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blackjackkent · 2 months

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As with Patch 5, I have compiled my favorite Patch 6 patch notes (the exciting ones and the hilarious ones) so you don't have to.

First of all, the Highlights section has some VERY nice QoL changes:

"You can now dismiss a recruited companion from your party while speaking to the companion you want to replace them with." (Fuck yes, this is such a small annoyance but it really adds up over time.)

"When a dialogue triggers automatically, the game will now try to prioritise your avatar character as the main speaker." (I spent literally like half an hour trying to ensure Hector got the conversational lead when walking into the vault with the Stone Lord for my liveblog post, so this fills my heart with DEEP joy.)

"The Elixir of Hill Giant Strength now applies its effects when thrown." (HUGE deal for Hector's party in my liveblog, as @zenjestrr has pointed out to me - Jaheira can hurl it onto Hector, Karlach, and Minsc together!)

Some general happy-making improvements (some for things in Act 3/epilogue that I haven't gotten to yet but which sound very positive):

"Your partner now has a few different kisses! They're brand new, unique, and randomized."

"If you sit on the stool in Shadowheart's camp corner, she will now react to you with a line based on your relation with her."

"Improved the cinematic scenes in the Elfsong Tavern to feel more intimate when you and your romance partner decide your future together after defeating the Netherbrain."

"Reworked the reflection scenes that take place after wrapping up the defeat of the Netherbrain for characters without romantic partners to better match the scenes for those who do have romantic partners, and to bridge the gap into the epilogue."

"Added a new cinematic scene to support the combat encounter that occurs after you choose whether to side with Nightsong at Sorcerous Sundries or not."

"If you romanced Lae'zel, grab a red dragon and saddle up - you can now join her in the rebellion against Vlaakith, even if you are not gith yourself."

"Increased the number of valid methods of knocking Minthara out to recruit her."

"Tooltips for spells requiring concentration now more prominently display a warning if you are already using concentration to maintain another spell."

And now the bits that just made me laugh. XD

"If you Long Rest with only alcohol as camp supplies, you will now get the new Hungover condition for 10 turns."

"The Long Rest camp supply menu is now better at pulling supplies from inside containers in companion inventories. Stop hoarding the cheese, Wyll."

"The owlbear cub will no longer gobble up Auntie Ethel's Hair before you can take advantage of the bonus it grants." (???)

"Creating harmful surfaces beneath NPCs will now trigger a crime reaction."

"Scratch can no longer equip certain weapons. Like the Everburn Blade."

"Jaheira could be in bad shape by the time she arrived at Moonrise Towers since she already had to fight. Now she's smart enough to heal up before she goes there, which we're hoping lets her last at least an additional second in combat."

"Fixed dice roll sounds playing if you have the 'Hide Failed Perception Rolls' setting enabled while exploring. We asked the narrator to quieten down when rolling the dice for your immersion."

"Fixed a bug causing player characters to get deleted from the game after stealing the Blood of Lathander."

"Enemies are now less likely to summon a Skeletal Involucre in range of a Spirit Guardian that will immediately destroy it."

"Nere's Legendary Action now correctly triggers when he is attacked, rather than when he attacks. Cut him some slack - being a True Soul is a lot of pressure; we'd all get confused in his shoes."

"Told Fezzerk to stop throwing his bombs on himself and his allies."

"The Apostle of Myrkul's Finger of Death spell is now treated as a Level 7 spell instead of a cantrip."

"Fixed Steel Watchers sometimes hurting themselves with their own attacks."

"Invisible characters who have something to say in a dialogue will now remember to actually show themselves."

" Throwing NPCs into a chasm will no longer trigger their crime reaction dialogue while they're mid-flight."

"Jaheira could have access to two types of Wild Shape in certain circumstances. We've toned down her blatant disregard for D&D rules."

"Fixed NPC heads occasionally detaching in Forced Turn-Based Mode."

"You can no longer place a corpse into its own inventory."

"Items can only be sent to specific companions in camp if a party member is in camp at the time. Stop sending every +1 dagger to Gale, he's not that hungry."

"NPCs should be a lot less eager to engulf themselves (or their allies) in flames now."

"Fixed NPCs using an incorrect throw range when they can't move. This sometimes caused them to, say, throw explosives on their own heads."

"Fixed NPCs sometimes successfully landing jumps that shouldn't be possible. Like through ceilings."

"You can no longer trade with sleeping characters."

"Fixed overhead dialogues still playing above the souls of dead characters - represented as blue wisps - in the epilogue camp. Lae'zel will no longer urgently proclaim 'Repositioning!' when you make her little wisp move around."

"Killing Omeluum or Blurg of the Society of Brilliance will now break your paladin oath. Because they're nice and you're not."

"Picking up fish from the beach at the Emerald Grove is no longer a crime. They take their vegetarianism very seriously, those druids."

"You can now no longer spawn infinite fish at the Emerald Grove beach. No wonder that bear smells."

"Told Art Cullagh to please stop singing during the combat when Isobel's being abducted."

"You can no longer trade with Voss when he ambushes you at the base of High Hall."

"If you escape prison and then return to your cell and close the door without being noticed by anyone allied to the arresting guards, you will no longer be considered a fugitive."

"Fixed a bug where a status could carry over from the final battle to the beginning of the epilogue, potentially killing the players."

"You can now clean your body and clothes in a fountain in the House of Hope's boudoir. Sometimes it's nice to freshen up before a big event."

"Fixed Scratch not feeling like playing in camp beyond Act I after partying too hard at the camp celebration."

"Minthara no longer speaks more about Shadowheart than Shadowheart does about herself."

"You'll no longer see text telling you that Gale approves of something if he's not even nearby to see what happened."

"Jaheira's memory in her old age was failing her, and she could tell you about Minsc twice if you left her in camp but advanced her quest multiple steps. Now she's much better at remembering what she told you, and will only prompt it the once."

"Good boys Scratch and the owlbear cub will now play together in any camp, not just the main one in the wilderness from Act I."

"Cerys will now leave your camp after the camp celebration in Act I. We know it's sometimes hard to ask the last person to leave the party, so we've done it for you."

"Fixed Rugan being upset with you for trespassing after saving him from impending doom. You're welcome, Rugan."

"Florrick now looks appropriately grimy and sweaty after escaping Waukeen's Rest."

"Lae'zel will no longer become hostile towards you, thinking you left the inquisitor's office in Crèche Y'llek while waiting to fulfil Vlaakith's orders, when you only jumped on one of the platforms in the corner."

"Fixed Smythin in the Goblin Camp sometimes getting stuck in a cowering animation. He's a little braver now."

"Rugan is no longer 'too busy' to thank you after you free him in the Zhentarim Hideout."

"One of the teenagers in the Crèche Y'llek will now tend to his cleaning tasks. He may or may not have been chastised for shirking his duties."

"Fixed a bug with Bernard in the Arcane Tower not giving you a reward if you previously befriended the squirrel in the Emerald Grove."

"Fixed a couple of goblins in the Goblin Camp not really doing much at all if you free Sazza."

"Rotated Barth and Remira near the Emerald Grove gate so they would shout in the right direction."

"The nurses in the House of Healing have remembered that they are capable of speech and will now react to crimes properly."

"Dame Aylin now permits all players to behold her radiance in the cutscene when ascending from the Shadowfell rather than just the one who freed her."

"Isobel and Marcus will no longer stop their epic confrontation at Last Light just because someone commits a petty crime nearby."

"In rare cases, Jaheira could be Frightened in the combat with Ketheric and end up so scared she doesn't show up to resolve the conflict in the Shadow-Cursed Lands. She now overcomes her terror."

"Bards can no longer say they saved Jaheira's Harper scouts when they did no such thing."

"Fixed some guards by the fountain at Last Light who were trying to speak each other's lines."

"Now you can convince Ch'r'ai Har'rak to go away in different ways."

"Mayrina will no longer still be Bloodless in Act III if Astarion bit her in Act I."

"Wyll no longer leaves the party when you commit a crime in the High Hall. With the city in ruin, the petty crime dramatics seemed a little extreme."

"A few more people around Baldur's Gate will notice if an article has been printed about you in the newspaper."

"Lumbar will no longer react as if you didn't pay for the privilege of hitting him if the single strike had different damage types." (Ah this explains why Hector got that weird reaction. XD)

"Vicar Humbletoes will no longer do a weird shrug before praying."

"Prevented Karlach's death scene from triggering if a solo player chooses to detonate while playing as Avatar Gale."

"Fixed Lae'zel talking inaccurately about Ptaris, for example suggesting he's dead when he's... literally right there."

"Auntie Ethel will no longer send you a letter written by Zevlor in the epilogue."

"If you part ways with Shadowheart and hide in the Underdark as a mind flayer, she won't forget and think you've spent the last sixth months together in the epilogue. Classic Shadowheart, always forgetting things."

"The Emperor will no longer send you a cheerful letter in the epilogue camp if you ate his brains."

"You can no longer invite the owlbear cub to live with you and Halsin in the epilogue if you do not, in fact, live with Halsin."

"Fixed avatar characters incorrectly getting assigned the Dream Guardian's skin colour in Character Creation on controller."

"The fish barrels in the Underdark, that clearly look like they have fish in them, now actually contain fish instead of tarts."

"You can no longer casually go walkies in the middle of a chasm in the Decrepit Village in the Underdark."

"Removed a platform in Grymforge that looked like it was accessible and was tricking a few of you into trying to jump on it to access the Gauntlet of Shar."

"You can no longer disappear into a couple of rocks near the mephits in Grymforge. Sorry."

"Added a new animation for Cranium Rats. They can now stand up on their hind leggies."

"Corpses thrown from your inventory now look dead rather than alive. As is right."

"Fixed missing sounds in Active Search. (We found them hidden under some rocks in Act I.)"

"Fixed a basket of onions claiming to be a fruit basket, and other issues with lying baskets."

"Gave the dogs at the Sword Coast Couriers names. Because they're the best boys."

"Lae'zel no longer slides or teleports away during her Epilogue dialogue."

"Made general improvements to Boo's animations. The hamster is a little less jittery."

"Fixed the goblet flying out of your hand when talking to Jaheira at Last Light. We knew you were suspicious of it, but you don't have to be so dramatic."

This is a tiny fraction of the full set of changes/improvements/fixes listed in the patch notes and once again I am tremendously impressed. As I said last time - this game has a breadth of scope and ambition that repeatedly takes my breath away and I am mindboggled at the amount of work being put into it.

Very excited to finish out Act 3 in the coming weeks!

#bjk talks #patch notes #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #patch 6 #larian studios

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triviallytrue · 5 months

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Honour Mode Act 1 Complete

Overall thoughts: I enjoy playing without savescumming being an option. It speeds up the game and forces me to be more thoughtful. Aside from that, the changes feel pretty minimal - there are only 7 bossfights in act 1, of which I only did 6, so the net impact of the changes on my run thus far has been small.

Analysis of the bossfights + balance thoughts below the cut.

Owlbear (Fought at level 3): First bossfight I took. Didn't realize it was going to be a bossfight, went into it expecting an easy ride like on tactician. Definitely the most-changed of any of the fights, over twice as hard. Had to rely on the NPC assists and Command to get me through. Probably the closest call I've had thus far, though it wasn't that close. One of two fights where a character was downed.

After the Owlbear, I started looking up which fights were bossfights/what their changes were and planning in advance.

Phase Spider Matriach (Level 4): I suspect this fight is legitimately very dangerous at level 3, but at level 4 it's not bad. The main change is that it's uncheeseable now. There's also a new reaction, but it only got fired at me once, and it missed. Killed the ads, had my cleric spam command and my bard Tasha's to lock it down, and then beat it to death with my monk. Barely took damage.

Auntie Ethel (Level 5): Again, would've been hard at 4 but not bad at 5. Still took a fair amount of damage, but didn't come all that close to dropping. Her special reaction is designed to counter the best way of taking out her clones (mass magic missile) but it's hard-countered by monks - with 3 ki points you can force her to make 3 saves (2 against stunning, 1 against stagger) and if she fails any of them she can't use her reaction. With her reaction gone and her clones dealt with, 145 HP is not very much for a boss to have against a level 5 party.

Bernard (DNF): As far as I can tell, the risk-reward on this fight is very bad. It's easily bypassable with Sussur blooms if you want the XP, but I just used the books to get the items with dialogue.

Inquisitor W'wargaz (Level 6): You know how 145 HP is not a lot of health against a level 5 party? It's really not a lot of health against a level 6 party. Never even saw this guy's honour mode changes because he was dead before he ever got a turn. Give him a crazy high initiative or some kind of better AC/resistances for him to be a threat.

True Soul Nere (Level 6): My pick for the most improved fight of Act 1. Nere's changes make him basically impossible to burst down, and if you had to fight him alongside all the Duergar it would be a legitimately nasty fight. Unfortunately for Nere and fans of game difficulty, it's easy to get more than half the Duergar to turn against him. The resulting fight is not trivial, but I never felt like I was in serious risk of things spiraling out of control.

Grym (Level 7): There's an argument to be made here that this is the hardest fight in act 1, but I took it a little too seriously and ended up beating it without taking any damage. So it goes. His new honour mode ability is cool but Silence makes you immune to thunder damage which takes away its sting, my sorcerer's Twinned Haste on my monk and cleric meant I had very good damage output and was also able to cast Command on him twice per turn if necessary, so I kept him stunlocked and beat him to death pretty quickly. My bard contributed nothing to this fight.

Overall balance thoughts: You may have noticed a few themes here - in 3 of the 6 fights I took, Command was used to stunlock the boss. Command would be extremely good as a level 2 spell and still often worth using as a level 3 spell. As a level 1 spell, it makes clerics a must-have for any party and easily slots them in as the second best class in the game.

But still not quite the best class in the game, which is monk. Tavern Brawler Open Hand Monk, to be specific. At level 3, Open Hand monks get the ability to suppress reactions if enemies fail a save. At level 4, they get Tavern Brawer, which with strength elixirs means you have a +12 to hit with 1d6+10 damage on 3 attacks per turn. At level 5 they get extra attack and also the ability to stun if enemies fail a save. At level 6 they get another huge boost to damage. They have a great set of gear with no real overlaps with other classes that drives these numbers up even farther.

This combination of traits - high accuracy, high damage, lots of attacks per turn, ability to stun and suppress reactions at will, all bundled together in a nice, smooth earlygame progression package, is ridiculously good. Definitely the standout character of the run thus far.

Command should be nerfed or removed, Tavern Brawler should be nerfed or removed, early game strength elixirs should be nerfed or removed. Til then, I'm playing the cards I'm dealt.

#long #bg3

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johnandrasjaqobis · 1 year

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okay time to actually make a proper post about this, hey u Neverafter fans, the season is over and was glorious and now. perhaps. you find yourself wanting more dungeons and dragons that delves into horror.

because come on, the death, the briars, the corruption, the chance for death at every turn, it's dope

may I then draw your attention to the Fool and Scholar podcast, d&d actual play, Dark Dice

Six travelers set out searching for a town's missing children. Their journey leads them into the ruinous domain of the Nameless God. Even if they do manage to return, they will never be the same.

like. holy shit my guys, Dark Dice is so good. Fool and Scholar has won a frankly insane number of podcast awards (including a fully Webby) for their shows, for everything from writing to music to sound design, and all of it shines in this podcast. Originally played as an ice breaker before the cast of another of their shows (The White Vault) met for a live performance, Dark Dice has taken on a life of its own and it is a masterpiece.

Travis, the DM/sound designer, edits the actual table recordings extensively to cut down on the slow moments (especially in combat) of doing math or rule clarifying for the new players, but leaves in the little bits of ridiculous table talk that can't be avoided even in a horror campaign. All npcs are fully voiced by other actors, longer bits of dialogue are sometimes rerecorded for better clarity, but the whole story is just as the game was played and it makes the show straddle the line between actual play and just a full on audio drama.

And as I said. good lord, this is a horror campaign.

There is not, I will note, nearly quite the levity that D20 brings, though imo that does make the jokes and ongoing bits all the funnier. The stakes are high -- higher than the characters have any concept of at the start -- and death is a very real threat at all times. Travis made his own critical hit chart to roll on that can have devastating consequences (because you might get an even better hit than you expected on an enemy with a roll, but they can also just as easily crit against you), there's a stress mechanic similar to Call of Chtulhu's that can steadily make the DM an unreliable narrator, have a character questioning what they're really seeing, even turning on the party, etc etc

anyway. Dark Dice is incredible. content warnings are included (and should be minded) at the end of every episode description wherever you happen to find the podcast. They have free transcripts for every episode on their Patreon. Jeff Goldblum (yes that Jeff Goldblum) plays with them in season 2 because Travis decided on a whim to write a nice email and then people just kept not telling him no.

Get your next horror dnd fix. Meet the absolute asshole that is The Silent One. Give Dark Dice a shot.

(and if you are perhaps into the idea of running this game yourself well, Domain of the Nameless God is currently under a revamp but should be available again soon, I have run it two times now -- two and a half if you include the speedrun that was absolute chaos -- and it is a deep and heartbreaking and immersive story to subject your table to)

#part of me wants to go more into some of the horror stuff but like......it's So Much going in blind #and i think it's worth it to just know it's Horror and see where Travis goes with that #neverafter #dimension 20 #dark dice #(pls message me if you want me to ramble about this more in detail i love this show so much)

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finluz · 1 year

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TOTK Rant: How Much Better Than BOTW?

//major totk spoilers ahead

The Good

Ultrahand is amazing, it's a simple idea with few limitations leading to a lot of complexity and flexibility

Ascend is fucking awesome. im not even gonna like, critically analyze this one. i wish i could jump through ceilings in real life

Being able to throw items is extremely useful, meaning you don't have to waste arrows to get certain effects

Zonai devices are all amazing, same principle of Ultrahand where they all have simple uses with few limitations, meaning that you can create really complex machines very easily

The Music™ 🎷🐛

Rauru's sopping wet man vagina

There's a shit-ton of new enemies, including like-likes, gleeoks, evil rigby mfs that crawl on the ceiling, floormasters, phantom ganon, the assorted zonai creatures, froxes, baby froxes, yigas with driver's licenses, battle tali, damn those trees are WALKIN

Depths exploration is fucking amazing

Depths atmosphere

Sky Islands when they have anything on them

Air travel

60 new side adventures, which are waaay fuller in good content than the side quests or even the main quests lmao

build your own house

the boss fights

the final boss fight

shrine puzzles with Ultrahand

Proving Grounds shrines

Master Kohga

the guy that walks around continually failing to demonstrate any degree of professional signage

the side dialogue is really funny and well-written

the isolated vibe of botw has been traded in for a feeling of togetherness as a kingdom

large-scale battles with tons of monsters and friendly npcs

muddle buds

zonai architecture

did i mention the ost yet

skyview towers > the ubisoft towers

link has his hair down

tauro

purah

short-hair zelda

rauru

ganondorf

mineru

been spending most our lives living in a bisexual's paradise

the lightning temple

the construct factory

the quest to obtain the master sword

dragonhead island

the dragonhead island music

fusing items to arrows and shields

the yiga clan expansion

do the earthwaker link come on quake that shit

the all-clucking cucoo

froggy armor

the lucky clover gazette

all of the new outfits

the dragon-themed outfits

horns on enemies

link let his hair down

the plethora of armor effects that are now also cooking effects, like slip resistance, swim speed, weather-based attack, and more

railgrinding

princess monoke themes doubled down on

gloom

robot arm

I think a common theme in this list is that rather than being different from Breath of the Wild, there is just more of Breath of the Wild.

"No shit, it's a sequel."

Yeah I get that, but this is the first time a Zelda sequel specifically has failed to really distinguish itself from the game before it.

Tears of the Kingdom has everything that Breath of the Wild had, including its flaws. The fact that it's just "more of it" and "better" kind of makes the previous game completely obsolete, which is a first in the series.

Majora's Mask, Link Between Worlds, Adventure of Link, the Oracle Games and Link's Awakening are all direct sequels of previous games, and yet their identity is so distinct that they become standalone entries in the series.

Majora's Mask is not Ocarina of Time 2.

Tears of the Kingdom is 100% Breath of the Wild 2.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and considering the series has been almost rebooted entirely I'm not even opposed to the direct serialization of these games,

but if they are going to go this route,

and there's going to be 6 and a half years between the two games,

You need to do better than the last game.

And so we arrive at,

The Bad.

With the exception of the aforementioned Lightning Temple and Construct Factory, the dungeons, and subsequently main areas and story in this game blow ass.

The Dungeons in this game are just Divine Beasts but with somehow even less creativity. Say what you want about the lack of interconnectedness between and the quality of the puzzles, but they provided a feeling of controlling and manipulating a huge, moving being that sets the game apart.

In comparison, TOTK's dungeons are completely devoid of any original ideas, instead opting to be divine beasts without the movement gimmicks, meaning that they're just "go hit the four or fie switches in any order"

Breath of the Wild traded in the unique and distinct atmospheres of the franchises temples to capture a different feeling that sets it apart. Tears of the Kingdom tries to return to the old temples, but without committing all the way and missing the mark completely.

The Water Temple in particular stands out as completely fucking lazy to me, since it is literally just a bunch of blue platforms in the sky with 4 un-themed and not even water-related puzzles and a boss that is treated as a joke. There's almost no buildup in Zora's domain as well, as you just do a couple of short tasks to unlock the path up and then beat the dungeon in 30 minutes.

It's the worst kind of Zelda dungeon, with generic elemental themes but none of the art to tie those into actually unique places. And considering that there's no dungeon items, no double-backing, or any sort of semblance of an idea of you completing an actual dungeon and not just four shrines in a meat grinder, I would say it's ultimately WORSE than the divine beasts from Breath of the Wild.

The rewards for dungeons

In every dungeon, you get an NPC follower that fights with you and has an ability that you press A on to use. These are used pretty well in their respective areas. When you beat the dungeon, your reward is a blue clone of them that does less damage.

I get what they were trying to do, I really do, and on paper, it's a really great concept.

It's the champions from the last game, except they are actually there and fight alongside you, using that togetherness theming i mentioned earlier.

However, having them out is pretty much a straight downgrade since they are annoyances 24/7.

Their abilties range from mildly useful in some contexts at best to "i would only press a on you by accident."

and trust me. you are going to accidentally press a on them a LOT.

Somehow, they manage to both be in your way when you want to do literally anything else and also never there in the rare circumstance that you actually want to use your ability.

Their AI is complete dogshit, and they rarely swing at enemies, and when they do, the damage is pitiful. Tulin flies through the air, and is mostly behind you when you need him, but everyone else paths along the ground and will often get stuck on rocks, river edges, or random patches of grass sometimes because they lack any intelligence whatsoever.

It's such an easy fix too, just have a "sacred stone" rune in the radial menu where the useless map one is and let me manually select which ability I want. Bam. No more blowing big hearty truffles off cliffs or setting them on fire when im just trying to pick them up.

Fuse does not affect the durability of weapons.

Rather than opting to have the interesting choice of being able to repair your weapons at the risk of losing a rare quality of them, rehabilitating them using items from your inventory,

Nintendo instead opted to have the durability not change at all when you fuse something.

Also, every weapon in hyrule has "decayed," which, as well as being extremely contrived, means that fusing is required for weapons to be viable.

So not only does this not improve the weapon system from Breath of the Wild, it actually makes it more tedious, since now you have to collect not just a weapon, but two parts of a weapon and then fuse them into a weapon.

It's taken every weapon in hyrule, broken them in half, and made you go find the pieces.

This also means that fusing funny stuff like minecarts or logs like they suggested in the trailer isn't viable, since it will only add a few damage points and waste a weapon slot.

In Conclusion

Yes, Tears of the Kingdom is the better game. It not only has more content, but the content is also just better, more experimental, and memorable.

And don't let my huge rant about The Bads misconstrue my thoughts on this game.

This is easily a 9/10, and probably my favorite game of all time.

But it certainly isn't a 10/10.

Breath of the Wild's flaws set it apart, it was easy to forgive them because they played into its unique experience.

Six years later, with an almost identically structured game, it's not as easy to set those aside.

Anyways, this has been World's Biggest Zelda Fan Finluz, and I want to raw link

#born2rig #zelda #legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #loz totk #tloz totk #totk spoilers #zelda tears of the kingdom #zelda totk #botw 2 #totk

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underspacegame · 10 months

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Patch 2.25 for Underspace's official demo is now out! Demo 2.25 is mostly a series of bugfixes, but there's a fair amount of new features and new content here. Check out the full changelog below, and as always be wary of known issues.

KNOWN ISSUES

Interior detailing and colliders to prevent falls on a majority of stations are not in.

Voice acting is currently unimplemented, unbalanced, or placeholder for several quests and dialogue lines.

Joystick and controller support vestigial and more or less not implemented and having a controller plugged in can introduce weirdness.

Cockpit textures are unimplemented.

Several large filesizes are currently uncompressed and unoptimized.

Trading in ships may have a UI mismatch between ammunition counts on a ship and the actual ammunition.

NEW CONTENT & FEATURES

The abyssdrive. At top speed in highengines you can charge an even more powerful, even faster version of it. Be wary, it can’t be used too close to gravitational bodies,

Planet Vauldric now has a trading center. No more buying chorm off the streets from a shady figure, now you can do it out in the open like a proper member of society.

NPC loadout randomization. You’ll find NPCs have a habit of using different attacks, including missiles, mines, better thrusters, more guns, etc.

Automatic targeting! Killing an enemy in battle will automatically switch you to your next closest target.

Distant horrible objects in storms are now animated.

Jump holes now distort the camera when near them.

The in-game manual is now implemented, along with full videos for all topics!

Musical stings for leveling up, completing campaigns, defeating bosses, defeating storms, and more.

You can now access the storage menu from the cargo trader’s menu, on stations.

CHANGES & BUGFIXES

Fixed black screens and softlocks related to taking on new missions.

Fixed issue where starting a new game aftering having quit to the main menu could cause a crash.

Rebalances of countermeasures, mines, and autoturrets.

Autoturrets can now take down incoming projectiles.

Heavy equipment now displays in full its stats, damage, etc.

In-game graphics options, such as FXAA, resolution, run in background, and more, all work properly.

Fixed issue where certain effects weren’t getting colored by the customization system.

Minimine is now an animated pet.

Resized several equipment pieces on your ship to better fit it.

Fixed issues with NPC avoidance and infinite idling.

Fixed several issues with player autopilot avoidance.

Fixed issues with shadow rendering in various places.

Fixed issues where certain weapons platforms couldn’t die.

There is now a slight autolock when emerging from a laneline. It can be overridden, if you so choose.

Fixed issues where some equipment didn’t report every stat it had.

Fixed price mismatch issues between the trading UI and the money readout UI.

Fixed issue where you could buy too many or too few hull webbing units, shield caches, and ammunition.

Ship headlights now illuminate a much wider area.

Leaving a conversation early will now piss off any ship if it’s a demanding conversation.

Added options for eye adaption and disabling different kinds of spacedust.

Fixed several saving and UI issues relating to destroying storms.

Fixed issues where several player stats, including garage size, weren’t saving.

#underspace #video games #unity3d #indie games #space games #space #space game #game development #gamedev #game design

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crazysodomite · 7 months

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my thoughts on fallout 2: fo1 was definitely better

ultimately it was. okay. it wasn't so bad i wanted to quit but there wasn't really anything gripping or memorable.

the beginning of it was ASS. it all went downhill after the starting cutscene which i liked.

i genuinely wish the whole tribal aspect wasn't there entirely because it makes me so uncomfortable and it feels out of place. i enjoyed myself way more when i pretended it didn't exist at all and that's pretty bad considering it's the main quest.

the whole 'chosen one' thing wasn't enjoyable to me at all. i liked that in the first game it was more down to earth and realistic. you weren't the most awesome or strongest or chosen, you were probably just the only one who agreed to go out or just looked like you could survive outside...

the geck thing is goofy. sorry. I didn't like it. Whats with this game and geckos? The gecko enemies also felt cartoony and out of place to me…

i would say the game feels scattered and confusing. a lot of the areas felt forgettable. its hard for me to even structure what i think because i don't know where to start.

arroyo: im glad i never had to go there after the start of the game. BORING AND BAD! ugly location with boring quests and unlikeable npcs.

klamath: boring. i barely remember anything about it and couldn't name any npc from there if you put a gun to my head. i severely dislike sulik. so so so so so uncomfortable. though i liked that toxic caves had a secret not accessible at the start!

mordoc: it was okay. once again the npcs are forgettable but i do remember when i saw the fake corpses and was shocked. i liked that a lot.

im writing this from memory so if i forget a location it was just so bad that i completely forgot…

vault city and gecko: i actually liked the quests here and it's where things picked up a bit. i liked lenny and his interaction with marcus later on. i liked harold too but there's not much to do with him.

uhhh…. the den i think?: i already forgot all about it. boring…

broken hills: i liked this location and the quest. marcus is one of my favorite npcs and i enjoyed having him as a follower. i wish there was more though…

redding: pretty boring and i really, really dislike the alien enemies. there was potential in the whole miner rivalry but in the end it was just. give it to one or the other person.

new reno: i didn't like it and pretty much didn't do any quests there but that's my personal opinion i guess. it was mostly because there was just too much going on and too many people and i dont want tofuck or do drugs so im leaving… i liked when they stole my car and i talked the guy into giving me upgrades and free batteries though!

NCR: it was fine. i didn't spend much time there except the bazaar to buy weapons. i enjoyed the fact tandi was there! i also liked talking down the guy with the bomb.

it was annoying having to leave my companions or tell them all to holster their weapons so that's why i rarely went inside. it definitely has potential

vault 15: i liked it!

vault 13: i really liked it, and i wish there was more to do there… the concept is pretty awesome

military base: i really really enjoyed this location. it was so fun to explore and get all the holodiscs. it was exciting.

san francisco: hands down the ugliest location in the game in my opinion. it had such great potential that i feel was wasted. it felt extremely out of place and like it didn't belong in the game. i WISH it was better because the concept of the location was great with the big ship and all. the girl i saved from the alien also got me stuck in a corner and i had to load a save. i couldn't name any npc from there if you put a gun to my head. though i liked seeing the big shuttle outside.

navarro: i liked it. getting there was fun and the side quests were okay. i hated that there were only 2 ways to get to the fob without fighting, and both of them were really stupid in my opinion.

i love the enclave soldiers talking heads. they look like adorable little critters to me.

the enclave: it was okay. i hated the electric floor puzzle. i hated how many npcs were there and i could only talk to like. 3 of them. it felt unrewarding when i talked a scientist into killing everybody with toxins and it looked weird when everybody except the important npcs died. the dialogue with the scientist was written really weirdly. the president is just boring and pointless? vice president even more boring and more pointless. the president is basically just there for you to kill him and get the card, and there's no way to talk him into giving it to you or stealing it or doing it any other way. you can only kill him which is annoying.

the end boss is just. okay… i don't remember him being foreshadowed or mentioned prior. you can't talk to him. killing him is surprisingly easy if you get the key card and talk the other guys into helping you. hes boring and forgettable as a final baddie especially compared to the master. i already forgot what his name was. to be entirely honest. he also looks like a cute little thing to me

i loved the cutscene of the ship taking off though. it was really good.

NPCs: idk if it's just me. This game is SEVERELY lacking in talking heads. There's WAY way more npcs but they're just completely forgettable and boring. There's a lot more 'flavor' npcs which is annoying because i can't always see who i can actually talk with. its really annoying to click through a whole room just to realize no one has anything useful to say. i know unique npcs usually have a unique description but hovering over each npc in a HUGE map is frustrating.

the speech options rarely made me felt like i accomplished something by choosing the right options and usually felt like "oh. i passed a check. how boring.."

in fo1 almost all locations had a talking head who was a pretty developed character with a lot to say and ask. here i can pretty much count them on my fingers which was disappointing… i can remember most important npcs in fo1 which is not the case in fo2

maps: maps are bigger and usually uglier to be completely honest. a lot of useless houses and useless npcs. a lot of maps also don't even label shops and look very similar so i have to run around aimlessly until i stumble on the one building i need. i would have preferred smaller maps with more condensed content. some maps felt cool and enjoyable and some were so bad i was kind of shocked.

in general. it was Okay. i wasn't ripping my hair out from how bad it was but there's really not much i want to replay the game for. there definitely were some fun moments but not A Lot. my favorite locations were probably the military base, vault 13 and vault 15.

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katyspersonal · 1 year

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Looked at some models myself

Hey guyes! Remember how I complained about wanting to become an old lady? Well, I have good news for you (and myself)....

LOOOOOOOOK!!!!!!

Okay this IS pretty cool! I was able to borrow that one save-editing program thanks to a friend (and the fact that code can be reused two times) so I was looking through some models, I wanna see more and figure some other stuff too, but... jees, seeing this for myself on the BIG screen is so much better than taking low-res pause captures from low-res youtube videos fsjdfh

This set comes in one piece, as only chest piece, but covers everything including head, and attempt to wear actual head/legs/arms pieces causes clipping.

I also found out that Adella’s dagger IS a weapon that can be equipped, sort of! I found out by looking at the page with Hex IDs for weapons, and it was right up there ( x ). So yes, I tried this one too.

Turned out that it does have strong attack animation AND charge attack programmed, however, they do not deal any damage. I’ve tried several times, and nope. Adella, apparently, only uses the L1 attack with it, that is rather slow and repeats her slowly staggering to stab us - you can see the damage it is dealing is rather low, actually. So, yeah, unfortunately, not effective weapon at all... It swings way faster if you use L1 after R1, but, again, doesn’t deal damage to any enemy!

Also it IS bigger than I thought it was o:

There are also these REALLY strange looking untextured black arm pieces for some reason. Don’t even know what to use them with, because they clip through other clothes. Was also really upset to find out that I could NOT, in fact, wear Mico’s cut content handcuffs or Garden of Eyes’ head.

Again, this is just soooooo much better up close and seen by myself!

Her clothes pieces also have actual icons, and even reasonable defence stats, which is so neat? Don’t know what else it is supposed to mean other than these were intended to be possible to loot and wear, but... yeah

I was editing a save file using IDs found by that cool person Sanadsk / Omega Fantasy, ones for armors are specifically revealed in this document ( x ), but there are also IDs for stuff like weapons and items ( x ). Interestingly, there are still no Hex IDs for weapons from DLC anywhere I could find... But I think that’s even to the better, because everyone must experience getting Rakuyo by themselves jhfdshjfdshfd I think I will just gather them on my own later, by keeping track of placing a weapon with known ID, recording where it is in the save file, and then equipping a DLC one on its place and writing down the number. It is really easy, just need to play until that point now because my progress was lost due to having to switch account on one possible for online :s ....but when I finish with that, I will NOT share Rakuyo’s ID with the public, because everyone should fight Shark Giants, ahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!

By the way, a myth got debunked!

I thought Annalise had a low-res ring on her hand, but turned out that it was just a clipping issue in her fingers, that applies to both hands! D: Yeah, there is a chest piece that, rather than just giving her dress, changes entire player’s model to Annalise! With ridiculously blueishly pale skin, long demelanized hair and... no face, apparently...

So yeah, I want to find out more stuff, such as how to replace one NPC with another to take a closer look and freeze enemies/bosses in non-hostile positions, I have some ideas on how that could possibly be pulled off! This thing is also convenient if you really need to look at something but you messed a questline (like how I had to start a new game to see Henryk’s armour because I accidentally aggroed Eileen early т.��). And of course I am going to save-edit dungeons! I can’t explain it well, it just... being able to see and capture things by myself feels so much better than relying on videos and screenshots found online?

However, one thing annoyed me! Like, I don’t know if the version of Save Wizard get to use is somehow ‘wrong’, or things are JUST like this, but there was one irritating thing that only occured to me a bit late?

Basically, imagine that you want to look at Adella’s dagger close, so what you want to do, is, obviously, to replace a Hex ID for weapon you already have in your equipment with Hex ID for it! For example, unleveled Hunter’s Axe! We can see ( x ) that Hex ID for Hunter’s Axe is 004C4B40 ! So what do you wanna do when you see 100500 lines of shit like this?

Naturally, just hit search for 004C4B40! But for some reason, the search instead glows blue at 40 4B 4C 00 instead! And yeah, you probably figured by now what is wrong here, but I didn’t get it at first? I kept searching and trying to find what was wrong, and then gave up and replaced 404B4C00 with the normal ID for Adella’s dagger - 000DBBA0 . And... I got jackshit. Just empty item.

But then I did realise that the weird numbers and letters search gives me do, in fact, make sense...... This ABSOLUTE MOTHERFUCKER, for some reason, wrote Hex IDs in inverted order! And not as in, ‘write the same line backwards’, no! Instead, the ID consists out of 8 symbols but they are paired, so you have to write PAIRS in reverse order, but not reverse the order of the letters themselves! So the correct way to insert Adella’s dagger would be to write 00 0D BB A0 as A0 BB 0D 00!

BUT HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT?????? AAAAAAA!!!!!!

Again, I don’t know, maybe it is on me, I just thought it was painfully obvious how to use this program and I didn’t expect something to be odd, especially with Hex IDs already known to the public - why not write them in ‘correct’ order then? But yeah, the riddle was solved, and I get how it works a bit better now. This is really satisfying that I can DROWN in references now, but I’ll need to take my time with this thing, because with some stuff I still dunno what to do. For example, I saw people edit where Doll is by replacing her ID with ID of like... some cut content model such as King or Beltran, to take a closer look, but for that I do need ID for the Doll first. :thinking_emoji:

I will find out I guess, this thing is simpler when you get around intuitively knowing where is what code.

#bloodborne #bloodborne observation #bloodborne references #save wizard #honestly this program is just neurodivergence need because apparently i can only REALLY get how a model looks only when-#-i am able to look at it myself on my own terms and take my own screenshots #i don't know why my brain doesn't grasp info otherwise haha #at least i didn't have to pay for it.....#(no developer got pirated don't worry i just borrowed it for unlimited time because UK friend doesn't need it)#very upset that adella's dagger is so uneffective #but yes i will fucking love hacking dungeons to have as many levels as i wan #it is time to never see the light of day again ahahahahahha #i fucking LOVE dungeons!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#/gen #but yes really want to write down hex ids for dlc weapons #(and then not share with everyone because dlc suffering is mandatory x) )#i wanted to stab everyone with dagger....#i also skipped through closer look at eileen's torn clothes #and alfred being all bloodied

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kokomiin · 1 year

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First impressions on totk?

im still super super super super early like barely left tutorial island, and i want to go back there later, but it is so overwhelming with how much there is in this game already, the potential for everything i haven't seen... the story already has me super involved, in general it feels very grown up from botw if that makes sense, tons of quality of life improvements, the npcs being their own characters which was already a thing in botw but somehow it feels even better here i met so many interesting people just in the first settlement, new enemy types that i never would have thought of, the way they managed to make the intro of the game just as if not more bewildering than botw by putting you in a place so different than hyrule... its all SO COOOOL

#dess #totk spoilers #tears of the kingdom spoilers #i really SUCK at describing my thoughts about games i think

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dnallohleoj · 9 months

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I still see bizarre critiques of Scarlet/Violet that betray a lack of understanding about the nature of gamedev so I wanna set a few things straight.

Now because this is the internet, I'm gonna get this out of the way. This is not a defense of GameFreak. They scaled too big considering they had a locked-in deadline beyond their control and a development pipeline that spreads decision-making way too thin between 3-4 separate entities. And this is certainly not a defense of The Pokemon Company International as a whole. They'd happily stop publishing games entirely if they thought they could sell plushies and figurines of brand-new Pokemon without them, and I frankly won't be shocked if they eventually try that.

Now first and foremost, as I'm sure many of you know, the Switch's hardware lags SO far behind its competitors. There are several reasons for this and I honestly can't fault Nintendo for some of them but that's the simple truth - from a modern standpoint, the hardware sucks. They basically just packed Wii-U hardware into a mobile device, and the Wii-U was just an Xbox 360 with a significantly worse video card.

But why is it that some games like Tears of the Kingdom run perfectly with no issues ever under any circumstances, and even other Pokemon games released the same year manage significantly better performance?

Well, long story short, those three games all decided to do the exact same thing, ran into the exact same problem, and came up with three different solutions.

Starting with Tears of the Kingdom, a massive open-world action RPG/Puzzle game, they saw the limits of the hardware, knew there was only so many assets (items, environment art, NPCs, enemies, etc) they could keep onscreen without compromising the beauty and immersion of the world, and decided they were only going to have a handful of enemies on screen at a time. Usually groups of 10 or less. There are a handful of challenges with significantly more enemies, and the game performs noticeably worse in those areas. They also had fixed spawn locations. Enemies would always appear in the exact same spot, every time you go to that area. If you've killed the enemies in that area already, they won't come back until the Blood Moon resets all encounters on the map. The reset happens periodically to prevent a memory overload from crashing the game.

In this way, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were very expertly designed around some luxuries that a Pokemon game doesn't have. Pokemon games need to be able to populate an area with Pokemon. Pokemon need to respawn in that area more than once every 3 hours. Once again, though, an elegant decision was reached. First, they split the map up into 5 Areas, each about as big as the main Wild Area in Pokemon Sword/Shield. Then, they tied Pokemon spawns to a random seed. You know how Minecraft uses "seeds" to generate a new world, and putting in a custom seed affects how the world is generated? Yeah, it's the same concept but with Pokemon spawns. Then, they created a 24-minute Day/Night cycle. Every 6 minutes, the time of day would change. At the end of a full cycle, the seed would be regenerated, giving you a new set of pokemon in the area. You could prevent the generation of a new seed by "Sleeping" at camp, which would return you to an earlier point in the day, potentially allowing one seed to last significantly longer, and thereby reduce the amount of data stored in short-term memory when the seed is regenerated. Returning to Jubilife Village would dump leftover data from the previous seed(s), and generate new seeds for all 5 areas. Because of the seed, the game only needed to generate new pokemon while the scene was loading, which, if you spend less than an hour in a specific area at a time, took significantly less effort. And by creating some, quite frankly, bland environments with LOTS of big clearings where most of the Pokemon appear, they were able to have loads of Pokemon on screen at a time. Also, because the Pokemon are fixed to the seed, the exact same pokemon will spawn in if you walk far enough away from them to make them despawn. Nothing is decided in the moment, so no room for hiccups!

For Scarlet and Violet, GameFreak flew too close to the sun and got burned. Rather than use the smart system they came up with for Legends: Arceus, they wanted one big open world that'd be heavily populated with Pokemon, those pokemon would have minor interactions programmed in, and the player was given access to the whole map as soon as they finished the tutorial! And... oof, you can't put that on a seed anymore, it's too many moving parts over too big of an area! With virtually no areas to load into, you can't load the Pokemon from the next area all at once. You also don't have anywhere to hide a memory dump. The only two areas that aren't part of the same big open world are the city of Mesagoza, and Area Zero. So, pokemon spawn and despawn based purely on proximity to the player and the area the player is standing in. If the player leaves the pokemon's proximity, it's gone forever, and a brand-new pokemon is generated on the spot in its place. Even though it keeps the amount of assets on screen low, it's still a lot more ongoing work that the system has to do. And to trade off for that, they cut down on the amount of environment assets even further. EVERYWHERE in Paldea is a big open field. This game doesn't even have a proper forest, and no, Tagtree Thicket doesn't count. The trees are so sparse that you can't even properly call it a Thicket. It's an embarrassment to Thickets everywhere. And even with that compromise, there were STILL massive areas of the game that simply couldn't handle the amount of work that was needed to keep up with making these big, empty fields look populated.

Look, the point is, Scarlet and Violet don't suck because of corporate greed preventing them from getting a proper development cycle. Another year in the oven might have helped, but frankly it wouldn't have fixed this mess. The core issue at the heart of Scarlet and Violet is that GameFreak had a specific experience they wanted to deliver, they made massive compromises to deliver it, and in the end, those compromises weren't enough to provide a smooth experience. They should have split the map up the same way they did Legends: Arceus, with the school and Mesagoza as the hub area you'd return to after an expedition. It's perfectly set up for it, they just chose not to for some reason. If they had, they could have copied the setup they used to make Legends: Arceus work, and the game would have likely had significantly fewer performance issues.

But even so, I find it hard to fault them for trying. They did it because it's been clear this is the experience they've been building to ever since the series went 3D. Scarlet and Violet are the games they've wanted to make for a long time, and it's evident everywhere you look that a LOT of love went into building it. This game had possibly the best supporting cast of any Pokemon game ever, a story that focused on those characters rather than the world's lore, and an absolutely killer finale. Despite its technical flaws, it's a delight to play, and even after it's been out for months, I still can't put it down, and if the people making it didn't love what they were doing, I don't think that would be the case.

#pokemon #gen 9

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ashperiences · 3 months

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Meant for this to just be part of talking about the first game but didn't realise how much I'd go on lol

Didn't like this one as much, on paper most things sound better and I liked a lot of those ideas but I left without much of a real impression left on me.

The stratums never really ended up feeling like a place to me, I got a little shot of excitement going into the airship but it ultimately just felt like a big bunch of yellow corridors with a knock off version of the previous final boss. The areas could be really pretty and I liked some of the level design and the bringing a specific class gimmicks that unfortunately feel more fun of an idea than actually evocative but oh well.

Therein lies a big problem I had with this, the gameplay mostly turns into spamming big damage, the enemies and levels can get really obnoxious in response and the quests routinely become pains in the ass even as they build some genuinely endearing steps and events in them that make them more than just go to A or collect 6 of B (loved the one that made me mad that finding a guy to deliver a thing to relied on an rng roll to check if he runs away over and over owning me by having the guy eventually be like why the hell are you chasing me who are you though).

I like all these ideas it has, getting to know people in town better, weird FOE gimmicks and all but a lot of the quiet imaginative space is lost, I didn't really wonder about my party, the npcs were more fleshed out and likeable but they weren't really memorable enough to make up for feeling like just some decently entertaining guys in some dlc pack levels.

So much is hampered by relation to the first game, class design is heavily built around nerfing old strategies and over empowering other ones, the story has the same structure but less interesting as an attempt at playing the hits again, we got bird people again but they're magical helpful natives now. It's all just kind of uncomplicated heroics where your attack goes up and eventually you beat up god who is mean and make friends with everyone.

Its fun enough though although similarly the gameplay made it hard to distinguish any real sense of character between my variety of big numbers damage guys. The new class concepts are fun but not tremendously well implemented and the reuse of old classes doesn't help the stale feeling.

I can't stop complaining about it but whenever I think about parts of it I think of them fondly anyway, its not charmless it's just, it's overshadowed and directionless, everything you like feels nice but overtime it kind of just eats away at itself until its a town of slightly charming people and their heroes in a world that just feels built for purpose. I can barely remember any of the actual exploring.

If etrian odyssey 1 ends with your party literally going to hell this one feels like a conscious attempt at crafting explorer heaven - nothing complicates your role, doing big damage almost always wins, everyone ends up loving you and you can live forever as a cool sword guy (suppose there's a fun little thing to think about on context of the villain speech there actually).

I think you can summarise this game with two things:

1. The pathways only open to certain classes that just give you an rpg narration of your guy doing some cool stuff that repeats exactly the same the next time you find one without any of the environment reflecting it and usually organised into some weird box room with multiple class paths like you've found some side mission level select.

2. The way the gunner just inherits a strong move from the now decimated survivalist and also functions as a superior alchemist, the way the war magus can awkwardly remove any mp consideration or how the hexer can just turn hp loss into practically instant killing everything. The game gets flattened under this stuff to the point that the struggle of it all ceases to feel real, no monster is a real threat except by just doing something annoying, every boss gets steamrolled and as if representing the shift in genre the survivalist ends up with practically no purpose.

It was fun while it lasted for sure but also super annoying and I spent most of it thinking about my previous party and looking back on it all I can imagine my party as is an endless succession of multi attack skills.

A true dlc side story 6/10 where you go oh that's a nice idea I guess oh that's a funny guy they put in here and then evaporates.

#etrian odyssey #rpg #drpg #video games

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lesser-mook · 3 months

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Metro Exodus is a well made game, with an annoyingly unnecessary mechanic, the moral point system *Recommendation* (FPS, Action, Post-Apocalyptic, Story Driven, Horror Elements)

I took my time with this game, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Wish I had better hardware so I could record every moment of my first time with it in 4k, but-

the moral point system is garbage, pretentious, obnoxious, unnecessary. And not for the reasons you think.

It's not getting the bad ending that's the issue, you reap what you sow (I guess? Literally didn't put down anyone that wasn't tryna shoot me first), but more importantly, I got what I wanted, a certain characters survival.

I didn't give a fuck about what happened to me. I wanted them to fucking live, I smacked a Blind one in the face, killed another one with bullet spray, threw a can in another ones face, kicked one in the balls & Triangle choked out another (Because the stealth system is full of shit, you'll throw 5 cans in an opposite direction and these mfs will STILL go in your direction).

ALL so that this person would live.

So i was 100% content. And it was an ending fitting the games tone. But that was considered *Bad, not alternate ending but BAD lmfao. OK.

And it's funny, because I notice these "good" endings are littered with cheesy asspulls and plotarmor and the "BAD" endings have better storytelling because there's actual consequences and committed stakes that fit the situation more organically given what's actually going on.

So the non-canon versions are actually, unintentionally, better stories than the timeline that's actually canon. Almost as if "the point" is fucking irrelevant if the story isn't matching the energy of the set up and Or the narrative and messages gets in the way of a better story. And it usually does. No one wants to play a PREACH simulation.

Anyways, EXODUS is well produced, well acted, good stories, fun new mechanics, good level design, enemies are a threat, feels like a movie but not too much.

Most of the Characters are meh, but Anna is cool, Katya was useful, Olga was cool, Giul was cool, Yermak underrated.

But for the moral system, some of the characters and thus the game lowkey passive-aggressively throws digs at you throughout the rest of the game IF you didn't obey the narrative like a passive drone puppet- is the absolute WORST part about the game.

The game offers a different experience and then lowkey antagonizes you because you dared to waver from the canon narrative, super pretentious.

All these opportunities to spare NPCs, GREAT, but do they really matter? If in the end, killing the wrong Npc at the wrong time in the wrong mission, renders the ones you spared null and void anyway? That's the shit I'm talking about.

Why even offer an alternative, just make it one singular story/experience. It'd be a better execution, better experience. CONSISTENT with the previous 2 games.

I shit you not, Last Light I got the one where mc dies and Anna had his Son and she told the legend of his father. That shit would make an STier movie....buuut I find out that Exodus is a thing, and I'm like: Why is Artyom alive? Wheres my son? OH! that wasn't the canon ending?-- wait metro was multiple endings????? (Played Last Light first thinking it was the final game)

And because Artyom is silent, you just have to sit there and take this bullshit the others are vomiting when they do have something to say about your choices, meanwhile they're killing just the people they deemed as "bad" or the "right" people to slaughter. lmfao.

So It's not just the moral point system, that's the worst part about THE GAME itself: The post-op lecturing.

Because I repeat, WHO the fuck decides who's lives matter and who's doesn't in a post apocalypse where its literally anything goes.

Not Khan, that's for damn sure.

Kill the fanatics, that's a problem. Why? They're not trained soldiers, well neither are the bandits as far as i'm concerned, both parties had guns, thus a threat.

You do nothing, those fanatics will kill you, trust me, I tested it. So they're not helpless.(You kill the Volga fanatics that's a nono because they're not soldiers)

The fanatics who don't pose a threat, like the praying dudes on the shore, dozens of people I leave alone, they're spared because logically they're not a threat.

But apparently that wasn't enough for the "good boy" points. Corny as fuck.

There's multiple times in the game where there's supply stashes, but to get to them, you have to kill the bandits who were literally just minding their business before you pulled up and massacred them unprovoked.

Buuut despite not being soldiers either, their lives somehow didnt matter to the message, soooo fuck them i guess =D Last Light, killing the bear was a no no. Which i didn't, she was beaten, and wasn't a threat anymore.

Buuuut the bear in Exodus, their life according to the plot apparently boiled down to a B movie monster, this bears life didnt register to the moral system, cause how that went down was definitely brutal enough for a bad ending.

But apparently not all Bear lives matter. We have a mountain of bandit, soldier, beast, regimen corpses behind us but those lives didn't matter.

Literally there's a demon nest in VOLGA , the thing was minding its business in its home, I burned it alive via molotov right? I GOT A TROPHY for it…..uhh message?

Burnt to a crisp. Soooo that didn't register to the moral point bullshit?

Why Not? Because Khans eternal wisdom said so? Writers want you to feel empathy for a bear that attacks you, but a Demon minding it's business is irrelevant???

Mercy for them didnt matter huh, we clearly see little baby Bats floating around later, what if that demon was a momma huh? Fuck off. PRE-TENTIOUS, no consistency, want to push this hippie shit, be consistent.

Only the lives the game vaguely hints matters, are the lives that actually matters. Thus defeating any legitimacy the games little message possessed.

PLAY Stealthily, kill the right people, or you're the bad guy, its a sandbox yet wants to put you in a box.

And its funny because the game doesn't really make anything clear, it vaguely pushes a direction but doesn't get blatant until AFTER you make up your own damn mind.

All these guns to kill, but there's only ONE main method to non-lethally k.o enemies, not even a sleep dart, or knockout gas, yeah thats not redundant.

FUCK I even tried just shooting knee-Caps & arms to see if that'd neutralize, to make em drop the guns. Nope. Gotta hug them from behind like a lover or punch em out EVERY SINGLE TIME. Same animation. Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea* gives the player more non-lethal options to fight.

Fallout 3 doesn't pull this shit to this extent. Fallout knows what it is and what a post apocalypse is in reality. Gray.

You kill a vendor to steal, guess what? No lecture. But the consequence is NOW you one less person to trade with. One less person to provide you Stimpak.

One less friendly, sassy mf that you feel safe around.

That's fucking reality. You kill just to kill, you lose connections, you need people, thats reality.

Even my Lonewolf ass was HUMBLED by Fallout 3, because this game, even for an antisocial-- This game will MAKE YOU appreciate people, humans, human society, networking. In all the right ways.

All that time in creepy ass caves, ghosttowns, dungeons, mountains of corpses, mutants, demons, Vaults where horrible experiments were done, whispers in the walls etc. Horror Horror HORROR

When you see a person thats friendly in the desert? You run to that mf and see if they wanna trade or just say hi! You might even catch yourself sigh of relief that a mfing person was even around, not tryna shoot you, and alive.

Thats what Fallout 3 can do. Makes you grateful that you still have: People

Kill everyone in the wasteland? now you have no one to work with when you need it. No network. And sometimes regular, nice vendors are murdered by NPCs and you never see them again, ever = Cold hard REALITY, brilliant game design

At the wrong place wrong time, POW. Shot dead. Or eaten alive by beasts.

That's Karma done right, because it ISN'T a solely moral system, its just (cause and effect) in nature.

In Metro? Its obnoxious. Bioshocks karma system was leagues better because you could tell when and where the "moment of truth" was, it wasn't vague and the game didn't beat you over the head a million times about it like a naggy spouse.

I would've played Exodus immediately again after I finished it, and I WANTED to, but that passive-aggressive shit leaves a bad vibe. It nags & antagonizes you for making your own fucking choice.

And unlike Fallout 3, there's no option to speak back.

Again, NOT THE ENDING itself is the issue, because the bad ending is not even bad, it's bittersweet.

The characters being annoying saying slick shit a hundred times and you say nothing back is where I started tilting my head.

That doesn't smell right, the game gives you another path then penalizes you for exploring what it made available, sometimes accidentally, cause how tf would a normie know?

For THIS story? It was unnecessary. Especially for Exodus. Linear stories meant to be linear should be linear, for the continuity if anything else.

You want a certain narrative, then axe the bad ending and just make the ending you want to be the narrative. And yet something like Last of Us pt2 that should've had multiple endings, didnt get any lmfao Devs are sleeping man.

TL;DR yes Exodus moral system is laughably infantile, finished it last night (Jan 2024) and I WILL NOT be playing it again for a while just because its pretentious with the message bullshit, I binged the 3 games just to be lectured. Naaaah fuck you. I'll gladly take my blackass right back to Fallout, WAY more content anyway.

I understand the overtones, the "diamond in the rough/being the exception/", the Bioshock 2 "Mercy is victory" message, but in this game? It wasn't executed well at all. And seriously, at the end of the day, Fuck the writers, play your fucking way.

Otherwise, Metro Exodus is a good game, crashed once (chalking it up to my shit-ware), it's the best of the Metros, excellent production, buy it anyway. It's moral grandstanding is cringe, but don't rob yourself by not playing it at least once.

Its fun as shit mechanics wise, scout for all the loot, you'll need it, this game will punish you for being reckless, good.

#metro exodus #recommend #video games #metro series #metro 2033 #metro last light #bioshock #fallout 3 #lessermook

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xb-squaredx · 1 year

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The Bittersweet Taste of Bayonetta 3

PlatinumGames is among my favorite developers out there. Rising from the ashes of Capcom’s Clover studio, they are on my short list of developers that make amazing games that really resonate with me. Their games are quirky, often mechanically deep and a bit unwieldy. They’ve managed to carve out a cult following over the years, and by far their most infamous series has been the stylish action of Bayonetta. In 2017 Bayonetta 3 was announced but as the years passed with no news, many grew nervous. Platinum’s output since then has been quite inconsistent, and earlier this year they released Babylon’s Fall, a game that didn’t crash and burn so much as spontaneously combust before it ever got off the ground. There’s this cautious air around Bayonetta 3’s release; it isn’t enough to just be a good game in its own right, but many feel that Platinum’s future rides on it succeeding. In the weeks before the game released, the game became the catalyst for a discussion on properly compensating voice talent. Bayonetta’s original voice, Hellena Taylor, called for a boycott, claiming she wasn’t offered a fair wage, though later information would imply she was omitting information to make her case look better. Regardless, the air around Bayonetta 3 wasn’t all that positive and I’m sorry to say that, after having gone through the game, I find it didn’t come out the other side smelling like roses. Bayonetta 3 is a very interesting game to talk about, for a variety of reasons both quite positive…and unfortunately very negative. One of my most anticipated games of this year, it has given me some mixed feelings and leaves a bittersweet taste in my mouth.

ENTER THE BAYO VERSE

After two games where Bayonetta has taken on the legions of heaven and hell and taken on a few gods, there’s really only so much the series can do to raise the stakes. The game opens with the introduction of our main threat: Singularity. A being so strong it threatens not just the universe, but the entire multiverse. As Singularity consumes one unlucky world, a young woman named Viola just barely escapes, traveling to another universe and enlisting the help of Bayonetta to stop Singularity and save all of reality before there’s nothing left. There’s definitely a more dire tone to a lot of the game, as we can see firsthand the destruction of Singularity’s forces, with Bayonetta and company being pushed to the limit to save the day. Of course, there’s still plenty of fun, campy moments throughout, like impromptu dance offs, a demonic concert (complete with glow sticks!) and more than a fair share of tasteful nudity and the sensual style that has made the series infamous. The opening prologue level certainly hits a lot of the same beats from past entries; Bayonetta’s living it up in town, something goes wrong, Enzo is made a fool, and she beats up some basic enemies while taking her clothes off and eventually showing off some fantastic new guns. Viola serves as a pretty interesting foil to Bayonetta at the start as well; despite putting on a cool front, she’s clumsy and goofy, frequently at odds with Bayonetta as she struts about with all of the confidence of a seasoned Umbran Witch. With the titular witch taking on a bit of a mentor role, it’s a decent starting point for another adventure. The promise of interacting with different variations of our heroine as they jump from world to world also just seems rife with possibilities. That said, this strong start can’t quite hide the game’s frequent rough edges in the presentation.

As the Switch gets on in years, the lacking quality of its hardware only becomes more apparent, with even Nintendo’s own first party offerings often having to make sacrifices to run on what is ostensibily an outdated smartphone. The Bayonetta series has never really been a graphical showcase, though there’s aspects of 3 that definitely feel more than a bit dated, even going back to the original game’s release during the seventh console generation. NPC character models look and animate quite stiffly and environments are often extremely empty and lacking in high-quality textures. Sadly the game’s performance follows suit, being a bit of a downgrade from even the previous entry on the Wii U. The game targets 60 FPS but often is somewhere closer to the 40s or 50s, with occasional dips below that in more hectic moments. Now, I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the most sensitive to this stuff and it never really impacted my gameplay, at least to a degree I was consciously aware of it, but it is a shame the game can’t give more consistent results.

(source: Eurogamer )

I do find the game is smooth enough most of the time, and it’s clear Platinum brought their A-game when it came to the overall presentation despite all of this. Cutscenes are still directed with that manic energy that makes Platinum’s titles such a joy to experience. Bayonetta herself, and most of her enemies, are animated extremely well, with tons of personality oozing out of many attacks and even idle animations. The menus are a bit sleeker than past entries and generally things are as seamless and smooth as could be when getting into and out of combat encounters. There’s a lot less of the stop-motion cutscenes in this game as well, which helps the overall story feel a bit more high budget and consistent. Music is also pretty consistently great. From the eerie, ethereal music often accompanying Singularity’s minions, to the peppy battle themes accompanying Bayonetta and Viola’s various scraps, there’s a lot to like. One of the real highlights would be “Fertile Rondo,” an operatic jam that doubles as a huge reference to The Fifth Element.

Voice acting also remains generally strong throughout, with returning actors like Yuri Lowenthal, Grey DeLisle, and Dave Fennoy feeling right at home with Luka, Jeanne and Rodin respectively. I have to really credit the amount of charm Anna Brisbin gives to Viola, and overall the character made a good impression on me. Of course, this also means I have to touch on the controversy with Bayonetta’s voice change. Taylor’s take on the character was great, and regardless of who replaced her, it was always going to be a bit awkward, but Jennifer Hale is a pretty good get in that case. A veteran in voice over, Hale’s credits are numerous and should honestly speak for themselves, and I would say she nails this take on Bayonetta, to the point it almost feels like she’s always played the character. There are points she sounds almost uncannily like Taylor, though admittedly it isn’t always consistent. But overall, she embodies the sass and style associated with the character and makes the transition about as flawless as could be hoped for overall.

I have…more things to say regarding the overall story, but we can save that for later. Instead, there is still an underlying action game under all this, so I’d better get to talking about that.

SIZE ISN’T EVERYTHING (BUT IT HELPS)

There’s been a fair bit of escalation throughout the Bayonetta series from game to game. The first title mostly focused on Bayonetta herself beating up hordes of angels, with only occasionally summoning limbs of demons for her Wicked Weave finishing strikes, and often a fun QTE at the end of major encounters to finish off bosses that teased more of the demon. Then in the sequel, Infernal Climax took center stage, where for a brief time ALL of Bayonetta’s attacks summoned demons, and at one point you were even directly controlling the demon Madama Butterfly for part of a boss encounter. But the threat in Bayonetta 3 is so great that summoning the whole demon is both frequent and required to even hope to win. In a bit of a twist on things, the main villainous faction are man-made homunculi, and since they aren’t angelic in nature Bayonetta’s summons have no real desire to help out in battle. Thus, she invokes the Demon Slave ritual to take direct control over them, allowing players to control the demons in real-time. There’s definitely some stipulations though; Demon Slave constantly drains Bayonetta’s magic meter and once emptied you’ll have to wait for it to fill to a certain amount to summon them again. Demons can also eventually turn on Bayonetta and go on a rampage if attacked enough, and perhaps worst of all, Bayonetta is stationary while players are in control of demons, meaning players need to learn the proper time and place to invoke it. Players can equip up to three demons at a time and freely switch between them in combat, in many ways allowing demons to serve as additional weapons to Bayo’s arsenal. Admittedly, some of the demons are a bit unwieldy and require practice to use efficiently, and some are a bit situational, but all of them bring something unique to the table and further expands Bayonetta’s combat options.

One facet I really enjoyed about the game is the Demon Masquerade system. Depending on the weapon equipped, at points Bayonetta can take on a form similar to the demon said weapon is based on, which can drastically change her mobility. With her default guns, Colour My World, she takes on Madama Butterfly’s visage and gains the ability to slowly hover through the air on her wings, while with Gomorrah’s weapon, the massive G-Pillar, she takes on a more feral stance and hops about, with a fast air dash to help her cross gaps quickly. Players also use skill trees for each weapon to unlock more moves in her arsenal that also have her transform to perform them, like powerful crowd-clearing attacks, or the near-universal gap-closer moves that have her home in on the nearest enemy. Demons also have a similar skill tree to enhance their own movesets, and by filling out both you gain one final upgrade that fleshes out each moveset. It’s a bit different from being able to buy moves in Rodin’s shop, but it works well enough as incentive to keep fighting and trying out different weapons.

On that note, Bayonetta 3 has some of the best weapon variety in the entire series, if not THE best. While this game does away with the ability to set weapons on both your hands and feet, thereby reducing the amount of interesting weapon combinations and synergies, this change allowed them to go all-in on some out-there weapons that wouldn’t have worked otherwise. One of my favorites is Abracadabra, a combination of a top hat and cane that allows Bayonetta to moonlight as a magician, allowing her to summon various projectiles out of her hat at random, as well as utilize powerful electric blasts. Or there’s Tartarus, a slow but powerful weapon consisting of thick, stone doors that can plow through enemy attacks, but when opened can summon a variety of weapons, including some powerful gatling guns that rip through targets. I could go on, because there are TONS of weapons in this game with their own quirks and uses, all with their own demon that has their OWN intricacies. Many demons are often large beasts, like the dinosaur-esque Gomorrah, or Baal, a giant toad, but there’s more than a few unique demons like Wartrain Gouon which…is a train. And when you summon it, you have to draw the train tracks and hit attack buttons along the route before the train barrels on through and slams past all in its wake. The sheer options available is amazing, to the point that it’s a tad disappointing you can only have two weapon sets at any time. That said, while weapon variety is great, enemy variety leaves a bit to be desired.

Most of the homunculi enemies suffer from one of two major issues: they have samey designs that keep them from standing out and feeling distinct, or they’re giant enemies that are basically designed purely for demons to rip through their inflated health pools. If you’re someone who ends up hating using demons in combat and would rather ignore it, then have fun chipping away at these damage sponges! Of all of them, the Virga enemy might be the least fun to fight in the game. Basically a giant Wiggler enemy from the Super Mario series, it never stops moving or attacking and often has no reactions to any attacks done to it, making it difficult to get through the fight unscathed. That’s on top of the camera frequently clipping into it and making it almost impossible to see. Really, the camera might be the greatest enemy in the game. Not only does this game employ a “soft-lock” and force Bayonetta to attack whichever enemy has triggered it, but the “hard lock-on” often forces the camera to make strange, sweeping movements, and it isn’t long before that lock-on is broken and you’re forced to do lock-on again. On top of that, enemies break the series tradition of mostly not attacking when off-screen, and won’t hesitate to take potshots at you with little warning. With the combat areas in general much larger to accommodate the demons and large enemies, this can also mean it’s quite easy to lose track of some smaller enemies and be forced to whirl the camera around frantically to find them. After the previous two games had such a tight camera by comparison, this is a bit of a downgrade unfortunately.

Generally, when Bayonetta’s core combat is allowed to shine and it all clicks, it works amazingly well, but sadly there’s even more things inserted into the game in the name of variety that often bogs the entire experience down a bit.

NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

While Bayonetta’s flashy combat is the star of the show for the most part, at various points in the story players will engage with different gameplay styles and different playable characters. This is really nothing new with most games from Platinum, as they love to sneak in schmup sections and setpieces to change things up, though I find that in the case with THIS game…they don’t often land and come across as annoying padding. There’s multiple instances throughout the game where Bayonetta will ride atop a demon, or players just get to command it directly, which are far more sluggish and unresponsive than in normal gameplay, Demon Slave or otherwise. A good example would be a timed platforming section as you ride atop the flaming spider Phantasmaraneae that is noticeably slower and less agile than when it is used in Demon Slave combos, OR the much faster, responsive Demon Masquerade version of it, complete with an awkward camera that’s often far too close. But then we go bigger with more climactic battles culminating in Bayonetta invoking the Deadly Sin ritual, offering up her own heart to empower demons and allowing them to go even further beyond their original powers. I wouldn’t say these sections are all-together bad, but the variety frequently goes against what I came here for in the first place. I want to play Bayonetta 3 for high-octane action, not weird rail shooters or slow kaiju fighting games and DEFINITELY not rhythm games, but you’re forced to play these if you want to advance through the game. This series is a more arcade-like action title that really tries to get you to replay levels and get better scores, and these sequences are kind of a drag to do again. Had they been their own self-contained chapter, I wouldn’t mind as much, but they’re often at the end of already long chapters and really bring down replays. That said, this game now saves your highest score for each separate Verse of a chapter, and you can pick specific “checkpoints” in a chapter to minimize replays, so it doesn’t sting as much as it could.

That said, it doesn’t stop there. Throughout the game you can play as both Jeanne and newcomer Viola, but sadly there’s a lot to be desired there. In Jeanne’s case, you play through short 2D side-scrolling segments with a focus on stealth as she seeks out a scientist to assist in defeating Singularity. So you have a series that prides itself on cool, kick-ass characters and suddenly force them to hide in vents and do stealth kills to the cannon fodder grunts? Feels more than a bit out of place. Again, these aren’t really BAD…but they’re not that fun and take away from the very first time Jeanne has been playable during the main story, as she’s usually relegated to being an unlockable moveset clone of Bayonetta after you beat the game.

Viola though is where my real disappointments lie. We’ve had different playable characters before, but they’re either near identical to Bayoentta in gameplay (Jeanne and Rosa), or restricted to a separate mode (Rodin and Balder), so Viola being an out-and-out NEW character that’s playable during the main story SHOULD be really interesting but she instead feels half-baked. Armed with a katana, some throwing darts in lieu of a gun, and the demon Cheshire as a familiar, Viola on paper seems like a fun enough alternative to Bayonetta. She’s got some fun, flashy sword combos, and in an interesting twist, when she summons Cheshire to help, she’s free to continue moving around and attacking because Cheshire isn’t under direct player control. It gives her a completely different bareknuckle moveset and feels satisfying on its own. But unfortunately, it becomes clear this game was not designed with her in mind. The bigger enemies are clearly made for the Demon Slave summons to tear through, but Cheshire just doesn’t cut it. He’s often slow and at times actively lofts about and smokes on his pipe rather than attack, leaving Viola to fend for herself. Some friend. Adding to this, Viola’s moveset is decently fleshed out…but it’s still just ONE weapon compared to the plethora of other weapons Bayonetta can mess with. She lacks variety and feels really stale after a bit. With so many weapons in this game, surely they could have spared at least ONE for Viola. But the worst aspect has to be how she activates Witch Time, a core mechanic in these games. Bayonetta dodges attacks to activate it, slowing down time and letting her go to town on the defenseless enemies as a result. Viola meanwhile must parry incoming attacks by blocking, which brings to mind Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, another Platinum title. A couple problems here though: most enemies don’t seem balanced for the parry at all. They either do huge, sweeping attacks that either miss Viola completely, or have ridiculously tight timings to even land the parry in the first place. It’s WAY less forgiving than Bayonetta’s dodge and one optional challenge mission involving you only being able to damage enemies while in Witch Time nearly had me tearing my hair out. Playing as Viola frequently feels like trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. Maybe that’s the reason she’s only playable in three of the game’s chapters, falling behind even Jeanne’s side-scrolling missions in frequency. She feels like a last-minute inclusion, despite playing such a big part in the story.

IN CONCLUSION (kind of)

With all I’ve said up until now, I have qualms with some aspects of the core gameplay but I largely had a blast. When the game just lets you focus on fighting, the game is fun and dynamic, with TONS of satisfying tools to learn and master. The game’s larger levels allowed for more downtime as I searched out optional missions or collectibles, and I largely appreciated the change in scope. Some levels left a bit to be desired, feeling more like large boxes than real places, but there are times when the game really shines. The levels taking place in an alternate Egypt are what I wish the entire rest of the game was like. Huge, sprawling locations with tons of secrets tucked away, what felt like small dungeons with some quick puzzles and interesting combat encounters, and probably the best of the Deadly Sin gameplay change ups. I largely enjoyed Bayonetta 3 as an action game, with spectacle that few other series can match. Despite some rough edges in performance and visuals, and some annoying setpieces, it is clear Platinum gave it their all to make a game that attempted to surpass the high expectations of fans. The music goes HARD at times, the story has some real standout moments that I loved, and in a lot of respects this might be the most fun game in the series when you factor it all in. This feels like not just an evolution of the Bayonetta series, but Platinum continuing to tweak and iterate on ideas found in their other titles. The DNA of many of their games exist within this one, serving as a bombastic, content-rich entry that in many ways was well worth the near five-year wait from the initial reveal.

With all that said however, the game’s ending left me extremely conflicted on the entire product, and I want to go into that, but also I’d rather not spoil it for people that might want to go into it themselves. I’ve put my concluding thoughts here ahead of a spoiler-filled section on this ending for that reason. So, overall despite some rough edges, Bayonetta 3 is a high-quality title that stands up with some of Platinum’s greatest….as long as you just completely ignore a terrible ending that feels like they’re trying to torch the franchise and run away.

THE ENDING: MESSY, RUSHED AND UNEXPLAINED

PlatiumGames isn’t really known for their storytelling; they make really fun, goofy action games, and barely anyone really talks about those games’ narrative. So, for anyone that hears Bayonetta 3’s story is bad, it makes sense to think “Well, who cares about story in a Platinum game anyway?” In general, a lot of video games place gameplay over story, so is it really that big of a deal if Bayonetta 3’s story falls flat as long as the gameplay is good? For a lot of people, I’m sure that is enough and I can understand them brushing off complaints. But that isn’t enough for me. Just because this is an action game, I don’t think the story should be half-baked. Plenty of action games, not just from Platinum, manage to strike a better balance, and despite the shortcomings of the previous games in the series, I like the world and characters Platinum have created here. Which is why the ending stung as hard as it did, as it feels almost vindictive towards all that came before, and if that wasn’t the intention, they really botched the execution.

Bayonetta 3 has a lot of great ideas for a fun story, or even a great one. But the problem is that Platinum tried to shove too much into one game, and as a result almost every plot point and bit of narrative potential is wasted. Multiple important details that make the story comprehensible are locked away in character bios that most players aren’t likely to dig through and read. Certain elements of the endgame feel unearned, and the game’s tone changes so often the whiplash is constant and jarring. So, let’s delve into those points one at a time.

I’ll start with the tone. Most of Platinum’s work are over-the-top and not really meant to be taken too seriously. They employ humor throughout the vast majority of their work, they aren’t afraid to blatantly homage things they think are cool and to me they’re at their best when they just have fun with their premise and setting. Bayonetta 3 has a lot of these moments for sure, but they attempt to blend it together with a darker, more dramatic turn and it just does not work at all. The prologue chapter has the entirety of New York flooded, as Singularity begins his assault. The death count alone in this chapter easily eclipses the other two games. Even Enzo, the plucky comic relief, is reduced to tears as his family has seemingly been killed. So when Bayonetta and Rodin are just quipping back and forth it really feels misplaced. Did this game want to be serious, or just as irreverent as past titles? They needed to pick a lane and stick with it. Honestly, I don’t think being more serious fits either Platinum or the Bayonetta series, and if they did want to try to branch out, I think they overcompensated.

(Bayonetta without a confident smirk on her face is just...wrong!)

Bayonetta, much like her predecessor Dante from the Devil May Cry series, is a power fantasy. She’s sexy, she’s powerful, she’s always in control. The draw of these games is seeing her mop the floor with celestial beings without breaking a sweat. So when this game tries to up the ante and establish higher stakes, they really struggle with doing so in a way that feels organic. The game opens with one universe’s Bayonetta being killed by Singularity, which works as a demonstration of the threat he poses. The problem is that this keeps happening throughout the game; every single alternate Bayonetta we encounter gets about five minutes of screentime before being unceremoniously killed in a cutscene where they become uncharacteristically incompetent. No one in this game ever looks behind them. So there’s drama here and the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been, but that comes at the cost of Bayonetta as a character looking less powerful and capable. This dark tone and constant death toll also just kind of spoils all of the fun a multiverse tale like this could have had.

When promotional materials made it clear this was a multiverse story, I was looking forward to all of these various character interactions…so imagine my surprise when there’s not much done with that premise at all. For all of the infinite possibilities that come with bringing a multiverse into your story, all Platinum could seemingly think up was “What if Bayonetta lived in another country?” There’s flashes of interesting elements that never get fleshed out on-screen at all. The Tokyo Bayonetta is a delinquent while the Egyptian Bayonetta is a princess with Jeanne as both her bodyguard and her superior in combat. I did enjoy the Paris Bayonetta sections though. Working with her mother Rosa, they’re a pair of thieves with that world’s Enzo chasing after them as a cop, like Lupin III’s Zenigata. But I wanted MORE of that! The Chinese Bayonetta is a war general who apparently lost her eye in an interesting story…the game has no interest in telling us that story though! They had an opportunity to really shake things up; what if we had a world where Enzo was the one with the magic powers, or one where Bayonetta was a Lumen Sage instead of an Umbran Witch? I also find it odd that while we do get to see some alternate Jeannes and Enzos, we only get one alternate Luka and zero alternate Violas, when having more could have made some interesting contrasts. I could forgive a curbed roster if they did much with them, but the bulk of the game just has us hopping from universe to universe, taking every alternate Bayonetta’s demons and weapons for our own and promptly forgetting about them. The Egyptian Bayonetta has a character arc concerning her lacking confidence and overreliance on Jeanne squeezed into two chapters of the game when that could have been fleshed out over the course of the game instead. With our “prime” Bayonetta serving as a mentor to Viola, it could have been interesting to see multiple Bayonettas attempt to give Viola advice, to showcase how different these alternative selves were, but alas, there was just no time apparently.

Further adding to the missed potential, there is the entire concept of fairies introduced into the series with this game. Now, if they wanted to introduce a new faction I have no real objections. Bayonetta’s already fought angels and demons, and spends the entire game fighting these strange man-made homunculi, so beating up some fae folk isn’t really that big of a stretch…except the game barely touches on them at all. After two games without them being mentioned, suddenly Luka is revealed to be part fairy, and this influence is then retconned to be the reason he became a journalist. Despite the fact that the first game made it clear he was obsessed with “the truth” because he watched his father being torn apart by angels he couldn’t even see so uh…that doesn’t really fit. If this is meant to merely tease them being fleshed out more in a sequel, this really wasn’t the place to do it.

I can’t talk about Luka without touching on the controversial romance subplot with him and Bayonetta. Now, this is controversial for a number of reasons. For one, while Bayonetta did flirt with Luka a fair bit in the first game, they barely interacted at all in the second game or this game for that matter. The chemistry just wasn’t really given time to develop. That’s not even getting into the backlash from the series’ gay fans. Over the years a lot of queer folk have kind of “claimed” Bayonetta as a series, mostly from the game’s constant campy tone, combined with a lot of romantic subtext with Bayonetta and Jeanne. But the backlash goes beyond just a ship they liked not being made canon, but moreso this strange subtext applied to Bayonetta and Luka’s relationship in this game that many feel is at best “bi erasure” and at worst downright homophobic or heteronormative. At various points, Singularity calls Bayonetta “Arch-Eve” and Luka “Arch-Adam” so there’s this idea that they’re like…a universal constant and are destined to be together? This coupled with Jeanne not really getting to do much in this game is viewed as a slap in the face by some fans. I don’t really believe Platinum was intentionally going against their gay fans here, and I do think some fans took their own headcanons a bit too far. I’ve heard some even try to claim that there just was no way straight people could get anything out of the series and uh…yeah I don’t really see that point at all. For my own two cents, I just think this romance was really rushed and should have been fleshed out more throughout the series. Or just have Bayonetta, Jeanne and Luka in one big happy threesome, I don’t know.

All of these rushed plot points and dashed potential end up getting twisted up into a very long, grueling final boss fight where…things just kind of happen suddenly, without any explanation before or after. All of the killed Bayonettas (and Jeannes) are revived…and then disappear again, the game being unclear on if they’re still gone for good or were saved. Two more Bayonettas, each clad in the first and second game’s designs respectively, appear to help out in the final battle, but they also vanish without a trace randomly. Then the final blow is dealt to Singularity and a vortex opens up in the sky at the EXACT moment Bayonetta loses control of her demonic summon. This is all a contrived situation purely to force Luka to save an unconscious Viola as she’s pulled into said vortex, thereby allowing Gomorrah to kill Bayonetta definitively. Luka cradles Bayonetta’s soul as they are both dragged into hell, all while Viola cries out for her mother and father and pounds the ground in frustration. Cue credits. Oh, except for the part where Viola suddenly fights…Dark Eve. A character that isn’t explained in-game at all and is only fleshed out in the character bios that update after the game is beaten. By somehow fighting off this uh…dark amalgamation of all of the other dead Bayonettas…somehow this means Viola has proven she has what it takes to take on the mantle of Bayonetta. We get another stinger where we see she is taking on jobs from Rodin, with the game seemingly setting up that any future Bayonetta games will have her in the starring role. Cue dance party ending!

Where do I begin here? The game’s inability to confirm anything really muddies the waters here and makes the ending come across as more somber than I think was intended. New York seems fine in this stinger, and Enzo’s family is seemingly alive and well…but what of the other worlds? If they’re all back to normal…why isn’t Viola with her real mother and father? On that note, why did the game wait until the exact last second to confirm something most fans guessed before the game even came out? I feel that dragging out Viola’s parentage until the very end of the game did nothing for the story, especially seeing how little Viola really factored into the story at all. Then there’s the ending with her as the new protagonist. The game sets this up as an optimistic passing of the torch but…I just don’t think it’s earned at all. Throughout the entire game Viola is showcased as being a bit of a joke. She never gets to actually defeat anything of real significance, and even in the final battle with Singularity she’s batted away and becomes a liability at the end. Sure, she defeats Dark Eve, but the sudden appearance of this random character the game barely tried setting up undoes any amount of triumph the moment should give the audience. I like Viola, but she isn’t ready to headline this series.

In the time since the game’s release, series creator Hideki Kamiya has commented on the backlash, stating that Platinum hadn’t been as clear with some things as they should have been, and that Bayonetta 4 would address these concerns and criticisms. Of course, there’s the question of if PlatinumGames as a studio will even exist long enough for another game to come out, but assuming that it does happen, I suppose there is a chance they could smooth this all out. Maybe we see that Bayonetta and Luka are living it up in hell, and all of the other universes are fine and dandy. Maybe Jeanne is still around and can help out Viola as she comes into her own. That’s a lot of maybes though, and there’s no guarantee THAT game wouldn’t just drop the ball in its ending too.

A lot of the issues I levy at this game could also apply to the other two games. All three games feature villains with no actual substance to them, with no motives for why they do what they do; they exist to be a big boss fight to cap off an action game. All three games don’t really explain everything as well as they could, with the first two having time-travel nonsense wrapped up in the narrative. I wouldn’t call the stories for the first two games good, and going into this game I didn’t really have high hopes on a good narrative, but I assumed there would at least be a fun one. I think that’s the biggest problem here; the fun is gone. Bayonetta 3 tries to raise the stakes but in the process, it lost a lot of what made the first two games so compelling for people. Yet they try to carry on like everything is fine, with a dance party ending filled to the brim with characters that are, as far as this narrative tells us, dead, and we’re left with a character we barely know headlining the series as everything else fans have come to love about the franchise is long gone. It feels like Platinum saw the ending to Devil May Cry 5 and thought “Hey we can do that too!” except they completely misunderstood why that game’s ending worked as well as it does.

Not to go into it too much, but Devil May Cry as a sister series to Bayonetta has already done the passing of the torch thing, with Dante eventually letting the younger Nero take over. What I think Platinum missed here is that it took Capcom TWO games to fully allow Nero to graduate to the main protagonist role, and even then, I feel like the massive gap between the two games is what allowed fans who previously disliked Nero to eventually cool down and come to accept him. Adding to all this, Nero was at least playable for half of Devil May Cry 4 and roughly half of Devil May Cry 5, whereas Viola gets barely three levels to herself in Bayonetta 3. Even though both Bayonetta 3 and Devil May Cry 5 end with the previous protagonists in Hell, Dante doesn’t seem all that bothered by it and the narrative allows enough wiggle room to bring him back with little trouble. In Bayonetta’s case, her end seems far more permanent. Despite some similarities, the contexts differ dramatically.

I think I’ve gone on long enough here. I really want to stress I didn’t expect to come out of this game feeling as down about it as I did. I heard people not liking the ending, and assumed they were just jaded Bayo/Jeanne shippers…but I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s frustrating, as in some respects I feel like Platinum can and HAS done better. For as silly as it was, The Wonderful 101 had real heart to it, and I think to this day that is the best story Hideki Kamiya has ever written. While Bayonetta 2 didn’t have the best narrative, I think it was an improvement over the first, and humanized Bayonetta a fair bit. My criticisms stem from my desire to see Platinum succeed. I am without a doubt in their corner and want to be excited for their games, and in recent years it’s been hard to be a fan. Astral Chain was pretty interesting, if a bit wonky at points (and also didn’t have the best story), but from 2020 onwards Platinum felt like a shell of their former selves. Using a Kickstarter to port a barely-touched “remaster” of The Wonderful 101, releasing self-published titles like World of Demons on the Apple Arcade and nowhere else, or the ridiculously overpriced schmup that is Sol Cresta. 2022 opened with the disastrous launch of Babylon’s Fall, and now this game, despite delivering on the action, had to stumble so hard at the very end. When they first started their company, co-founder of PlatinumGames, Tatsuya Minami stated that they chose to be named after platinum because “platinum never loses its luster,” and that was their motto for making games. But as 2022 draws to a close, their shine has dulled, and I’m having a hard time coming to terms with that.

Ultimately, that’s just my take on things. I value story a lot, as you can probably tell, so a bad ending for me matters a whole lot more than a lot of Platinum’s audience I’m sure. As I’ve mentioned before, Bayonetta 3 is still a high-quality title when it comes to stylish action, with plenty of fun setpieces, tons of weapons and tools to master, and a presentation that is constrained only by its hardware. I wouldn’t for a second label Bayonetta 3 as a bad game. It’s great, in fact, and one I would recommend to others…I just wish I didn’t have to attach an asterisk to the end of that recommendation. Despite it all, I’m glad this game finally came to fruition and I desperately hope Platinum can regain some of their luster in the years to come.

Until next time.

-B

#Bayonetta 3 #Bayonetta #viola #jeanne #platinumgames #platinum #action game #character action #nintendo switch #bayonutters #review #spoilers #devil may cry 5

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