel: Whenever I replay this section of the game in the future, once my scout was 1.5km away it was safe for me to use a small bit of booster/thrust] Loop #30 Dark Bramble: Visit 4 Successfully made it to the vessel! Loop #31 Quantum Moon: Visit 1 I’m confused. I landed on the moon successfully. Happened to see the Quantum Shrine right ahead of me, so before I exited my ship I decided to send my Scout out to photograph it. A few seconds later I had a ship hull breach and died? Maybe it’s a weird glitch I stumbled upon. Loop #32 Quantum Moon: Visit 2 Alright, made it to the Quantum Shrine in one piece. Excellent, right away the planetary panels seem to confirm that the Quantum Moon’s sixth location is the Eye of the Universe! The murals are a nice reminder of what we’ve learned about Quantum Laws, though I already anticipated that I would need to use Quantum Entanglement to reach the Eye. I remembered that the Quantum Moon always likes to “greet” people at its southern pole, but I was initially confused as to why I couldn’t exit the Quantum Shrine at the Eye. Without a guide, it probably would have taken me some time to realize that I needed to bring the Shrine as far north as I could at each destination, versus playing whack-a-mole in case the Eye was like a maze where only a few specific spots work. Woah. I was not expecting to meet a Nomai! Interesting to see how Solanum writes, seems to be a process of visualizing/thinking of your message and then pressing the ‘walking stick’ tool to a surface to generate the text. Ooooh, we get to play 20 questions with some symbols and verbs. Dammit, after just a few questions I’m hearing the “heads up, less than 2 minutes left” music warning. Interesting! Instead of seeing the supernova explosion/blue flames, a Nomai-esque geometry scrawled across my screen. This must mean that when the Nomai masks were destroyed by the supernova, since my consciousness is linked to it or something, I still die even though the Quantum Moon at the eye wasn’t destroyed. Or maybe since I’m kind of Quantum Entangled, I’m both everywhere and nowhere in the solar system? Would explain why Solanum thinks they aren’t really alive - they probably were Quantum Entangled on the Quantum Moon during the supernova, so they died in 5 out of 6 possible locations. Loop #33 Ash Twin Project: Visit 1 Needing to stand in the “eye” of the sand stream/pillar to see Ash Twin’s center of gravity (being outside of itself) is super awesome. The design of Ash and Ember Twin and how they work together is my favorite planetary “level” in the game. It’s so cool how all the pieces of knowledge I’ve obtained have fit together. This knowledge-discovering, paradigm-evolving adventure has been absolutely phenomenal. Loops #34-36 Eye of the Universe - Attempt 1 I was worried that I was getting too close to the 22-minute mark and ended up trying to rush sooner than is safely allowed in the Nest Seed. Unsurprisingly, I turned into Anglerfish food. Eye of the Universe - Attempt 2 I couldn’t remember exactly what time it was when I started this loop, so once again I made the error of trying to be a tiny bit faster inside Dark Bramble to make it within time. Didn’t help that the Seed to the Nomai Graves was on the far left this time (the only time that happened for me in my many visits to the planet!) and there was an Anglerfish near it, so it felt like I was crawling at 1m/s by the time I reached the Seed entrance. Dunno how I was supposed to enter the seed with zero boost, since the tiniest bit of it woke up the Anglerfish. Eye of the Universe - Lucky Number 3 This time, I made sure to have a timer running on my phone. Ended up going into the Nest Room around 17 minutes, so I had plenty of time. Though I also made sure to accelerate a good amount right before entering the Nest room. 😂 Ooooh, we don’t get a cutscene - there’s a final bit of the game to explore?! Spoiler Okay, I don’t like how spooky the Eye is around its north pole, if directions are even a valid concept here. The pitch-black sky and streaks of lightning are causing quantum rocks and trees to constantly appear and disappear around me, and the part of me who has played horror games keeps bracing for it to be an enemy preparing an attack. I sent my Scout forward because I refused to use a guide for this last section of the game but was super creeped out about what unknowns awaited me. And then I lost connection to my Scout, which upon reflection makes sense. But now I feel BLIND not being able to use my trusty Scout to scout ahead of me for dangers. RIP Scout. 🥲 While my fall (into? inside?) the Eye was neat (where I am maybe in some sort of Quantum Realm, all the other pillars could be completely different Eye instances for other solar systems), hurray for returning to something more familiar and cozy from my Hearthian subconsciousness. Not only is this presumably a coping mechanism for my Hearthian to understand whatever they are experiencing beyond their comprehension, it extends to being a more familiar and thus less scary environment. The stars in the sky turning into a forest with little galaxy lights was a fucking awesome moment. Alright, seems like I’m putting together a band. Music is pretty creative, so I now really appreciate the emphasis on each Hearthian having a unique instrument. WHY IS THERE AN ANGLERFISH CHASING AFTER ME IN WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE A SAFE SPACE?!?! So much for this being a less scary environment… And then of course there is a wall of sinister-looking red eyes. Great. I don’t know what the protocol is for fucking creeper eyes! [I legitimately just stood there for a few minutes as I tried to figure out what to do, since the game had not presented me with creeper eyes before. I had no idea how dangerous they could be, and I also had no idea if I could die in this Quantum Realm whatever-place.] Awww, the Nomai skeletons working together to help me get an instrument to represent them was cool. [The Nomai have been a big influence shaping my understanding of this universe, so it’s really neat that my Hearthian subconscious or whatever is happening acknowledges that they have a little bit of influence in this newest round of creation.] Gosh, talking to each person and having their instrument join the chorus of melody was a beautiful moment. And the song itself made me feel emotional. I think it’s the first song I heard when I launched the game, and now everything has come full circle back to it. The cycle repeats. What a gorgeous game. (Also hello Scout! No wonder I lost connection to you!) Edited December 27, 2023 by pelagia14 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platinum_Vice Posted December 29, 2023 Share Posted December 29, 2023 (edited) On 12/23/2023 at 4:34 AM, pelagia14 said: Platinum #113 | Call of the Sea How do we have such a similar taste in games?? On 12/28/2023 at 1:37 AM, pelagia14 said: GAME THOUGHTS - PART 2/2 Finally - been waiting for this for days! On 12/28/2023 at 1:37 AM, pelagia14 said: Escall Escall (which autocorrects to "Escalation" on my phone, by the way) has a lot to answer for! On 12/28/2023 at 1:37 AM, pelagia14 said: While Timber Hearth provided the best ore (it burned much longer than ore from other planets), the planet’s ore was only mined for their most important project so as to not completely deplete the planet of resources for when the Hearthians would evolve into more intelligent life. Some Nomai were also concerned about how their projects impacted local environments and flora, or hesitant about the consequences of the Sun Station for the solar system’s life forms should the project fail. I even loved little details like how the Ash Twin construction that holds the warp cores has a design reminiscent of a plant with leaves and roots! These were great details, I agree!! On 12/28/2023 at 1:37 AM, pelagia14 said: 14.5 billion years in the future sees a cello joining the song of creation, showing how they will add onto the influences of the Hearthians, who have added onto the influences of the Nomai and however many cycles before them Completing the DLC before the end of the main game adds another character and instrument! On 12/28/2023 at 1:37 AM, pelagia14 said: (Funnily enough, I was more annoyed by having to sit through the 2-8 seconds (estimate) of the Nomai "memory rewind" animation than I was by spending maybe 10 seconds getting back to my ship and the subsequent time to return to my destinations!) Same 😅 On 12/28/2023 at 1:37 AM, pelagia14 said: It's the spiel about how "it's the journey that matters, not the destination". Humanity has long questioned what the meaning of life is, and Outer Wilds responds by saying that while there is no grand purpose to our lives, that doesn't mean that our lives have no purpose. A message that usually irritates me greatly (unfortunately - Mass Effect 3 is an example for me 😔), but it was beautiful in Outer Wilds. On 12/28/2023 at 1:37 AM, pelagia14 said: HOTSHOT This trophy took me around 3-4 hours to achieve over the course of two days. Goddamn, but I felt like an absolute victor once I earned it. There's a harder one in the DLC! On 12/28/2023 at 1:37 AM, pelagia14 said: I'm trying to wait a little bit before playing the DLC It's very good. Don't expect much re the Dark Bramble, but it's very good. There's a more spooky tone, so be ready for that. If you're trying to extract the maximum lore and experience from this DLC (as opposed to pure trophy hunting, as like the main game, the trophies don't require full narrative completion), it will take about as long as the main game. As a negative, it's the first time that I became frustrated by the time loop mechanic and having to start back on Timber Hearth, but hopefully I'm not leading the witness too much by saying that. On 12/28/2023 at 1:37 AM, pelagia14 said: One musical detail I learned: the “Timber Hearth” song is timed to start with that planet’s sunrise and end with its sunset. Err I completely missed this! On 12/28/2023 at 3:04 AM, pelagia14 said: Loop 1: Attlerock (Moon): Visit 1 Huh, Feldspar’s harmonica signal is in two locations - somewhere in outer space and Timber Hearth, at the same time. Mmm! This was an early discovery for me too thanks to the scout launcher and signalscope. I also found this to be such a "human" / "emotive" side quest as well. It was a little prickle in the back of my mind and, for me, it was the most important of all of the non-lore unanswered questions on my written "unanswered questions" list. Was great to solve that one. Best side quest for me for years. On 12/28/2023 at 3:04 AM, pelagia14 said: There are purple icon/tiles of tornados… do they protect us from being flung out into space if the tornado comes onto land? [I still wonder what exactly the purple tile spots were for…] You had it right the first time. That's exactly what they do. Gravity spots. On 12/28/2023 at 3:04 AM, pelagia14 said: Holy shit, I turned around and now see the strange rock that wasn't there a moment ago. For a split second I thought it was like a blob monster jumping out for a surprise attack or something. Damn “wandering rock”! //shakes fist Anything involving a Quantum mechanic deeply disturbed me. Deeply. Like seeing a ghost or an alien or being sent back in time; a change in the fabric of my reality. On 12/28/2023 at 3:04 AM, pelagia14 said: Side note, this time when I “reincarnated” or whatever, I noticed how hoarse/startled the GASP of breath is upon waking up. To be fair, remembering your death and then waking up again in a time loop has to be pretty jarring Suffocating or drowning always led to a big gasp for air. Such a cool detail! On 12/28/2023 at 3:04 AM, pelagia14 said: Kinda cool that you have to wait for it to be close to the sun for the ice to melt so you can explore within. Yeah the tablet next to the frozen Nomai ship on the Interloper gave me that clue but I spent far too many attempts on the exterior trying to wait for the ice attached to the NOMAI SHIP to melt. Derp. Obviously, I fell into the sun many times during my failed attempts. On 12/28/2023 at 3:04 AM, pelagia14 said: The number 3 seems to be a recurring pattern with the Nomai. 3 eyes, a triangle shape of horns or space mask, 3 emergency shuttles… With some of the projection stones, I see three statue masks that glow purple… [I love how some things that I thought would become relevant were either red herrings or just me overanalyzing everything, haha] And the reverse memory slideshow after every 22 minutes would take place in a Nomai's third eye. On 12/28/2023 at 3:04 AM, pelagia14 said: Apparently I can learn to meditate from him, which I’ll have to do next time. Would have saved me some time in a couple of previous loops Yep didn't know this until after I finished the game. I feel you on this. On 12/28/2023 at 3:04 AM, pelagia14 said: I’m only somewhat joking in wondering if this should be labeled as a horror game or even a non-horror game that nonetheless contains horror elements, lol. That's what I said! On 12/28/2023 at 3:04 AM, pelagia14 said: Quantum Moon: Visit 1 I’m confused. I landed on the moon successfully. Happened to see the Quantum Shrine right ahead of me, so before I exited my ship I decided to send my Scout out to photograph it. A few seconds later I had a ship hull breach and died? Maybe it’s a weird glitch I stumbled upon I can offer a suggestion...? Maybe you entered the atmosphere too fast and landed too rough. Crash landing! ---- Sorry for the reply dump, but also not sorry, because I'm pretty positive that you'll enjoy sharing the experience 😊 Great read. My favourite from this checklist so far. Congrats on such a crazy experience, Pel! Edited December 29, 2023 by Platinum_Vice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted December 29, 2023 Author Share Posted December 29, 2023 Platinum #115 | Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Developer: Insomniac Games, 2021 Country: USA Time Played: 18h Platinum Earned: 22 November 2023 Rating: 6/10 PREMISE Dr. Nefarious gets ahold of the Dimensionator and Ratchet shoots its power core in an attempt to disable the weapon, which results in dimensional chaos. Ratchet and Clank end up separated in an alternate dimension controlled by an Emperor Nefarious. This game gives us twice the Lombax hijinx and Robot shenanigans - Ratchet ends up paired with warbot Kit (KT-7461) and Clank ends up with this other universe's Lombax, Rivet. The two pairs will work to repair the dimensional rifts ravaging the galaxy, defeat Emperor Nefarious, and become better friends, all as Ratchet and Clank seek to reunite. GAME THOUGHTS As I mentioned in my review of Ratchet & Clank (2016), I'm probably not the intended demographic for this franchise. I decided to play this sequel for a few reasons: (1) it was a pretty big launch title for the PS5, (2) my husband owned the game so I was able to play it at no additional cost, and (3) it only required a single playthrough for the platinum, so I might as well experience the story. Just like with the previous game, I thought this one was fun but not high on my list of games to recommend to others. As a result, this review will be pretty short. GAMEPLAY I initially had a relatively high learning curve in the 2016 game, but going into this game I was pre-armed with the franchise's philosophy of bombastic and over-the-top gunplay over cautious ammo conservation. Combat was fun - I was pleasantly surprised to see that the game offered mostly new weapons, though that makes absolute sense in hindsight. I did feel like there were less hilariously ridiculous weapons this time around, though the Topiary Sprinkler was decently amusing. The game's combat and movement controls in this sequel felt more intuitive to me, with the significant exception of the Skeetle 'snails' that a few levels required you to ride. I struggled hard with Skeetle race sections outside of the initial planet that introduced us to them. When a level or Battle Arena challenge would involve Skeetle racing, I often found that certain turns or moments required seemingly precise movements. I would feel certain that I was driving a Skeetle directly toward the center of an open Rift, only for the Skeetle to somehow crash outside on the Rift's edge. I also had difficulty with the moments that demanded very tight turns from a creature that is great at going straight fast and not much else. I did feel that the dimension-traveling Rift mechanic was underutilized in the game. There are a handful of story sections or fights that involve the 'seamless movement into a new planet', but otherwise the Rifts were just occasionally used to get from Point A to Point B within a level. The first two or three times that I suddenly "pulled" myself to a different spot of my environment were nifty for how new and different it was, but that quickly faded as the developers didn't expand further on the mechanic. Heck, Phantom Dodge 'grew' to allow you to perform short wall-skates on specific surfaces. STORY The story is targeted towards a younger audience. While the overall narrative was pretty predictable (Ratchet and Clank each learn how to be a better friend to each other through their experiences with their "doppelgangers"; Rivet and Kit learn that teamwork is awesome), its execution was fairly decent considering the intended audience. For a while, it felt like only Ratchet and Clank's universe had things to teach to the doppelgangers in the Rivet and Kit universe, but by the end, both universes had valuable lessons for each other. Part of the story involves you visiting a planet where the Lombax had built an Archive long ago. I expected that we would learn more about the Lombax here, but they weren't really important to the main story. You can find a dozen lore orbs ("lorbs") about the Lombax, but then you have to sit in your menu to read/hear them. Setting up the planet Savali as a Lombax outpost or whatever and then not integrating that into the story was pretty disappointing. (Admittedly, the speed-skating thing on that planet was fun, though.) RANDOM I found Zurkon Jr. narrating the previews for new weapon purchases to be fairly amusing. The short 'drama' about Rivet discovering Kit's past and how it connects to her was a little annoying. There were a few short levels that had you control a... hacking robot (?) named Glitch who could hack into devices and destroy virus nests. It kind of reminded me of how some Spyro games had levels where you controlled his dragonfly friend Sparx, which were technically tied into the game but just ended up feeling random. I became a Rupee collector instead of a bolt collector in this game! 😂 Phew, I've at least caught up to my last game of November before 2024 rolls around! FAVORITE... Trophy Image: Pretty meh trophy image list in my opinion. I normally try to avoid picking the platinum, but all the bronze/silver/gold trophy levels had 'gear' shapes which reduced the unique space for each image. Masters of the Multiverse Trophy Moment: There weren't any stand-out moments for me, but I suppose I would pick: Aim to Misbehave Screenshots: 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted December 29, 2023 Author Share Posted December 29, 2023 16 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: Sorry for the reply dump, but also not sorry, because I'm pretty positive that you'll enjoy sharing the experience 😊 Quickly jumping down to the end - psh, that's right you better not be sorry! 16 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: How do we have such a similar taste in games?? Great minds, Vice. 😉 16 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: Escall (which autocorrects to "Escalation" on my phone, by the way) has a lot to answer for! That's hilarious! Also, props to you for posting comments with post quoting via mobile - I hate writing up anything longer than a sentence or two on a touch screen, haha. Then again, I'm that weird millennial who still misses my 2010 LG Cosmos with the slide-out keyboard. I was a goddamn ninja with how fast I could text on that thing. 😂 16 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: Completing the DLC before the end of the main game adds another character and instrument! --- There's a harder one in the DLC! --- It's very good. Don't expect much re the Dark Bramble, but it's very good. There's a more spooky tone, so be ready for that. If you're trying to extract the maximum lore and experience from this DLC (as opposed to pure trophy hunting, as like the main game, the trophies don't require full narrative completion), it will take about as long as the main game. As a negative, it's the first time that I became frustrated by the time loop mechanic and having to start back on Timber Hearth, but hopefully I'm not leading the witness too much by saying that. DLC Comments: Oooooh, good to know (re: another character/instrument)! When I do play the DLC, I'll make sure to replay the ending to get that extra tidbit. There's a trophy more difficult than Sunshot?! 🥲 Mkay, so my suspicions about Dark Bramble remaining a mystery seem correct. While I want an answer, it's kind of fitting that we don't have one. Oh yeah, I'm definitely going for the full experience with the DLC! Good to know that it will probably take as long. The only spoiler I know about the DLC is that there is apparently a certain section/level/area where there are enemies you have to sneak past, otherwise you'll die. Something like that - and don't correct me if I'm only partially correct! 😂 Anyways, if I'm correct about there being an area with a stealth component, I can absolutely see how the 22-minute loop would sometimes feel frustrating with the DLC. (Considering you didn't reveal anything about the contents of the DLC, this witness has not been lead. 😉) 16 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: I also found this to be such a "human" / "emotive" side quest as well. It was a little prickle in the back of my mind and, for me, it was the most important of all of the non-lore unanswered questions on my written "unanswered questions" list. Was great to solve that one. Best side quest for me for years. Yes! Feldspar was so mysterious in the early game. The number of 'firsts' that he accomplished in the solar system was astounding, making it understandable that he acquired a legendary status to the other Hearthians. And then when you do find him, you discover that he found the 'hero worship' exhausting - the mishap with his spaceship just provided him with a great excuse to take a break for a while. 16 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: You had it right the first time. That's exactly what they do. Gravity spots. Wait, seriously? But... in the one observatory area where the Nomai were studying the tornados and had two mini replicas, I'm pretty sure the tornado 'tiles' were in that underground area as well. I thought that meant there was more to the tiles, since gravity protection against the surface tornados wasn't needed in that area. Maybe it is just to show that the tornado icon is linked to the tornados, so this was another instance of me overthinking things? 😂 16 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: Anything involving a Quantum mechanic deeply disturbed me. Deeply. Like seeing a ghost or an alien or being sent back in time; a change in the fabric of my reality. Yo, the quantum rocks themselves were kind of creepy. Not only their weird shapes and sharp, seemingly-artificial curves, but all the rounded indentations almost looked like dozens of eyes. Describing the Quantum Mechanics as deeply disturbing because it is a literal, unnatural change in the fabric of reality is so spot-on. In a single sentence, you put words to feelings I had struggled to identify! 16 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: Suffocating or drowning always led to a big gasp for air. Such a cool detail! OH! I hadn't put two and two together to realize that is why the first breath sometimes sounded different! //facepalm 16 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: And the reverse memory slideshow after every 22 minutes would take place in a Nomai's third eye. I loved how the Nomai were fascinated by the Hearthians having a fourth eye. And the meta-ness of Hearthians being able to "see more" than the Nomai. 16 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: I can offer a suggestion...? Maybe you entered the atmosphere too fast and landed too rough. Crash landing! Naw, I made a successful landing! After spending a second or so to just take in the visuals of the moon's surface, while I was still sitting in the cockpit I tried to take a photo with my Scout. As soon as I pressed the button to snap a photo, things went wrong! Perhaps I'll try it again when I return to the game for the DLC. 16 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: Great read. My favourite from this checklist so far. Congrats on such a crazy experience, Pel! Thanks so much! 🥰 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super_Mep Posted December 30, 2023 Share Posted December 30, 2023 @pelagia14 You know now that you mentioned that the rift thing is under utilized it rang true with my experience too. I guess I just got into the usual groove with the game and forgot that was supposed to be the main gimmick of the game. I guess they just did enough to show off the PS5 then went back to the usual stuff they do haha. Great review! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platinum_Vice Posted December 30, 2023 Share Posted December 30, 2023 On 12/29/2023 at 8:58 AM, pelagia14 said: Platinum #115 | Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Rating: 6/10 Oh wow, we've got a low rating coming through! On 12/29/2023 at 8:58 AM, pelagia14 said: As I mentioned in my review of Ratchet & Clank (2016), I'm probably not the intended demographic for this franchise. This is relatable. To get a quick foot in the door before reading your review: I was in the demographic for the PS2 games (and loved/love them dearly). The series did not age with me and that original demographic, I have disliked (not 'not enjoyed,' but 'disliked' all PS3 games and the PS4 2016 reboot). That is, until enjoying Rift Apart... but it's not in the same galaxy as the PS2 games to this subjective perspective! Critics say that Ratchet 2 (PS2), A Crack in Time (PS3), the 2016 reboot (PS4), and Rift Apart (PS5) are the best, so I'm somewhat on the outs with public opinion. I know that the loudest opinion by series fans' is that A Crack in Time is the best of the series. Ok... now to get back to reading your opinions... ... uh huh... yep... mmhmm... Yeah ok. It's clear that you didn't like it so much. I can see that the technical prowess didn't land (I assume you've enjoyed prettier games prior to Rift Apart?) and that the gameplay didn't stand out to you. And I agree: the story is just simply prepared for a younger demographic. Despite Insomniac having been desperate to build up the Ratchet games to be "playable Disney movies for the family" since the mid-2000s, the themes and narratives have never come close to the clarity, relatability and depth of mid-2000s Pixar movies. I can't possibly hold it against you that you didn't vibe with Rift Apart even though I think that I liked it a smidge more than you did. 9 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Then again, I'm that weird millennial who still misses my 2010 LG Cosmos with the slide-out keyboard. I was a goddamn ninja with how fast I could text on that thing. Ah... I remember the singular-thumb Nokia SMS ninja moves! 9 hours ago, pelagia14 said: While I want an answer, it's kind of fitting that we don't have one. Yes - fitting for the game's themes! I suppose I filed it alongside the Interloper having come from somewhere external. I guess both of those things are no different to the Nomai. Sometimes the things that have the biggest impact on an ecology are internal (such as the playable character's influence on his solar system) or external like those other examples! 9 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Wait, seriously? But... in the one observatory area where the Nomai were studying the tornados and had two mini replicas, I'm pretty sure the tornado 'tiles' were in that underground area as well. I thought that meant there was more to the tiles, since gravity protection against the surface tornados wasn't needed in that area. Maybe it is just to show that the tornado icon is linked to the tornados, so this was another instance of me overthinking things? 😂 I interpreted the tornado tiles in the lab as being prototypes at the location where they were invented. That was the only instance of the tiles being off of Giant's Deep. There was definitely a tile on a little island where you could walk horizontally on a wall and read some Nomai texts. There was also definitely at least one tile in an underground cave. I interpreted those as being the places where the player needed to stand on them while going about your exploration/investigations because if you don't stand on them soon after the audio cues, you get thrown around into space/within the cave and die from impact/drowning. Very happy to be wrong, though. 9 hours ago, pelagia14 said: I loved how the Nomai were fascinated by the Hearthians having a fourth eye. And the meta-ness of Hearthians being able to "see more" than the Nomai. This is why spiders can see not just into the future, but also into past. And into my soul. It's the extra eyes. The redback spiders in my shed have seen where Cottoneye Joe came from AND where he went. 9 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Naw, I made a successful landing! After spending a second or so to just take in the visuals of the moon's surface, while I was still sitting in the cockpit I tried to take a photo with my Scout. As soon as I pressed the button to snap a photo, things went wrong! Perhaps I'll try it again when I return to the game for the DLC. Huh, interesting! Let me know if you figure it out!! 👊 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted December 30, 2023 Author Share Posted December 30, 2023 16 hours ago, Super_Mep said: @pelagia14 You know now that you mentioned that the rift thing is under utilized it rang true with my experience too. I guess I just got into the usual groove with the game and forgot that was supposed to be the main gimmick of the game. I guess they just did enough to show off the PS5 then went back to the usual stuff they do haha. Great review! Thanks for the comment! Yeah, the Rift was a really interesting mechanic so it was a bummer to see the title gimmick didn't get more time in the game. 14 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: Oh wow, we've got a low rating coming through! Psh, a low rating? I'll have you know that my 6/10 ranking currently has the most games of any rank! (Though that Tigh gif made me smile!) 14 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: Yeah ok. It's clear that you didn't like it so much. I can see that the technical prowess didn't land (I assume you've enjoyed prettier games prior to Rift Apart?) and that the gameplay didn't stand out to you. And I agree: the story is just simply prepared for a younger demographic. Despite Insomniac having been desperate to build up the Ratchet games to be "playable Disney movies for the family" since the mid-2000s, the themes and narratives have never come close to the clarity, relatability and depth of mid-2000s Pixar movies. I can't possibly hold it against you that you didn't vibe with Rift Apart even though I think that I liked it a smidge more than you did. I mean, the graphics were pretty solid - the opening shots of many planetary environments were gorgeous, and I actually had a bit of a tough time narrowing down which ones to include in my favorite screenshots section. However, the game didn't fully embrace either photorealism or a cartoon aesthetic - which it isn't required to - but as a result, I very much appreciated the visuals but wasn't completely blown away by them. Had Insomniac done more with the Rift mechanic I would have been more impressed with the gameplay. However, outside of the occasional Rift pull to get a golden screw and the phantom dodge, it really felt like I was just playing more of the 2016 game but with new weapons. Even with the weapons, initially I planned to give a shout-out to my favorite one, but during writing, I realized that while I enjoyed a lot of the new ones there wasn't a specific weapon that I loved so much that it reached max rank early on. 14 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: I can't possibly hold it against you that you didn't vibe with Rift Apart even though I think that I liked it a smidge more than you did. Yup, it's absolutely a solid game for younger audiences, and probably adults who have a nostalgia factor as well. A 6/10 is still a good score from me - while I wouldn't recommend it to a lot of people if someone was already interested in the game I'd tell them that it's worth playing. I should probably sit down at some point and elaborate a bit more on how I view my rankings, since a 5/10 is is more of an 'average' and 4/10 is when it starts being really harsh. It would also help me with game rankings - right now I just pull up my currently list of ranked thumbnails and put a game where it feels right. 😂 Finally, for a little while I've been thinking about how I need to review my rankings for some readjustments, since when I started this thread I had a lot fewer games completed and a few of them are probably a tier too high or low now. When you did some readjustments earlier this month, all I could think was "great minds think alike"! 14 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: I interpreted the tornado tiles in the lab as being prototypes at the location where they were invented. That was the only instance of the tiles being off of Giant's Deep. There was definitely a tile on a little island where you could walk horizontally on a wall and read some Nomai texts. There was also definitely at least one tile in an underground cave. I interpreted those as being the places where the player needed to stand on them while going about your exploration/investigations because if you don't stand on them soon after the audio cues, you get thrown around into space/within the cave and die from impact/drowning. Ah, I like the headcanon of the tornado tiles in the lab being prototypes. That makes a lot of sense for their presence outside of Giant's Deep, thanks! 14 hours ago, Platinum_Vice said: This is why spiders can see not just into the future, but also into past. And into my soul. It's the extra eyes. The redback spiders in my shed have seen where Cottoneye Joe came from AND where he went. 😂 (Also omg, I googled what those spiders look like and that was a terrible idea. While I have a weird mild thalassophobia when it comes to gaming, in real life [and sometimes even in gaming] I struggle to deal with spiders without freaking out. And of course Australia is the Texas of spiders.) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post pelagia14 Posted January 5 Author Popular Post Share Posted January 5 INTRODUCTION Now that 2023 is firmly behind us, it's time for me to look at all of the games I played and highlight which ones shone the brightest. ✨ Initially, I wanted to make some fancy graphics for the award categories and/or winners, but between holiday busyness and some days when I didn't feel well, I didn't even start thinking of award categories until the 31st. 😅 And then I ended up axing all of my categories besides the "Best Of" Awards so that this post can get out at some point this century. 🤦♀️ ELIGIBLE GAMES Only completed games (Platinum earned, or 100% for non-plats) are considered. It also doesn't matter whether I started them in 2023 or a prior year, and whether I've played any DLCs. Every game I played in 2023, organized by thumbnail color: AWARDS BEST OF AWARDS BEST GRAPHICS Videogame technology has come a long way, and we gamers are now fortunate enough to experience stunning graphics in our games. This award celebrates the games that turned their pixels into a visual feast. Nominees: (Psst - click on images to expand them!) Assassin's Creed: Mirage For the game's lighting and visual details, and a photo mode that was somewhat basic but allowed for aperture control and changing the level of fog. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 For bringing ray-tracing to a PS5 game, a high amount of visually unique and detailed mission locations, and a photo mode with tons of settings and options. Plus all the quality art assets didn't negatively affect the game's performance! The Quarry For capturing small nuances from the mocap performances that helped make the characters feel more real, and excellent use of cinematic framing. Winner: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 BEST DESIGN While high-resolution graphics are incredible, equally important to highlight are the games that have excellent artistic design. Nominees: Chants of Sennaar For its lovely hand-drawn aesthetic and gorgeous color palettes unique to each level. Hades For its vibrant colors (who says the Underworld has to look dull?) and stunning character portraits which incorporated the personality traits and divine powers of the gods into their designs. The whole game just oozes with aesthetic, and the 2D hand-drawn art blends in seamlessly with the 3D graphics. Paradise Killer For its unique vaporwave aesthetic and colorful character portraits. Initially I disliked the "cheap/low effort" 3D graphics, but they really grew on me over time (and made narrative sense). The integration of disparate influences like Mesopotamian art/architecture and 'satanic' motifs juxtaposed with urban Japanese architecture helps to underline how we are in a bizarre alternate reality compared to the "real world". Sable For its gorgeous, colorful desert environments, and a beautiful art style influenced by European comics and Studio Ghibli animation. Winner: Hades This was probably the toughest winner for me to pick, as I love the aesthetics of all of the above games! Each of them is visually distinct and creative in its own way. Besides Hades, the other three games are the first for their respective developers, which is also incredible! BEST UI User interface ("UI") is something that you don't often think about unless it is done poorly, as the goal is to make it easy and intuitive to understand and navigate through menus and information. This award recognizes games that put extra TLC and thought into their menu design. Nominees: Hades For its use of symbols, themes, and colors to make the over 100 unique God Boons visually distinct yet also easy to recognize at a glance. Plus unlockable skins that you can apply to the menu (even if most of them are expensive) and the in-game tracker to display details of all your previous runs. Paradise Killer For its usage of Lady Love Dies' Starlink PDA as your menu screens, and how investigative clues such as alibis and motives are clearly organized to aid you in solving the game's mysteries. Untitled Goose Game For its delightful use of different option screen backgrounds (dot-matrix paper, lined notebook paper), and "state/national park" signage for its pause menu! Winner: Paradise Killer BEST SOUND DESIGN I couldn't decide on a single game for "Best Music", so I decided to split it into two categories instead! This award celebrates games that use sound effects and/or music to create an immersive experience. Nominees: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 The game's sound engineers put a lot of effort into perfecting the "thwip!" sound effect of shooting out webs (including literally recording themselves saying "thwip" 🤣). Venom's voice actor Tony Todd did a fantastic job bringing emotion to his lines, and the sound engineers added some magic to make the symbiote sound truly alien. Combat sound effects were great - my favorite was the Wall Thrash and how its final kick would echo. Finally, the roars and growls that would come out of your PS5 controller's speaker during Peter's Symbiote Surge really helped underline how vicious and animalistic he became in those moments. Outer Wilds This was one of the two games I struggled between for "Best Music", before splitting it up into two categories. Outer Wilds is masterful in its utilization of silence (with ambient background noise) as you explore the "outer wilds" of the solar system. Whenever music does start to play in Outer Wilds, you know the developers are telling you that something is important. The “less significant” ambient tracks help to create feelings of curiosity and wonder; the more plot-centric tracks manage to foster sorrow, achievement, joy, community, and even hope. Winner: Outer Wilds Outside of rhythm games where music is a central gameplay mechanic, I don't think I've seen another game utilize music as effectively as Outer Wilds does. BEST SOUNDTRACK While most games have good (or at least decent) music, this award highlights the games with soundtracks so incredible that I'm driven to seek them out and listen to them even more. Note: I decided to exclude Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line from being eligible for this category, as it is essentially a compilation of the best songs from almost two dozen Final Fantasy games - which seemed a bit of an unfair advantage! Nominees: Hades Within the first 20 minutes of Hades I was already in love with its soundtrack - despite having only heard two or three songs by that point! Many combat-oriented songs groove to a fast-paced rhythm that perfectly matches how frenetic combat can get, while the character and story-driven songs feel royal and epic enough for a literal house of gods. Paradise Killer Within the first 20 minutes of Hades I was already in love with its soundtrack - despite having only heard two or three songs by that point! Many combat-oriented songs groove to a fast-paced rhythm that perfectly matches how frenetic combat can get, while the character and story-driven songs feel royal and epic enough for a literal house of gods. Outer Wilds You've probably gathered by now that Outer Wilds won't be winning this category, or I would have just kept "Best Music" as a category. Indeed, while some of its songs can still give me all the feels and I'll sometimes seek them out, the more ambient tracks intended to signify important elements are not as engaging to listen to outside of the game. Honorary Mention: Serial Cleaner Another game featuring a lot of music I don't normally listen to, Serial Cleaner's OST and aesthetic together work to transport you to the 70s. 🎵 No Sweat Winner: Hades Hades is probably tied with the God of War: Ragnarök for my most-listened soundtrack of 2023. The OST knows that I have a weak spot for songs with a great percussive beat, orchestral instruments, and rock melodies. Composer Darren Korb took 'exotic' Mediterranean instruments and paired them with elements of heavy metal to create some fantastic headbangers with some spooky undertones. Have yourself another fabulous song from the OST: 🎵 God of the Dead BEST WRITING/WORLDBUILDING This award recognizes how valuable good writing is to a game - whether it is weaving a complex narrative, building inventive worlds, or crafting characters whose dialogue makes them feel three-dimensional. Nominees: Hades This game manages to not only provide a narrative explanation for its rogue-lite gameplay, but also a narrative that you quickly become invested in! I don't want to spoil things, so that's all I will say here. Night in the Woods The main characters sound exactly like how late teen/early college students talk. Mae's struggles with her mental health, dropping out of college, and the new distance between her and her previous life in her hometown are well written. The story starts out slow and cosy, then things crescendo in the game's final act. Paradise Killer I'm absolutely fascinated by the world-building of this game. It's set in a universe where literal space demons visited our planet, and the demon-worshipping Syndicate branched off to create their own alternate reality a millennia ago. The Syndicate keep trying to create the perfect Paradise Island, and they have gone through 24 iterations at the start of the game. There are blood crystals for currency, blood-letting altars, and statues of the ancient gods - right alongside vending machines, modern apartment buildings, and radio towers. The mystery itself was also well-written, with my opinions of most suspects' guilt or innocence changing throughout the game. Sable Reading dialogue in this game is akin to reading a book written in the first perspective, where Sable's thoughts, feelings, and impressions are often scattered into conversations. I haven't written my review yet for this game, but this game has beautiful prose. Examples: "Well, you're a Glider. By your very nature an outsider. You belong to nothing and to no one. And therefore you are capable of an uncommon objectivity." I've already begun to picture myself darting in and out of the shadows, tracking the elusive power-thief through the city. In my mind, I am swiftness and smoke, a creature of cunning and dexterity. "Isn't it a wonder? We turned a bane into a boon, and a boon into culture. All the chemicals and coincidences that conspired to create the Crystal Farmers." I nod in agreement. And suddenly this place I thought a factory feels more a place of worship. Honorary Mention: Mass Effect Trilogy I couldn't decide which game to put on here, and giving one entry to an entire trilogy felt unfair so it gets an honorary mention! Winner: Paradise Killer BEST ATMOSPHERE Blatantly stolen from @Platinum_Vice's GOTY Awards, this award highlights games whose graphics, sound, music, writing, and pacing all come together to create a unique mood or vibe. While each of the elements might not stand out alone, their cohesion forms a sum greater than its parts. Nominees: Call of the Sea Inscryption Outer Wilds Unfortunately, talking too much about each of these games' atmospheres would delve into spoilers! One thing I can say is that they all have mysterious, spooky vibes - despite not being horror games at all. Winner: Inscryption BEST CAST Originally this would have gone into a category more focused on characters, but character awards had to be sacrificed to the old gods to get this post out. This award recognizes the games that have a large cast of interesting and unique characters! Nominees: Hades Final Fantasy VI Mass Effect 2 The Banner Saga Winner: Mass Effect 2 GOTY Which game shone biggest and brightest this year? Time to find out! Nominees: Hades Inscryption Mass Effect 2 Outer Wilds Winner: HADES Not only did Hades win several of my "Best Of" awards, the gameplay loop is just so satisfying and addicting. With 6 different main weapons and near-infinite God Boon loadout possibilities, the replayability of this rogue-lite game is sky-high. Anyone who hasn't played it should absolutely check it out! CONCLUSION For those of you who reached the end of this post, thanks! It is rather jumbled together and much more threadbare than I had hoped, but that just means there is room for improvement with next year's awards! 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YaManSmevz Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 Yoo great stuff, my dude!! Mass Effect 2, Inscryption, and Outer Wilds are all on my to-play list this year, and your write-up just got me all the more excited. Just a few quick notes and I'll be on my way! - Man, I need to steal that thumbnail quilt look, that's dope! - Venom looks amazing in Spider-Man 2, holy shit! - The UI award is a great idea! As you say, it's something we only notice when it's done shitty, the devs deserve props when they nail it! - Damn, I guess Hades needs another bump up in the backlog... Again, great work! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted January 6 Author Share Posted January 6 Thanks, @YaManSmevz! I'm playing VA-11 Hall-A tonight, and your recent end of the year post is part of the impetus behind that! 😉 The Mass Effect trilogy is something that I hold dearly. I'm very interested to see how it holds up for someone first experiencing it in 2023! In regards to Venom, I don't know if I can ever stop gushing over how perfectly Insomniac nailed every aspect of his design. I haven't paid attention to everything from the terrible Insomniac recently, but I would love for them to make a standalone Venom game. You've already got an admirable game plan for 2024, otherwise I would encourage you to play Hades this year. The sequel is coming out in PC Early Access sometime this summer, and I'm estimating it will take 2 years to reach console (the first one took a little under 3 years), so 2025 would be a great time to play the first game! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platinum_Vice Posted January 8 Share Posted January 8 On 1/6/2024 at 12:29 AM, pelagia14 said: Every game I played in 2023, organized by thumbnail color: I am jealous of how many games you've been able to experience this year! On 1/6/2024 at 12:29 AM, pelagia14 said: BEST WRITING/WORLDBUILDING Paradise Killer You're REALLY selling it. I was so on the fence but I guess it just has to be experienced. Any game getting as much attention as Hades and Outer Wilds is surely worth a try. On 1/6/2024 at 12:29 AM, pelagia14 said: BEST ATMOSPHERE Winner: Inscryption Doubleplusgood! 👊 On 1/6/2024 at 12:29 AM, pelagia14 said: GOTY Which game shone biggest and brightest this year? Time to find out! Nominees: Hades Inscryption Mass Effect 2 Outer Wilds Winner: HADES Not only did Hades win several of my "Best Of" awards, the gameplay loop is just so satisfying and addicting. With 6 different main weapons and near-infinite God Boon loadout possibilities, the replayability of this rogue-lite game is sky-high. Anyone who hasn't played it should absolutely check it out! Wow! For Hades to take it out over THAT competition... all I can say is "dayum!!!" On 1/6/2024 at 12:29 AM, pelagia14 said: CONCLUSION For those of you who reached the end of this post, thanks! It is rather jumbled together and much more threadbare than I had hoped, but that just means there is room for improvement with next year's awards! Are you kidding? This was great! Looking forward to the 2024 awards 😄🤩 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Copanele Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 On 1/5/2024 at 6:29 PM, pelagia14 said: That was a quality pilgrimage if I ever saw one what a great year 2023 was! Your writeup further convinced me that there's still enough amazing games to play out there. I am very happy with these mentions: On 1/5/2024 at 6:29 PM, pelagia14 said: Assassin's Creed: Mirage For the game's lighting and visual details, and a photo mode that was somewhat basic but allowed for aperture control and changing the level of fog. So glad I wasn't the only one to admire Mirage's surprisingly good graphics Also the cats! Not linked to the graphics award, but cats! On 1/5/2024 at 6:29 PM, pelagia14 said: GOTY Which game shone biggest and brightest this year? Time to find out! Nominees: Hades Inscryption Mass Effect 2 Outer Wilds Winner: HADES Yeah. I mean yeah. That game is goddamn amazing. It deserves the award! I only hope that 2024 will top this year regarding games! P.S. Fine I get the point, I'll play Inscryption 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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