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Katsuma posted:It... kind of is, though? I mean, Freedom Planet's whole identity is in its story. Without this hamfisted, poorly executed, strangely edited, but earnestly told story, Freedom Planet wouldn't be Freedom Planet. It would just be "Go right and Double Jump into Bosses Sometimes: The Game." that's exactly what everyone wanted.
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Jan 22, 2016 23:48
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[21:50:40] SupSuper: i changed my mind, my [threadposter people are] the worst
Great Joe fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Jan 23, 2016 |
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Jan 22, 2016 23:54
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Katsuma, you literally upset SupSuper very much. Good job. 
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Jan 23, 2016 00:00
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corn in the bible posted:that's exactly what everyone wanted. I dunno, I think I like it better the way it is. Great Joe posted:Katsuma, you literally upset SupSuper very much. Good job. I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! 
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Jan 23, 2016 00:36
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Katsuma posted:It... kind of is, though? I mean, Freedom Planet's whole identity is in its story. Without this hamfisted, poorly executed, strangely edited, but earnestly told story, Freedom Planet wouldn't be Freedom Planet. It would just be "Go right and Double Jump into Bosses Sometimes: The Game." Really because I only ever play Classic Mode and the game has plenty of personality without the dumb amateur story. It's got style, cool setpieces, great music, varied environments, fast pacing... You even get a handful of hammy one-liners from Brevon for good measure, torture not included! Augus fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Jan 23, 2016 |
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Jan 23, 2016 01:38
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Augus posted:Really because I only ever play Classic Mode and the game has plenty of personality without the dumb amateur story. I do quite like all the cool environments, and I think the music is my favorite thing about this game. Anyways, I'm sorry for upsetting everyone. Here, have some cool 16-bit remixes of the Pangu Lagoon themes: https://soundcloud.com/leila-wilson-woofle/pangu-lagoon-a-16-bit-arrange https://soundcloud.com/leila-wilson-woofle/plz16-s2-5 Not sure if this counts as fan-content, considering it's made by the game's composer.
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Jan 23, 2016 01:51
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Katsuma posted:I do quite like all the cool environments, and I think the music is my favorite thing about this game. Dang, I already loved Pangu Lagoon's BGM, but these remixes are mighty fine.
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Jan 23, 2016 02:52
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Katsuma posted:I changed my mind. I am going to defend it. But I am going to do so with the caveat that that I agree with you all as far as you think the scene was poorly executed and excessive. Also, I ask you to please please please bear with me, because for a few brief moments I am going to treat Freedom Planet like a serious work of fiction worthy of thoughtful critique and analysis. i think you figured out exactly what the writer wanted, but it still doesn't work, i mean just look at the character designs
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Jan 23, 2016 03:28
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Looper posted:i think you figured out exactly what the writer wanted, but it still doesn't work, i mean just look at the character designs I don't think having cute and whimsical character designs ought to prohibit a work from dealing with difficult themes or issues, or from attempting to have a degree of emotional depth. Valcione fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Jan 23, 2016 |
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Jan 23, 2016 04:00
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I'm trying to be brief so I don't upset SupSuper any further but I've already failed (name an ulcer after me). First off, yes, I found the scene personally distasteful and that is a significant factor in this but at the same time that doesn't negate my overall point that the scene is bad objectively on a larger scale in ways that should be discussed.quote:Personally, the gender of the characters involved really didn't make a difference to me. If it was Torque getting shocked by a sneering Brevon in order to get under Lilac's skin, I think I would have reacted the same. The thing I'm trying to get at is that the part where the scene is objectively bad isn't about personal reactions, it's about a bigger overall trend in our fiction that Strife agreed to participate in when he made the decision to put this in his story whether he realized he was agreeing to it or not; if it helps illustrate my point, imagine that he signed a contract without reading it. What Strife intended is a factor to consider but doesn't absolve him of responsibility. Go check out "Women In Refrigerators," it's kind of old and only focuses on comics but it's a fairly solid example of what I'm talking about. It's a list of female comics characters who were killed, raped, tortured, or otherwise significantly harmed primarily to motivate or hurt a male character. I guarantee you at least more than half the writers responsible for what's on that list had no malicious intent when they wrote the stories where those things happened; that doesn't change the fact that it's a really unfortunate trend that bears discussing (for a start, there doesn't seem to be an answering trend of men being tortured to get at women). It's such a common occurrence in fiction that "getting fridged" is used as a shorthand in discourse like we're trying to have here; Torque getting tortured to make Lilac talk would be a fundamentally different ball of third-degree burns just for rarity value alone. The question to ask here is, "why does Brevon specifically need to torture Lilac for this? Is there nothing else he could do that would upset Torque the way hurting 'his crew' does?" Well, no, Torque is kind of poorly fleshed-out and all we really know about him is that he's a Serious Hero Type who's insecure about his leadership abilities, is a skilled pilot, and doesn't much go in for idle chitchat. We don't know what he cares about besides galactic safety and the girls. He has no other emotional sore spots to dig at; he's literally just not a complex enough character to torture except in the cheapest, most lazy-writing way. Katsuma posted:for a few brief moments I am going to treat Freedom Planet like a serious work of fiction worthy of thoughtful critique and analysis. Every work of fiction is worthy of thoughtful critique and analysis, no matter how lovely and poorly executed. It's how we learn to make ones are are neither of those things. quote:strips her of her agency and power (as demonstrated by the removal of her tendrils, which is what she uses to execute most of her moves as a videogame character) This is a lot of where I'm coming from when I say Lilac being tortured (especially when it's just for kicks) brings along "a grab bag of sexual poo poo." A woman being completely at a man's mercy has a completely different flavor and implications than a man being completely at a woman's mercy; largely because there is a significant danger that the scenario will end in rape for the woman, which isn't even on the list of possibilities for the man, unless the writer is specifically making a commentary on how our culture views the rape of men. Just because Strife behaved himself, doesn't mean that putting Lilac in these circumstances wasn't extremely questionable all the same. The overall theme of my position on this whole scene (aside from "don't write scenes where you horribly torture children unless you've got a ridiculously good reason to") is "nothing happens in a vacuum." quote:And, for all of Brevon's blathering about how Lilac would find a way to 'still bite,' or whatever, he actually succeeds at what he set out to do at that point. He breaks Lilac's spirit. Not quite. What breaks Lilac is the possibility that her friends, pretty much the thing that makes the world worth saving to her (Lilac is also somewhat poorly-developed and tropey, really), might be dead and she's powerless to deal with it. Lilac kept going when no one believed her, when she completely failed to stop the Stone's theft, when she got thrown in prison, when her friends abandoned her, because Brevon being a threat to the world means Brevon is a threat to her friends. When Neera shows up she's still ready to dive back in the river to try and save her friends, but she knows she can't take Neera in a fight in her condition, meaning no matter what she does at this moment, her friends are Probably Dead. She doesn't stop fighting because she sees the futility of fighting, she stops because she's got nothing to fight for anymore. That is Lilac's Crisis. Which means that, once again, the exact same end could have been achieved with a much lower creep factor if Lilac was caught in the explosion of the base self-destructing, but survived. Brevon didn't break Lilac's spirit; he didn't even do any of the heavy lifting so Neera could do it. He unquestionably failed at that, only to be shown up by his own engineering corps. quote:The fact that Neera and the Magister now believe her validates everything Lilac had tried to do up to that point. Metaphorically, it's the tiniest glimmer of hope that Lilac needs to survive the Crisis and regain the will to carry on This bit is mostly on point. quote:Dr. Buttass, I know the scene makes you uncomfortable, and that's okay. I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong for feeling the way you do about it, and honestly, even though I don't feel the same way, I can see where you're coming from. That big ol' block of words I just vomited into the thread is just my way of looking at things, and I only hope that you find my perspective on the matter to be interesting and helpful to you. To be frank I was beginning to despair of any kind of actual discussion about this so I'm grateful for you coming along. Katsuma posted:I don't think having cute and whimsical character designs ought to prohibit a work from dealing with difficult themes or issues, or from attempting to have a degree of emotional depth. This, I 100% agree with. Example: Gravity Falls.
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Jan 23, 2016 05:56
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Katsuma posted:I don't think having cute and whimsical character designs ought to prohibit a work from dealing with difficult themes or issues, or from attempting to have a degree of emotional depth. uh, it doesn't, but the writer should at least have an awareness of nuance and that their work is going to be a little cut out for them when they decide to write about a cute fifteen year old not-sonic getting violently maimed. imo you could try to do it symbolically instead of literally, nobody wants to see that
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Jan 23, 2016 15:17
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Dr. Buttass posted:The thing I'm trying to get at is that the part where the scene is objectively bad isn't about personal reactions, it's about a bigger overall trend in our fiction that Strife agreed to participate in when he made the decision to put this in his story whether he realized he was agreeing to it or not; if it helps illustrate my point, imagine that he signed a contract without reading it. What Strife intended is a factor to consider but doesn't absolve him of responsibility. Go check out "Women In Refrigerators," it's kind of old and only focuses on comics but it's a fairly solid example of what I'm talking about. It's a list of female comics characters who were killed, raped, tortured, or otherwise significantly harmed primarily to motivate or hurt a male character. I guarantee you at least more than half the writers responsible for what's on that list had no malicious intent when they wrote the stories where those things happened; that doesn't change the fact that it's a really unfortunate trend that bears discussing (for a start, there doesn't seem to be an answering trend of men being tortured to get at women). It's such a common occurrence in fiction that "getting fridged" is used as a shorthand in discourse like we're trying to have here; Torque getting tortured to make Lilac talk would be a fundamentally different ball of third-degree burns just for rarity value alone. The question to ask here is, "why does Brevon specifically need to torture Lilac for this? Is there nothing else he could do that would upset Torque the way hurting 'his crew' does?" Well, no, Torque is kind of poorly fleshed-out and all we really know about him is that he's a Serious Hero Type who's insecure about his leadership abilities, is a skilled pilot, and doesn't much go in for idle chitchat. We don't know what he cares about besides galactic safety and the girls. He has no other emotional sore spots to dig at; he's literally just not a complex enough character to torture except in the cheapest, most lazy-writing way. When it comes to the whole "harming a woman to motivate a man" thing, I feel like for the trope to work as you've described, Torque would need to be the protagonist. But he's not; at best, he's an exposition device, there to offer framing and clarity to our heroes, and, ultimately, his reaction to what Brevon does to Lilac is inconsequential. This is Lilac's story, not Torque's, and so I view the scene primarily through the relationship between her and Brevon. In that respect, Brevon isn't doing what he's doing to get to Torque. Brevon is doing what he's doing to demonstrate how powerful and wicked he is to Lilac, because he's a giant scenery-chewing ham who loves to be evil. I don't see "a Woman in the clutches of a Man." What I see is "a Hero in the clutches of a Villain." From that perspective, gender is absolutely irrelevant, and all that horrible sexual baggage that the game really doesn't need falls into obscurity. It's like the bit at the end of Return of the Jedi, where the Emperor, our scenery-chewing megavillain, is putting the shocks on our plucky young protagonist, Luke Skywalker. I feel like the message is the same ("I am more powerful than you and you cannot stop me"), and gender matters just as much. Which is to say, not at all. Dr. Buttass posted:Every work of fiction is worthy of thoughtful critique and analysis, no matter how lovely and poorly executed. It's how we learn to make ones are are neither of those things. I super agree with this. I just said that because I was afraid goons would make fun of me. Dr. Buttass posted:This is a lot of where I'm coming from when I say Lilac being tortured (especially when it's just for kicks) brings along "a grab bag of sexual poo poo." A woman being completely at a man's mercy has a completely different flavor and implications than a man being completely at a woman's mercy; largely because there is a significant danger that the scenario will end in rape for the woman, which isn't even on the list of possibilities for the man, unless the writer is specifically making a commentary on how our culture views the rape of men. Just because Strife behaved himself, doesn't mean that putting Lilac in these circumstances wasn't extremely questionable all the same. The overall theme of my position on this whole scene (aside from "don't write scenes where you horribly torture children unless you've got a ridiculously good reason to") is "nothing happens in a vacuum." When you get right down to it, I think this the fundamental point that we disagree on. Yeah, I agree that society has had a lot of unfortunate trends and attitudes when it comes to women and gender dynamics. I see it all the time, and it upsets me too. But, in the end, I do believe that works can exist in a vacuum. A person can choose to view literature without the framing narratives that society has built up around them, and honestly, I don't feel that it's socially irresponsible to do so. One of the biggest concerns I have about letting an outside narrative inform the view of a work is that it can obscure the reality of the text. If you'll pardon the metaphor, it's kind of like looking at it through a stencil, you know? A viewer might only see the parts of the text that the stencil allows them to, and other parts that might inform the composition of the whole might be hidden from view. Yes, Brevon, who is ostensibly a man, captures and tortures Lilac, who is a woman. But said woman isn't just a plot device, there to motivate some male hero. In the context of the larger story, she's an independent person with agency and power, and through her own decisions and actions moves the story along not because of a male-provided motivation, but because she herself wants to do the right thing. In the end, I really don't think gender has to matter at all to this narrative, and that's the interpretation that I choose to go with. I don't want all the nasty unpleasantness of society's horrible baggage to taint and discolor the fiction I enjoy. I'd rather the fiction I enjoy reflect a world that's better than the one I have to live in. That being said, it's also not good to willfully blind oneself to those things that actually do carry really horrible and uncomfortable connotations, like those examples you brought up of "women getting Fridged." However, I honestly don't believe that that's the case when it comes to Freedom Planet. Dr. Buttass posted:Not quite. What breaks Lilac is the possibility that her friends, pretty much the thing that makes the world worth saving to her (Lilac is also somewhat poorly-developed and tropey, really), might be dead and she's powerless to deal with it. Lilac kept going when no one believed her, when she completely failed to stop the Stone's theft, when she got thrown in prison, when her friends abandoned her, because Brevon being a threat to the world means Brevon is a threat to her friends. When Neera shows up she's still ready to dive back in the river to try and save her friends, but she knows she can't take Neera in a fight in her condition, meaning no matter what she does at this moment, her friends are Probably Dead. She doesn't stop fighting because she sees the futility of fighting, she stops because she's got nothing to fight for anymore. That is Lilac's Crisis. This is a pretty good look at it, and raises a few things I hadn't considered. That being sad, I don't think just having her being caught in the explosion of the base going up would have really driven the point. Buildings blowing up, at least in fiction, has a tendency to be impersonal and a bit sterile, all spectacle with little emotional 'oomph.' In order for Lilac's Crisis to work, I feel like it's entirely necessary to get some face time with Brevon, to see the true extent of his evil and power and realize just what exactly she's up against, and to realize just how she comes up short. Dr. Buttass posted:To be frank I was beginning to despair of any kind of actual discussion about this so I'm grateful for you coming along. Thank you! I've really enjoyed this discussion, too.  I just hope we kept it civil enough to avoid rankling SupSuper too much. The last thing I want to do is upset anybody. Looper posted:uh, it doesn't, but the writer should at least have an awareness of nuance and that their work is going to be a little cut out for them when they decide to write about a cute fifteen year old not-sonic getting violently maimed. imo you could try to do it symbolically instead of literally, nobody wants to see that Yeah, I agree that it could have been done better. A little subtlety and restraint can go a long way. That said, there's on last thing I'd like to address: I have to admit that I had no idea that Lilac was supposed to be a teenager until you guys brought it up. Just look what's presented in the game itself: She lives on her own, she's independent, she makes her own decisions about her life and the direction she wants it to go, and is capable of making those decisions a reality under her own power. I never would have guessed that she wasn't an adult, and, narratively speaking, she's much more of an adult than, say, Luke Skywalker in A New Hope. I feel like that presentation trumps a number that the devs threw out arbitrarily just to keep with the Saturday Morning Cartoon vibe.
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Jan 24, 2016 00:52
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Someone's been reading Supermechagodzilla too much. 
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Jan 24, 2016 03:35
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Katsuma posted:In that respect, Brevon isn't doing what he's doing to get to Torque. Brevon is doing what he's doing to demonstrate how powerful and wicked he is to Lilac, because he's a giant scenery-chewing ham who loves to be evil. To be honest I would be hard-pressed to tell you exactly what Brevon is trying to accomplish here; if it was really "I'm so powerful I can completely sideline your whole existence and turn you into just some useless chick I can fridge to upset Torque" I don't think he would be commenting on her amazing drive. I think that's what Strife wanted the viewer to take away from the scene, but if so, I return to my claim that from a narrative standpoint the scene was entirely pointless. We already know Brevon is ridiculously powerful and wicked; he pranced straight into the royal palace of Shang Tsung, aka the most politically significant building in the city-state and probably exceptionally heavily guarded, apparently without anyone noticing except the king, Prince Dail, and whatever guards, clerks, and custodial staff got murdered along the way (probably like fifty people maximum, in a city-state that probably has a population of several hundred thousand at the very least). Then he murders the king and brainwashes or mind-controls the prince to claim that it was those foreign devils from Tsung Shang in order to foment a costly war that will kill thousands if not hundreds of thousands as a cover to steal the Kingdom Stone, which he might as well be stealing because his ship ran out of gas for all that we know about why Brevon was engaged in the campaign of imperial conquest that got him shot down to begin with. If you didn't watch the intro cutscene you're still told that he was being pursued for countless war crimes across the galaxy by an elite squad of intergalactic justice agents, who he killed effortlessly, except for their inexperienced leader, who he left alive apparently just loving because. For completeness' sake we also already know that Torque is insecure about his leadership abilities and feels guilty over the death of his previous crew, and that Lilac is selfless but rash and gives slightly less than a quarter of a poo poo about the consequences she'll suffer as long as it means she leaves the world a better place for the people she cares about. If we're supposed to understand that torturing a literal child is some hitherto-unprecedented level of evil Brevon has thus far shied away from the game doesn't do a great job of showing it, nothing about the scene really gives any indication this scenario is at all unique to Brevon aside from the epic scale of Lilac's resolve. quote:When you get right down to it, I think this the fundamental point that we disagree on. Yeah, I agree that society has had a lot of unfortunate trends and attitudes when it comes to women and gender dynamics. I see it all the time, and it upsets me too. But, in the end, I do believe that works can exist in a vacuum. A person can choose to view literature without the framing narratives that society has built up around them, and honestly, I don't feel that it's socially irresponsible to do so. See, two points. First, I don't say "nothing exists in a vacuum" as a matter of opinion, it's a statement of fact. It's kind of like gravity; it exists whether or not you choose to acknowledge it. Second, I think it kind of is irresponsible, because if you ignore them, you can't talk about what's wrong with them, and how this particular work may or may not be contributing to it, and how to do better in the future. There's a DVD collection of Looney Tunes cartoons floating around out there that starts with a disclaimer that says something like, "Hey guys, listen, there's some really racist poo poo in some of these cartoons. Even though no one thought so when they made them, it was super wrong and it's still super wrong now and it's probably going to be kind of uncomfortable to watch at times. But if we censored them or changed them that's basically the same as saying it didn't happen and that's even worse. So enjoy, but with care, okay?" It's okay to like a piece of fiction that fucks up because authors are human and humans gently caress up. You just have a responsibility to acknowledge that it hosed up and encourage the author to do better next time. quote:This is a pretty good look at it, and raises a few things I hadn't considered. That being sad, I don't think just having her being caught in the explosion of the base going up would have really driven the point. Buildings blowing up, at least in fiction, has a tendency to be impersonal and a bit sterile, all spectacle with little emotional 'oomph.' In order for Lilac's Crisis to work, I feel like it's entirely necessary to get some face time with Brevon, to see the true extent of his evil and power and realize just what exactly she's up against, and to realize just how she comes up short. Well, yeah, if that's the only thing that happens here then it's going to be a little bit Michael Bay. I'm not saying it should be "level ends, base explodes, Lilac survives but flips her poo poo." We can and should still have a scene where Lilac confronts Brevon and gets a personal, up-close taste of exactly the kind of guy she's dealing with. It's just that, like I already went to some pains to point out, the actual torture itself serves no narrative purpose except to make sure Lilac's physical condition is hosed up enough that she can't fight back against Neera. There's literally no reason why it has to be torture specifically that A) gives Lilac a firsthand experience of Brevon and B) wrecks her poo poo. If Brevon, say, chucks her into a prison cell, comes to gloat, maybe shows off some photos of a few planets he's turned into pirogi filling, and, if we want to give him an extra dimension of cruelty, how about the other cells have corpses in them, of people who died in apparently unusual ways; say, one who starved to death with a plate of now-rotten food just out of their reach, things like that. Now, instead of forcing the audience to watch you torture, again, a Literal Child, and write it badly at that, you give the audience just enough information that their imagination fills in the gaps, and it's probably better than whatever you came up with anyway. Then, the gang can bust Lilac out, the base explodes, grievously injuring Lilac, befuddling scene featuring political officials willing to let uncooperative children die of their wounds continues as normal. quote:That said, there's on last thing I'd like to address: I have to admit that I had no idea that Lilac was supposed to be a teenager until you guys brought it up. Just look what's presented in the game itself: She lives on her own, she's independent, she makes her own decisions about her life and the direction she wants it to go, and is capable of making those decisions a reality under her own power. I never would have guessed that she wasn't an adult, and, narratively speaking, she's much more of an adult than, say, Luke Skywalker in A New Hope. I mean, "she's very mature for her age" is also a pretty commonly used defense for dating teenagers, and...let's just not even go there, yeah? Lots of fifteen-year-olds really are ridiculously mature and that 100% fails to change the fact that they're still fifteen. Remember that Carol literally says "we're just kids" in the cutscene before Thermal Base, this wasn't just some random number, this was an actual plot point, however poorly communicated. Strife wants you to know this fact; I don't think he intended to remind us of it immediately before the point where it would add an extra layer of skeeve to the proceedings, his timing was just spectacularly bad. I don't fully believe in Death of the Author in any case; interpreting a work differently than the author is entirely valid but the author's own interpretation is still important, especially when you're discussing how they hosed up, because some of them didn't "gently caress up" if you get my drift.
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Jan 24, 2016 07:26
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SirPhoebos posted:Someone's been reading Supermechagodzilla too much. smg is a good poster and discouraging critical analysis of even bad media is for lame nerd losers you do reserve the right to roll your eyes tho
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Jan 24, 2016 16:55
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Remember when Sonic levels were limited to 10 minutes?  
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Feb 1, 2016 11:43
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SupSuper posted:Remember when Sonic levels were limited to 10 minutes? yeah I also remember it making Sandopolis a loving nightmare Ribbing aside, Battle Glacier kinda is too long and is probably my least favourite level in this game. Not because it's too long, mind you, but because it's just poo poo level gimmick after poo poo level gimmick coupled with an incredible visual clusterfuck of enemies and moving poo poo. Makes it hard to read what the hell is going on. Then you've got the midboss who is going to poo poo down your throat a few times on a casual playthrough most likely, and then you have Dail who is agonisingly slow to fight as Lilac unless you know a certain trick (and you won't on your first or even fifth go because it's completely unintuitive and probably not even intentional?) and it's all culminates in a pretty sharp difficulty spike that then immediately levels out for the last 4 stage. It bugs me even more because the rest of the game has level design I would consider to be extremely high-quality but it feels like they just forgot what the gently caress when making Battle Glacier. Not a fan.
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Feb 1, 2016 13:59
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Attention, people who click on "Story": I don't ever want to meet any of you and you are bad people.
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Feb 1, 2016 17:36
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Great Joe posted:Attention, people who click on "Story": I don't ever want to meet any of you and you are bad people. I do, just to see where the "story" is going. Even I was impressed (relatively speaking) by using the previous level's boss like that when dealing with the two armies. A moment of (relatively) brilliant plotting - why is the rest so mediocre? Couldn't finish the gameplay video though. It just dragged on and on and on....
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Feb 1, 2016 18:03
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Great Joe posted:Attention, people who click on "Story": I don't ever want to meet any of you and you are bad people. You shouldn't judge people who can't bring themselves to look away from the trainwreck. Also everything else aside, Brevon is deliciously hammy and a pretty fun dude to have around.
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Feb 1, 2016 20:16
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Is that seriously a 10 minute cutscene? e: And a twenty minute shmup level? anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Feb 1, 2016 |
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Feb 1, 2016 20:26
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i think the next level is where i gave up. the levels just get worse and worse and are never really fun again
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Feb 1, 2016 20:28
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Still not sure why Torque is still donning his disguise.SuccinctAndPunchy posted:Ribbing aside, Battle Glacier kinda is too long and is probably my least favourite level in this game. Not because it's too long, mind you, but because it's just poo poo level gimmick after poo poo level gimmick coupled with an incredible visual clusterfuck of enemies and moving poo poo. Makes it hard to read what the hell is going on. Then you've got the midboss who is going to poo poo down your throat a few times on a casual playthrough most likely, and then you have Dail who is agonisingly slow to fight as Lilac unless you know a certain trick (and you won't on your first or even fifth go because it's completely unintuitive and probably not even intentional?) and it's all culminates in a pretty sharp difficulty spike that then immediately levels out for the last 4 stage. It bugs me even more because the rest of the game has level design I would consider to be extremely high-quality but it feels like they just forgot what the gently caress when making Battle Glacier. Not a fan.  It does set you up for what's to come though...anilEhilated posted:e: And a twenty minute shmup level? SupSuper fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Feb 1, 2016 |
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Feb 1, 2016 20:42
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corn in the bible posted:i think the next level is where i gave up. the levels just get worse and worse and are never really fun again I really like the levels after this one. 
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Feb 1, 2016 21:06
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Augus posted:I really like the levels after this one. FD1 is alright, 2 is loving dreadful, 3 is one of my favourite levels in the game to the point where I learned how to beat it fast blindfolded. 4 is a pretty good climactic level to cap the game off on. so yeah I generally agree with FD2 being the exception
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Feb 1, 2016 22:00
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Could we save FD discussion for when the FD LPs get posted? I'm looking forward to them as the stages are much shorter and action packed! Battle Glacier is, agreed, a slog, and I'm not a fan of Dail as a boss too much. It's fine the first time through, especially once you figure out that the little minions drop health, but it's not the best designed boss in the game. The miniboss is setup to give you a hell of a beatdown, though, and everyone seems to have a different strategy on how to deal with it. SupSuper's isn't the quickest, nor the most reliable, but he does seem to get the job done eventually at least. The fact that even an LPer needs to rely on Lilac's boost for invincibility frames here is pretty indicative that the boss isn't intuitive. (SupSuper did mention how difficult it is with other characters, so maybe he was just going with what was easiest?)
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Feb 2, 2016 02:28
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I'm with corn in the bible. I won't say the FDs are the worst levels I've ever played in any game ever but they didn't really capture that "I'm playing what Sonic games have been trying to be for years" feel the rest of the game had.berryjon posted:I do, just to see where the "story" is going. It comes back to the observation I made waaaaaay back near the beginning of the thread; there's evidence of competence and even occasional signs of genuine writing ability hidden in here, but aside from some stuff that was cut for time, no one actually edited the drat script, so it's all mired in dreck (and the occasional war crime). I'm occasionally tempted to meander over to the official forum and go, "Hey. Guys. Look. It's great that you're able to make a sequel, but for the love of God, set aside some cash in the budget for an editor or two."
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Feb 2, 2016 03:14
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I also thought that Battle Glacier was my least favorite level in the game, my first time through it. I warmed up to it a lot on later playthroughs, though. It really helps that the music is just so very, very good. Speaking of which, I feel like Schmup Stage is a really great piece of music, which might go a bit underappreciated considering the format of the part of the game it appears in. I'd go as far as to say it's one of my favorites, and I really can't state enough just how great of a job Woofle did on the soundtrack all around.
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Feb 2, 2016 03:42
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LiquidRain posted:The miniboss is setup to give you a hell of a beatdown, though, and everyone seems to have a different strategy on how to deal with it. SupSuper's isn't the quickest, nor the most reliable, but he does seem to get the job done eventually at least. My main issue with the other characters is they have much smaller jump attacks while the bosses love staying just out of reach of them most of the time. Then again I've always been more of a Tails person.
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Feb 2, 2016 11:20
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SupSuper posted:I am Bad At VideogamesTM
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Feb 2, 2016 12:30
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SupSuper posted:Still not sure why Torque is still donning his disguise. 
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Feb 2, 2016 22:45
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I'd be pretty worried if I saw balls with crabs on em.
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Feb 2, 2016 23:31
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The real Dark Souls starts here.
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Feb 18, 2016 11:02
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I've never seen that level before but it didn't look fun at all, c/d
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Feb 18, 2016 15:23
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Use your stupid dragon dash it makes you invincible to lasers. If you're ever spending an extended period of time not dragon dashing you are playing this game the wrong way.
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Feb 18, 2016 15:50
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Uncle Brevon wants YOU!
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Feb 18, 2016 16:36
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For real: this level didn't need to be four levels. It didn't even need to be two levels. They could have been just fine with it being one level. There's tripping at the finish line, and then there's trying to make it into a big Lifetime movie production where you inspiringly finish the race anyway. I'm pretty sure those bug things are the True Form of Brevon's minions, they've popped out of every alien you've destroyed so far. The actual enemy things you've been destroying must be like, exosuits of some kind. The little goo dudes must be privates or something, not yet experienced enough to merit an actual useful suit.
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Feb 18, 2016 21:52
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our plan didn't even involve killing anyone! that's why we brought all these loving lasers!
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Feb 18, 2016 21:56
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Dr. Buttass posted:For real: this level didn't need to be four levels. It didn't even need to be two levels. They could have been just fine with it being one level. There's tripping at the finish line, and then there's trying to make it into a big Lifetime movie production where you inspiringly finish the race anyway Eh, I just see it as doing the Wily's Fortress thing.
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Feb 18, 2016 22:03
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| # ? Apr 30, 2024 12:50 |
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Dr. Buttass posted:For real: this level didn't need to be four levels. It didn't even need to be two levels. They could have been just fine with it being one level. There's tripping at the finish line, and then there's trying to make it into a big Lifetime movie production where you inspiringly finish the race anyway IIRC it was originally planned to be entirely one level and then they split it up precisely because end to end the level was the longest and toughest in the game by far and was fatiguing the poo poo out of the people who played the game. Battle Glacier is already kind of pushing it, all of the FDs being one level would be too much.
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Feb 18, 2016 22:08
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