Sulphur on 20/7/2023 at 14:51
Quote Posted by Thirith
I'm currently thinking that
Bramble will be the game I play after
Hollow Knight (which I suspect I'll be done with in a week or so), though Sulphur's write-up has made me look forward to it both more and less. We'll see how that works out. Seeing how I found
Little Nightmares disappointing because of how little it finally does with its imagery and themes, I am curious to see how I'll respond to
Bramble.
I'd caution against you and henke from expecting a lot. One thing I didn't mention (because that post was already getting long in the tooth) is that the way it threads its folk tales into the overarching narrative isn't structurally cohesive, as it's literally visiting and facing off certain figures from the stories because they happen to be
on in the way, and not because of any particularly organic development. This makes its themes fragmentary at best, loosely tied together as an anthology of sequences with 'kid out of his depth' as the common denominator... which I guess is kinda Inside-ish, but not nearly as well-designed.
Thirith on 20/7/2023 at 15:08
No worries, after your post my expectations are fairly low. :cheeky: I don't mind a certain vagueness in these games; Inside *felt* reasonably coherent to me, but it's not like I could explain how things hang together in that one, so what coherence it has is mainly tonal/emotional.
Minion21g on 20/7/2023 at 15:19
I wrapped up Final Fantasy XVI earlier this week. I wasn't overly impressed by it even having played years and years of Final Fantasy XIV and knowing what the developers there were capable of. That said, I did as much as I could wrapped up many of the questlines and stories, completed all the creature hunts, etc. - had to get my money's worth seeing as I bought it at release. I feel like it suffered from tonal inconsistency. The first act of the game is very dark and grim and generally unpleasant to interact with NPCs, then comes the second act of the game and it focuses way more on how good those same characters are and that they need saving. Ehh, it's fine I guess. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has opinions.
Yakoob on 21/7/2023 at 23:08
Started playing Outer Worlds (no not wilds) and some 5hrs in I can see why a lot of people describe it as aggressively average. It kind of fits what I was looking for, but it doesn't particularly excel in any aspect. I just constantly keep having that "hey I played this before..." feeling.
Well, maybe aside from the writing. I actually really kind of like the goofy satire of the world combined with you being the only "sarcastic asshole who sees through the façade" - BUT... it's starting to wear out on me. "LOL Capitalism bad" was fun for the first few hours, but now it's starting to feel like the game is just beating your head over with the same message and not even trying to come up with any other ideas.
Just got to the Groundbreaker, so hoping there are some new themes or plot threads to explore...
Malf on 22/7/2023 at 11:09
I found that The Outer Worlds' overarching message rang a little hollow considering it was published by Microsoft. And tellingly, no real alternative to all-consuming capitalism was offered.
Thirith on 22/7/2023 at 16:03
I finished my replay (third time) of Hollow Knight, and I still love this game. It's a great, beautifully designed if not particularly original Metroidvania, but what makes it stand out for me is its vibe, the melancholy it evokes. It makes me feel like this is a real place with real inhabitants, with a sense of history, a society and a culture, which is amazing for a game that's very much designed like an old-school video game, with video game progression and actions.
I then got started on Bramble, and while the environment and creatures are gorgeous, I dislike the design of the two siblings: they're kitsch and twee and too plasticky to be realistic and too real-seeming to be believably stylised. I'm also no fan of the narration, which doesn't add anything and isn't particularly well written. So far, of the Inside-style games I've played this one has clicked for me the least in its first hour or so.
henke on 22/7/2023 at 20:21
THIRD playthrough? Wow. I liked that game a lot but didn't make it through my first playthrough. Maybe I should give it another go some time.
Thirith on 22/7/2023 at 21:47
It's definitely my favourite Metroidvania, but while I love playing it, I replayed it largely for the vibe. I'm very much someone who replays/rewatches/rereads, so if it didn't keep you engaged to the end the first time round, it's well possible you'd not enjoy finishing it enough when returning to it.
Thirith on 24/7/2023 at 06:45
I finished Bramble in two days, and I agree 100% with what Sulphur wrote earlier in this thread. The game often looks gorgeous (though there are some elements that are clearly less polished, especially the main character, his sister, and a bunch of transition animations), but as a game it's not just mediocre, it's badly designed in key places, and IMO the developers didn't really have a good idea of how to combine the folklore/fairy tale elements and the 'horror as metaphor for real-world horrors' aspects, so they just smooshed them together and hoped they'd stick somehow.
To my mind, this is worst in how the game foregrounds how women were often at the receiving end of society's hysteria and wrath, but then they have several story beats where it's a woman or a female-coded creature doing horrible things, with just the slightest trace of context or subtext. You can make these two sides of the story work, but you need to put in much more work than "She's a monster, but now that she's dead I kinda feel sorry for her, because horrible things happen to women."
And yeah, the ending is a complete cop-out. Again, you can make "it was all a dream" work thematically, but it's difficult to do so, and even then it'll feel like a trite cliché.
It's a shame, because the material was there, and the game generally looks and sounds gorgeous. If only this was a well considered and executed as Inside... but it isn't, and as a result it falls flat overall, even if individual scenes in isolation may be well done.
Anyway, since I want to finally play some of the short games I've got installed (before finally checking out one of the epic RPGs I've never played), I've now started playing Trek to Yomi. First impression: sure looks pretty, but I'm not sure how well it plays... which, after Bramble, feels kinda familiar.
Sulphur on 24/7/2023 at 07:07
Agreed on all counts, and the thematic heft of what you're saying in the spoilered bit didn't register with me, but it's absolutely true in retropsect. It is weird how much it weighs in that direction, and while part of that is the sources they're drawing from, some care could have been taken nonetheless.
And, er, Yomi is... well, let's say it's not a classic either. I will say that if you like Kurosawa (and I know you do), there's a little bit of pleasure to be gained from the aesthetic mimicry, and the choice to go B&W works fairly well for what it's trying to do. But it's not tuned well-enough mechanically, and it gets pretty repetitive early on. If there were ever a time where you could point at something and say 'style over substance', this would be it.
What I don't understand is why anyone would want to ape Kurosawa while telling a non-story* about a samurai swording his way through set pieces and supernatural bits. While there may have been elements of that to his movies, his focus was always on people and what made them tick, while Yomi's focus is very much on moonlight glinting off a katana before it slices through a warm body.
*This might get better as it goes on, though; I haven't finished it yet, and the internet says there is something to its tale.
