Second Contact (Trophy) Thoughts

[fbdbh]

Long-time Outcast fan here. Cautiously waiting for this remake, on one hand, the original is a masterpiece, but this reboot might be an underwhelming experience for some, based on the engine and animations.

 

 

Nevertheless, I'd encourage anyone to try this game, it was way ahead of its time in 1999 with world building, characters, dialogue, on par with Mass Effect, but more adventurous. What killed it was the poor technology, and this is a danger again.

 

As for the trophies, there doesn't seem to be any missables, speedruns or grinds, maybe you need to pay attention before triggering the endgame but other than that, if the remake follows the same gameplay, then this is going to be an easy and relaxing platinum. There's an infinite amount of items and enemies that respawn in certain areas, so there's plenty of opportunity to meet the requirements for combat-related trophies.

 

Also, if this game has even a moderate success, then a long awaited sequel might happen, and that would be awesome.

[starcrunch061]

I've never even heard of this game. Is it an RPG?

[fbdbh]

Just now, starcrunch061 said:

I've never even heard of this game. Is it an RPG?

 

Sort of. It's an open world action-adventure with RPG elements. Difficult to explain.

 

There's a huge oppressive enemy force on an alien world where the protagonist is considered some kind of Messiah.

 

For example if you do a few side quest for rice farmers and kill enough soldiers, you can convince them to stop providing food to enemy soldiers, so they get weaker. Same with miners, you go to the mountain region and convince the NPC-s to stop mining minerals, enemy soldiers will do less damage. And so on. It's a nice system.

 

It has vastly different regions, fun NPCs, killer dialogue and mind-bending science-fiction story.

 

It's... rather poor in presentation, and it sold poorly when it was originally released, but damn, it's such a good game once you get past its shortcomings. It truly is.

[starcrunch061]

It certainly doesn't look that great (graphically), but what you're describing seems pretty cool. I'll probably check it out (though not immediately - Star Ocean all day, every day right now).

Edited September 25, 2017 by starcrunch061

[JLDAHAKA92]

Oh good old times Ulukai, before i buy the game i remember spending hours just in the demo, fantastic game, its gonna be great to play this again.

 

I watch some videos and those comments are cancer, a shame that only some indie games get a free pass on the graphics, same thing happen a couple of month ago with dreamfall chapters.

[turniplord]

I'm currently playing the game for review purposes on the PS4 and I absolutely loved the original game - I can't say much as I'm under embargo but Newcomers may have a few issues but the devs know this as they state "The remaster is mainly for fans who loved the original as well as those who heard of the original but never had a chance to try it out back then." - so it's for the fans to replay on current gen systems and for people who want to dive in who never got the chance too originally.

can't really go into any more detail or my thoughts so far due to the embargo but I would say, if you enjoyed the original then this is definitely for you!

[turniplord]

One thing I can say about the trophies is, you don't have to finish the story to get the platinum.... I got the platinum at 5:2opm today - 3 hours later I finished the main game, but I'm jumping back in because I want the secret ending so I'm gonna do all the side missions and see if I can get it!

Not quite sure why they didn't put in a 'complete the story' trophy - only other game I can think of which lets you obtain it without finishing is Teslagrad

[DrakeHellsing]

14 minutes ago, turniplord said:

One thing I can say about the trophies is, you don't have to finish the story to get the platinum.... I got the platinum at 5:2opm today - 3 hours later I finished the main game, but I'm jumping back in because I want the secret ending so I'm gonna do all the side missions and see if I can get it!

Not quite sure why they didn't put in a 'complete the story' trophy - only other game I can think of which lets you obtain it without finishing is Teslagrad

Undertale as well, you don't have to finish that game for the platinum either.

 

But hey, I might check it out, depending on price and all that sort of stuff, I mean, they way the game is described as does sound rather interesting, so I wont mind seeing what it's all about.

[fbdbh]

20 hours ago, turniplord said:

One thing I can say about the trophies is, you don't have to finish the story to get the platinum.... I got the platinum at 5:2opm today - 3 hours later I finished the main game, but I'm jumping back in because I want the secret ending so I'm gonna do all the side missions and see if I can get it!

Not quite sure why they didn't put in a 'complete the story' trophy - only other game I can think of which lets you obtain it without finishing is Teslagrad

 

Any missables / glitches to look forward to?

 

I almost 100%'d Outcast 1.1 on Steam, but of course some of the achievements didn't pop.

 

Is there a secret ending? Was it in the original? I remember a funny outro, that's all.

[turniplord]

6 hours ago, fbdbh said:

 

Any missables / glitches to look forward to?

 

I almost 100%'d Outcast 1.1 on Steam, but of course some of the achievements didn't pop.

 

Is there a secret ending? Was it in the original? I remember a funny outro, that's all.

Can't say too much due to embargo, but the game appears to be the same engine as the original and 1.1 but with a new skin.

 

That being said - I managed to hit 100% on story missions (many hours after achieving the platinum) and nothing played after the credits - which is disappointing. I was hoping to see the musical number in the new format. I'm guessing, if it is still there, you need 100% side missions as well - I'm at 100% story and 90% side missions. There is no way to get the final side missions either as they involve people who are now dead.

Regarding trophies, I guess 'kill 10 soldiers with TNT' could be missable as they don't respawn and stay dead. Everything else is obtained from playing. As I said above though, you basically hit the platinum once you obtain all 4 Mon - everything from then onwards is trophy-less. For me, this was about 3 hours more gameplay (12 if you include going back to try and 100% story missions). Hopefully, people carry on playing and don't just give up when the trophies stop.

Glitches - sure, but all quite amusing and don't affect or stop gameplay. Bugs on the other hand.... I won't/can't get into them but I have reported them all to the developer, hopefully for a day 1 patch. If there isn't a patch on Tuesday morning I'll come back and make a new post about what to keep an eye on

[turniplord]

I've posted a topic on the game breaking bugs and funny glitches (Spoiler, 18yr of bugs are still there!) and i've posted an intro and ending comparison video - spoiler warning, obv.

Also, if you want to see some images taken in-game across all regions, I've put some up on my Twitter here (Click on it as I've posted about 4 replies with 4 images on each): 

My full review will be on SquareXO.co.uk if you wanna read that before you buy - won't be up until tomorrow though as it's quite long.

Technically there are no bugged trophies as long as you don't encounter, or reload if you obtain a game breaking bug

[fbdbh]

I finally got my review copy as well.