The last few games you beat and rate them 5

[Ceremony]

Previous thread of my nonsense here: The last few games you beat and rate them IV
Previous previous thread here: The last few games you beat and rate them III

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[Ceremony]

Journey to the Savage Planet (PS4, 2020)

Journey to the Savage Planet is a first person shooter about... an explorer, employed by Kindred Aerospace to go and explore space and find planets with creatures, resources and so on, and catalogue them. Maybe alert Kindred if there's anything valuable they should come to exploit. Only when the explorer crash lands on ARY-26 it's not actually a planet, and there's a lot more life on it than first thought. Including a giant, foreboding tower that was clearly built by an advanced species.

The bulk of the gameplay is centred around exploring, cataloguing the world and doing some platforming. You can scan creatures and plants to find out what they're called. You have a pistol which you can shoot any aggressive creatures with. Some will attack you, some won't. As you progress you'll be able to unlock side-quests to upgrade your pistol and equipment, allowing you to jump higher, use your jetpack multiple times to effectively triple jump, that sort of thing. There are lots of creatures and plants which require different approaches to survive, but everything ultimately comes down to firing and moving as much as you can. Nothing's going to kill you unless you get stuck somewhere, or you haven't found many health upgrades.

The platforming element is a little different, and is arguably the game's main strength. If a double jump is fun, an extremely powerful quadruple jump which effectively lets you fly around for a few seconds is even more fun. There's a grapple system which allows for horizontal and vertical movement, and this just ends up being a satisfying way of spending your time.

While there isn't much interaction with the world outside of the scanning and shooting, the game features an assortment of plants which function as grenades. You find a plant, you pick off a fruit which works as a bomb, or an electric shock, you have to throw it quickly because it's not stable and your suit can't handle it. But then you do a little side-quest and then you can collect and hold them and then the story can move on. There's some nice variety in the combat and exploration available through this but it typifies one of the game's biggest problems. At times it feels very procedural. You need to get somewhere. You find something in the way, so you need to go and find or make something to allow you to move on. Then you go a bit further until the same thing happens with a different plant. In a game which is ostensibly about exploration it feels a bit hollow.

Despite what I said about the movement, the world itself isn't that interesting to explore. I don't really know that there's a word or phrase for how I felt while I was playing but I suppose I never really felt involved. I didn't care about the planet. Even by the time I got to the end and found out why it was the way it was, I wasn't invested enough for it to have any impact. There's DLC which focuses on a specific area which has been repurposed as a retirement village and this feels more contained and eventful, but the planet as a whole doesn't have a lot going for it. Despite having lots of creatures it feels quite empty, and I think this was my biggest problem.

Fortunately for players living in a world in the midst of a capitalistic death rattle, Journey to the Savage Planet is a bit subversive. You work for Kindred Aerospace, whose media is very keen to tell you that they're the 4th best interstellar exploration company and that you are worth less than literally everything else on wherever it is you've landed. There are adverts on the screen inside your ship for things like mind wipes that purge all bad thoughts, or the Meat Buddy, where you can pour all your leftover meat into a contraption that turns it into a little pet. You also have a voice in your head from the ship's computer giving you snarky reminders and advice, or the head of Kindred popping up on the screens to give you special messages because you've landed on a planet with something valuable on it. The game is short enough that this content just manages to land on the right side of amusing rather than obnoxious. Ultimately it's just about as frothy as the gameplay, but after finishing the game and seeing (I'm pretty sure) all of this stuff, it's never bad.

If you've read all of this and decided you want to play Journey to the Savage Planet, the good news is there's also a co-op mode available if you have friends. It's short, it's fun, it's made with a reasonable degree of care and creativity. It's not genre defining, but it's a game I don't see anyone actively disliking.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

An old childhood PC mystery game I had back in the day that I just beat for the first time in like 30 years via DOSBox.

4/5

 

[Jovavic]

Finished Chained Echoes, awesome game, get it, JRPG fans

 

[pistolpete11]

@Ceremony

I've not played the PS4 remake yet, but it's good. In a world of Soulsborne games I can see why SOTC would seem lacking, but it was never about the sense of challenge in the same way. The sense of scale and emptiness in the world is the point, and the intrigue about why/what the world is is part of the appeal. The ZP review covers some of your points, but I'll be honest and say when I went to look it up I could have sworn it was more recent and longer:

I could buy the vast, empty, mystery world for a while, but nothing changes until like 12 colossuses in and there is a small cut scene. You don't learn anything new or discover anything until you beat the game and the final cut scene. It was just checking off the colossuses for the vast majority of the game.

 

[Ceremony]

@Ceremony

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection - 7.5/10

I'm kind of torn on this game. I remember I had a PS3 and played the first two Uncharted and really enjoyed them. I didn't play 3 or 4. When this came out on Steam, I was excited to give it a go again, especially since I just built a new PC. The game certainly looks gorgeous. The game is just OK though. I played through Uncharted 4 and enjoyed it enough to get through to the end but it felt really repetitive. I don't know if I've changed since playing Uncharted 1 & 2 or if the game design changed but this one didn't seem to have any really big, tense moments that made me want to keep going without stopping.

It was still good but not a must buy like a lot of Playstation fans were touting. The joke for years now has been this is a Larry Croft game and this one doesn't do anything special to differentiate it from the Tomb Raider games. The story pacing was kind of lame. Get clue, go to find treasure, find out it's not the treasure and just another clue, get attacked by baddies. Move on to new setting, rinse and repeat. The environment certainly does look beautiful but that's not what really keeps me going.

I finished 4 and started Lost Legacy but couldn't be bothered to finish Lost Legacy since it felt like more of the same with a different story.

The game does run very well although I had some weird artifacting in cutscenes. The waterfalls looked a bit strange, especially in the distance, but that may have been the DLSS. There are also some annoying control issues. I change all my controls for every game, which this game allows. But some actions can't be unbound. For example, I use ESDF to move instead of WASD. F by default is to swap weapons. I can change the binding to swap weapons but it is also always bound to F. Whenever I strafe right while aiming, it would switch guns on me. It was very frustrating. Also, I forget what the command is called, whatever the spike is that let's you grab onto soft rock walls, just flat out didn't work on keyboard. I would grab my controller every time I had to climb one of those soft walls and then put it down to switch back to keyboard/mouse after I finish that climbing section. It just got really annoying.

I'd give the game a thumbs up because I did enjoy it enough to finish it and don't regret my time but it's certainly not without its flaws. It's simply an above average game that people praise as one of the best.

 

[JaegerDice]

Need for Speed: Unbound

A buddy at EA sent me a code for the ‘Palace’ edition, which just gives you some extra starting money and more clothes to customize your avatar.

Pros:
Visual style and graphics - the game basically adds cell-shaded characters and animated graffiti style ‘flair’ around your car when you drift, jump, boost, basically anything cool. I think it looks great!

Music and sound - Cars all sound great, from engine roars and turbo intakes down to gear shifts and nox boosts. Between the audio and visual feedback, the sense of speed is great. EA went all in on import hip-hop, its the only genre in the game. Its not my favorite genre, but I respect them for saying ‘this is the vibe we’re going for, no compromises’. It beats the usual EA method of browsing the top 40 for a mediocre taste of a bunch of genres.

Challenge - Im used to NFS games being a breeze, this game is TOUGH. Its legitimately hard to come in first if you dont have the best ride in the race, and races are class locked, so it’s not like you can pull up in a Ferrari to take on Golfs. There’s a definite con element to this, which, Ill get to later, but I appreciated actually having to earn 1st place for a change

Cons:

Rubber-banding - The AI in the game flat-out cheats at times. Its annoying. Yes it keeps every race competitive and back-and forth to the end, but yeesh, if I race a perfect lap give me at least a bit of an advantage for more than 10 seconds before a car blows past me. Drafting is super-powerful in this game, so maybe they’re just using that, but it feels a bit cheesy to me.

The grind: Good lord it takes a long time to make money, upgrade your car, make more money, buy new cars, upgrade them. Between race buy-ins, how hard it is to place for top prizes, losing all the money you’re carrying if the cops bust you before you cash in at the garage, the grind feels like a crawl. I thought a few times about just turning the difficulty down to juice my earnings. Didnt do it, but wouldnt blame anybody who does. They should increase rewards for every finish by 50% imo


Overall: 8.0/10

Its more Need for Speed, but its finally a Need for Speed with a really solid identity. I enjoyed the vibes and the racing was fun, I just wish I moved through the campaign and unlocked newer cars abit fastee.

 

[93LEAFS]

Psychonauts 2 (PC version) 8/10

A great game, with cool art and amazing level design backed by a great concept for a fictional universe. The combat and boss fights could be expanded, but the platforming which makes up a significant part of the game is quite fun and interesting. The story is really fascinating and fun while exploring serious issues related to mental health (fear, regrets, addiction, etc). But, considering that it started as a crowd funding project for a beloved game from the PS2 era when it started production it was going to have some limitations. Looking forward to seeing what Double Fine can now do that they have serious funding behind them to hopefully take a step forward.

 

[Shareefruck]

@Ceremony


I could buy the vast, empty, mystery world for a while, but nothing changes until like 12 colossuses in and there is a small cut scene. You don't learn anything new or discover anything until you beat the game and the final cut scene. It was just checking off the colossuses for the vast majority of the game.

It's definitely an exercise in minimalism/"less is more", which isn't going to be for everyone. The point is to meditate on one overarching theme that's never stated but naturally becomes more apparent as you progress.

Lots of twists and turns, amassing background lore, and plot development as you defeat colossi would undermine the whole idea, honestly.

It doesn't work as riveting gameplay, I agree, but it does work as a one of a kind artistic experience. Which I could understand being difficult to shift to that mindset (and while that somewhat complements the jank, since fighting the controls leans into what it's about and the feeling you're meant to have, it still doesn't entirely excuse it).

I will say though, if you played the PS4 version, the lack of a visible transformation in Wander hurts what it's going for a lot, IMO. That subtle transition is pretty much all you get in the original (and it's the perfect amount), and it seems to be virtually unnoticeable in the remake. The fact that they made the world beautifully lush and green rather than desolately brown, hazy and dream-like, and made Wander look more like a generic warrior than a malnourished flailing desperate idiot who's spiraling does take a lot away from the intended feeling as well.

As much as Bluepoint gets praised for being authentic almost to a fault, my biggest criticism is ironically that it's still not quite authentic enough in areas that matter most.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

Psychonauts 2 (PC version) 8/10

A great game, with cool art and amazing level design backed by a great concept for a fictional universe. The combat and boss fights could be expanded, but the platforming which makes up a significant part of the game is quite fun and interesting. The story is really fascinating and fun while exploring serious issues related to mental health (fear, regrets, addiction, etc). But, considering that it started as a crowd funding project for a beloved game from the PS2 era when it started production it was going to have some limitations. Looking forward to seeing what Double Fine can now do that they have serious funding behind them to hopefully take a step forward.

I loved this game. The section where you’re putting back together the pieces of the brain was so well done.

 

[Ceremony]

It's definitely an exercise in minimalism/"less is more", which isn't going to be for everyone. The point is to meditate on one overarching theme that's never stated but naturally becomes more apparent as you progress.

Lots of twists and turns, amassing background lore, and plot development as you defeat colossi would undermine the whole idea, honestly.

It doesn't work as riveting gameplay, I agree, but it does work as a one of a kind artistic experience. Which I could understand being difficult to shift to that mindset (and while that somewhat complements the jank, since fighting the controls leans into what it's about and the feeling you're meant to have, it still doesn't entirely excuse it).

I will say though, if you played the PS4 version, the lack of a visible transformation in Wander hurts what it's going for a lot, IMO. That subtle transition is pretty much all you get in the original (and it's the perfect amount), and it seems to be virtually unnoticeable in the remake. The fact that they made the world beautifully lush and green rather than desolately brown, hazy and dream-like, and made Wander look more like a generic warrior than a malnourished flailing desperate idiot who's spiraling does take a lot away from the intended feeling as well.

As much as Bluepoint gets praised for being authentic almost to a fault, my biggest criticism is ironically that it's still not quite authentic enough in areas that matter most.

The biggest changes in the remake seem to be in his neck.

 

[Ceremony]

@Ceremony


I could buy the vast, empty, mystery world for a while, but nothing changes until like 12 colossuses in and there is a small cut scene. You don't learn anything new or discover anything until you beat the game and the final cut scene. It was just checking off the colossuses for the vast majority of the game.

Also I didn't realise you'd edited in a reply to that post, sorry

I'll stand by what I said about the world being a different experience in a post-Soulsborne gaming landscape. I agree with Shareefruck that it's a very minimalist experience and ultimately that's what it is. You're clearly in a mostly abandoned world and you don't get any answers. You don't know what the Colossi are. You don't know how or why the various temples and ruins are where they are. You don't know what the shrine in the centre is for. You don't know what the voice is. There's an ongoing sense that something is happening but again, if the changes to Wander aren't as apparent as they should be that probably ruins the experience in that sense. I'm going to play it soon so I'll see how it stands up to my memory of the last time I played the PS3/PS2 version. You should look that one out if you can, although I'd imagine the even less refined controls would put you off.

Ico would probably appeal to you even less than SOTC and The Last Guardian, but it's a similar overarching sentiment in a way that's both more obvious and more annoying in gameplay terms:



The overall universe of these games is just very appealing to me. I can see why it wouldn't be though.

Ed - the Wikipedia article for the game is also quite detailed about why the game is the way it is: Shadow of the Colossus - Wikipedia

 

[Unholy Diver]

Saints Row - 5/10

The game certainly earns the mixed to mediocre reviews it got, I didn't have any bugs or glitches that interfered with gameplay, the gunplay could be a little wonky but that was poor design over bugginess. The sandbox world was mostly lifeless, the main storyline was meh, and the game was heavily padded with side gigs that felt mostly unrewarding. The characters were forgettable, and for someone who was a fan of the previous series it really didn't feel like a Saints Row game, but more of a generic GTA clone reskinned to be a Saints game.

Easily the worst of the series, and feels like it shouldn't have been a full price game

 

[pistolpete11]

Also I didn't realise you'd edited in a reply to that post, sorry

I'll stand by what I said about the world being a different experience in a post-Soulsborne gaming landscape. I agree with Shareefruck that it's a very minimalist experience and ultimately that's what it is. You're clearly in a mostly abandoned world and you don't get any answers. You don't know what the Colossi are. You don't know how or why the various temples and ruins are where they are. You don't know what the shrine in the centre is for. You don't know what the voice is. There's an ongoing sense that something is happening but again, if the changes to Wander aren't as apparent as they should be that probably ruins the experience in that sense. I'm going to play it soon so I'll see how it stands up to my memory of the last time I played the PS3/PS2 version. You should look that one out if you can, although I'd imagine the even less refined controls would put you off.

Ico would probably appeal to you even less than SOTC and The Last Guardian, but it's a similar overarching sentiment in a way that's both more obvious and more annoying in gameplay terms:



The overall universe of these games is just very appealing to me. I can see why it wouldn't be though.

Ed - the Wikipedia article for the game is also quite detailed about why the game is the way it is: Shadow of the Colossus - Wikipedia

My issue is that this stuff is established right from the start and then nothing changes until you are 75% through the game. They could have kept it mysterious and the final reveal hidden, but still given the player a few crumbs throughout. The changes to the character's appearance would have been a nice touch and is a kind of strange thing for BluePoint to take out, but it wouldn't have fundamentally changed anything for me.

 

[Shareefruck]

My issue is that this stuff is established right from the start and then nothing changes until you are 75% through the game. They could have kept it mysterious and the final reveal hidden, but still given the player a few crumbs throughout. The changes to the character's appearance would have been a nice touch and is a kind of strange thing for BluePoint to take out, but it wouldn't have fundamentally changed anything for me.

It's not really established right from the start, though. The reading between the lines about the morality of what you're doing, the innocence and beautiful majesty of the creatures, the uncomfortable desperation of the protagonist, the unnaturalness of what he's trying to accomplish, and the thought that maybe it's best not to bring her back is only communicated wordlessly through those fights and that middle section, and it does take a while to fully sink in-- the game never outright tells you most of this, to great effect-- Those ARE the breadcrumbs. I think that's one of the coolest things about the game, personally.

Whether or not that segment dragged out too long is debatable (perhaps if there were 10 colossi rather than 16), but I would definitely disagree that there's no story meat/substance to that core gameplay section altogether, or that it should have been more explicitly spelled out or laced with lore (that would have ruined it, in my opinion).

But, if it wouldn't have made a difference for you, then it wouldn't have made a difference for you. The game's not for everyone.

 

[Ceremony]

I think a bit more explanation about the lands would have been good. Even just more of a connection between the different areas that makes them feel part of the one civilisation. Each Colossus and area in isolation can feel very self-contained unless you analyse everything and every detail in each Team Ico game. Going from memory I think Ico does a better job of subtly suggesting what's going on in the world, but there's more talking in that so that's probably why.

The original plan for 48 Colossi would have been much better and much funnier (and some of those models actually do look interesting): Unused Colossi

Ed - while I'm here you made me look up my reviews of Ico and SOTC, here's the latter: The last few games you beat and rate them III

The longer this discussion goes on the less enthusiastic I am about playing the remake.

 

[Shareefruck]

I actually would have preferred a little less talking/explaining, personally. A bigger criticism of mine would be the fact that it goes from exposition dump to tasteful silence and then back to exposition dump, with a pretty verbose ending, which is a little jarring. I would have preferred if the whole thing just felt completely ambiguous/open to interpretation/silent and you had to fully piece it together yourself, kind of like Inside or Limbo, which is what a lot of the appeal was for me (although writing-wise, I'm not sure how that would be accomplished-- that's a decent amount of essential information to get across).

 

[Jovavic]

Played through Detroit: Become Human and I thought it was good for what it is. The gameplay was meh but everything else was at least average. Apparently I took mostly an unconventional route, lots of 20 percents and under among the world stats in the flow chart lol

 

[PeterSidorkiewicz]

Played through Detroit: Become Human and I thought it was good for what it is. The gameplay was meh but everything else was at least average. Apparently I took mostly an unconventional route, lots of 20 percents and under among the world stats in the flow chart lol

Yeah my endings for each character ended up being very unconventional based on the charts and I honestly wasn’t even trying to be “different” or anything just chose stuff I thought the character would choose. I did like how my stories ended I thought it fit very well and made for an interesting conclusion.

Although maybe that’s why it ends up more unconventional, in choose your own story type games I like to make my choices based on what I think the character would do rather than what I specifically would do.

 

[pistolpete11]

It's not really established right from the start, though. The reading between the lines about the morality of what you're doing, the innocence and beautiful majesty of the creatures, the uncomfortable desperation of the protagonist, the unnaturalness of what he's trying to accomplish, and the thought that maybe it's best not to bring her back is only communicated wordlessly through those fights and that middle section, and it does take a while to fully sink in-- the game never outright tells you most of this, to great effect-- Those ARE the breadcrumbs. I think that's one of the coolest things about the game, personally.

Really? How many colossi did it take you to realize that maybe this wasn't a good idea? They tell you in the opening that you are on forbidden lands and that you will have to pay a big price to do this. Then when you kill one of them, there is haunting, somber music playing, black snake-like spirit things shoot into your body knocking you out, and then you wake up with shadowy figures standing around you. None of that tipped you off?

Whether or not that segment dragged out too long is debatable (perhaps if there were 10 colossi rather than 16), but I would definitely disagree that there's no story meat/substance to that core gameplay section altogether, or that it should have been more explicitly spelled out or laced with lore (that would have ruined it, in my opinion).

You're missing my point. I'm not saying there isn't a story, that there needs to be more lore, or even that the story isn't good. I'm taking issue with how they are telling the story. There is no progression. There is no new information to think about. It's go to where the voice tells you, kill the colossus there, wake up, go to where the voice tells you...rinse and repeat. If you want to say they are giving you time to reflect on it, fine....for a couple of them, but 12??? Nah, it's repetitive and boring.

They could have teased out some of the information from the opening cut scene as you progress. There could have been more dialogue with the voice. An inner dialogue. Flashbacks with the girl. More clips of the other people.

It doesn't need to be 5min cut scenes that spell everything out, but more 15 second clips (like the one they do give you) would have gone a long way. For example, show someone in the village noticing the light after you kill a colossus. Boom. 10 seconds, but it makes you think about something else. Or show a flashback of the girl as a reinforcement of why you are doing this. There's any number of things they could have done that would have broken the repetitiveness without spoiling any of the things you like about the game.

 

[Shareefruck]

Really? How many colossi did it take you to realize that maybe this wasn't a good idea? They tell you in the opening that you are on forbidden lands and that you will have to pay a big price to do this. Then when you kill one of them, there is haunting, somber music playing, black snake-like spirit things shoot into your body knocking you out, and then you wake up with shadowy figures standing around you. None of that tipped you off?


You're missing my point. I'm not saying there isn't a story, that there needs to be more lore, or even that the story isn't good. I'm taking issue with how they are telling the story. There is no progression. There is no new information to think about. It's go to where the voice tells you, kill the colossus there, wake up, go to where the voice tells you...rinse and repeat. If you want to say they are giving you time to reflect on it, fine....for a couple of them, but 12??? Nah, it's repetitive and boring.

They could have teased out some of the information from the opening cut scene as you progress. There could have been more dialogue with the voice. An inner dialogue. Flashbacks with the girl. More clips of the other people.

It doesn't need to be 5min cut scenes that spell everything out, but more 15 second clips (like the one they do give you) would have gone a long way. For example, show someone in the village noticing the light after you kill a colossus. Boom. 10 seconds, but it makes you think about something else. Or show a flashback of the girl as a reinforcement of why you are doing this. There's any number of things they could have done that would have broken the repetitiveness without spoiling any of the things you like about the game.

I don't really see how this is missing your point. What you're describing matches how I took it previously.

The first time you play the game, without reinforcement from its zeitgeist or any idea that it has any subtext to begin with? You feel hints of it, certainly, but not so confidently to the point where you're like "Okay, I get it" after one colossi-- I don't think most people pick up on it right away (hell, some don't until the ending spells it out for them, partly because it's a videogame and you're never really thinking about that), beyond maybe going "This doesn't feel good". Even if you pick up on the morality of what you're doing right away, it still takes a while to get a sense of the protagonist's uncomfortable increasing desperation/single-mindedness (face transition would have helped there). I don't think that's sold much in the opening alone, outside of one line.

A lot of those ideas sound pretty cheesy and inelegant to me, personally. Spreading out the opening so that the information is less whiplashy and jarring, I can see possibly being an improvement (it is too frontloaded and backloaded with information, IMO), but things like flashbacks of the girl, more inner dialogue, hints about what the relationship really was and what's really going on, showing more of the townspeople-- these are things that sound like they would actively subtract from the effect of its minimalism and would ruin the experience, in my opinion. I don't want that information/added context-- The ambiguity is tasty and refined (and the game has a more mythical/fairytale-esque quality because of it). I wasn't trying to suggest that you want 5 minute cutscenes that go on too long or spell things out entirely, I just dispute that unclear things would have benefited from being cleared up, or even touched on more.

Repetition isn't necessarily a negative thing, either-- I think it's very purposeful and something you're meant to slowly meditate on, rather than impatiently go "Okay, the point was to receive information and I received the information. NEXT! Time is money!" Restraint is the game's strength, and repetition is a deliberate tool used. I personally really like the idea of an impression of something gradually changing over time/repetition despite the event itself remaining pretty constant and static.

I do think that it's possible/understandable to play it with an incompatible attitude and not like it, but I would hate for the game to remotely cater to that.

Again, I can agree that the number of colossi could have been cut down so that you get the same feeling and meditate on that repetition without it dragging out it out excessively (16 is a bit much for that modest purpose), and I can imagine the game being improved by adding more ambiguous cutscenes that are merely added flavor (more expressions/body-language) rather than additional information/events/context, but I disagree that they should have presented more or fleshed things out as you were fighting them (if anything, my criticism is that I would have liked the beginning and end to be less explicit). It's just a different mindset, and that's okay. What you find boring and repetitive, I find an example of something being given room to breath and linger, and what you find expedient and rich, I may find rushed, overly blunt/excessive, and tasteless. There are more than enough games that are the other way.

 

[pistolpete11]

The first time you play the game, without reinforcement from its zeitgeist or any idea that it has any subtext to begin with? You feel hints of it, certainly, but not so confidently to the point where you're like "Okay, I get it" after one colossi-- I don't think most people pick up on it right away (hell, some don't until the ending spells it out for them, partly because it's a videogame and you're never really thinking about that), beyond maybe going "This doesn't feel good". Even if you pick up on the morality of what you're doing right away, it still takes a while to get a sense of the protagonist's uncomfortable increasing desperation/single-mindedness (face transition would have helped there). I don't think that's sold much in the opening alone, outside of one line.

Yes.

Unless maybe you're playing it for the first time as a 12 year old, it's very obvious that you aren't supposed to be doing that for the reasons I've already stated. What the exact result of it will be could have gone a couple of ways, but it was very clear it was a bad idea.

 

[pistolpete11]

Again, I can agree that the number of colossi could have been cut down so that you get the same feeling and meditate on that repetition without it dragging out it out excessively (16 is a bit much for that modest purpose), and I can imagine the game being improved by adding more ambiguous cutscenes that are merely added flavor (more expressions/body-language) rather than additional information/events/context, but I disagree that they should have presented more or fleshed things out as you were fighting them (if anything, my criticism is that I would have liked the beginning and end to be less explicit). It's just a different mindset, and that's okay. What you find boring and repetitive, I find an example of something being given room to breath and linger, and what you find expedient and rich, I may find rushed, overly blunt/excessive, and tasteless. There are more than enough games that are the other way.

That's literally exactly what I've suggested.

 

[Shareefruck]

That's literally exactly what I've suggested.

The examples you gave sounded more like you wanted added context, and to see things happen that were implied but never shown or elaborated on, which I think would be a mistake and is NOT what I was referring to there.

What I'm referring to would be cutscenes that contain no new information but place you in the immediate environment more (flavor and nothing else). Scenes similar to the idle screen cutscene where Agro runs around while Wander sleeps, for example. Breaking up the monotony with mood-building scenes like that could be a good idea, perhaps. I would hate flashbacks of the girl or villagers getting added, though.

Yes.

Unless maybe you're playing it for the first time as a 12 year old, it's very obvious that you aren't supposed to be doing that for the reasons I've already stated. What the exact result of it will be could have gone a couple of ways, but it was very clear it was a bad idea.

I mean, your mileage is going to vary on that, I think. I've seen people not get it until the ending scenes, especially when they know nothing about the game. In any case, I don't agree that repetition is a bad thing or that the plot needs to be constantly moving forward for the experience to be effective, and that still doesn't account for the unhinged desperation of the character coming across, which ideally should be a gradual process that you slowly feel.

Complaints about the gameplay jank, I will agree with, though.