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 Welcome to my new Let's Play, of the PS2 game based on the movie, The Spiderwick Chronicles What is this Game? The game follows the plot of the 10-year old adventure movie Spiderwick Chronicles, in which a woman moves into a newly inherited home to get away from a bad breakup with her children's father. You play as 4 characters over the course of the game: Twins Jared and Simon, their sister Mallory, and Thimbletack the Brownie, as they explore the area around the Spiderwick Estate and learn more about the magical world that exists alongside their natural world. There are a variety of colourful creatures and characters and the world has a very distinct feel that made me fall in love with the game. Why LP it? This game doesn't just retell the movie, it expands on it in every way - the locations are fleshed out and there are a lot of creatures to learn about that help add a little history to the areas of the wood. There are a lot of upgrades to seek out, and some amusing minigames and also some neat transport options, and while the world is small it feels very full of stuff so is a pleasure to explore. Format of the LP I will be fully exploring this game and intending to get 100% of the things done that can be done. The field guide will be completed with every creature logged and every fairy caught, and the game world will be a better place for it. But lets not get ahead of ourselves. I'm going to lay down a basic ground rule - DO NOT POST SPOILERS IN THIS THREAD. A lot of people haven't seen the movie and will not know where the plot goes, and there are some nice surprises. This goes for plot and gameplay spoilers - let the videos show it first. Videos: Part 1: - Introducing the House Part 2 - Introducing Thimbletack, as he gives to us things we lack! Part 3 - The End of the Beginning Part 4 - The Forest Proper Part 5 - Simon's Quest Part 6 - Faries and Farenheit Part 7 - Sidequests in The Deep Woods Part 8 - The Tunnels Part 9 - Thimbletack's Remaining Errands Part 10 - Raiding the Quarry Part 11 - Rounding up most of the Sidequests. Part 12 - Final Boss Part 13 - 100% Complete Arthur's Completed Journal BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Aug 2, 2018 |
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May 13, 2018 14:36
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*Reserved Post*
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May 13, 2018 15:56
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I remember being really impressed with the level of world-building and interesting details in the books, though I never saw the film. I wonder if this game takes up some of the book details that the film had to cut out...
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May 13, 2018 16:53
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dude you are kicking my rear end in the analytical/informative commentary department, you've really become more eloquent quickly also the wooden bat's description was loving hilarious to me
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May 14, 2018 17:05
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This reminds me a lot of the game based off of game based on the A Series of Unfortunate Events movie with Jim Carrey as Olaf. It's around the same era so it has a similar visual feel; and just like this the game had a lot more time to breathe and explore the settings than the movie did.
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May 15, 2018 07:01
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Part 2 - Introducing Thimbletack, as he gives to us things we lack! We check the walls but on our approaches, we are beset by countless roaches!
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May 19, 2018 11:59
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I don't know how far ahead you've recorded, but in my opinion the music volume is a bit too high. It was especially evident during the Thimbletack section but in general it does drown out the rest of the game audio a bit.
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May 19, 2018 12:35
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I haven't recorded part 3 yet so thanks, I'll try to find the in-game option to turn the music down a bit.
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May 19, 2018 13:19
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Part 3's cutscene may have erred on the side of too loud, but I didn't realise how powerful audacity's boosting tool was and didn't want to boost the entire audio track. Part 3 - The End of the Beginning We finally start truly exploring and find a major set of mechanics, my personal favourite aspect of this game.
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May 24, 2018 06:44
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Looking forward to another staggeringly obscure game.
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May 24, 2018 06:50
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Part 4 - The Forest Proper I have trouble working out how to say it in the latest video so I'll elaborate: the world of the Spiderwick game made me realise how curated a game world normally is compared to how natural the world of Spiderwick feels. For example Ocarina Of Time's Hyrule Field - it's supposed to be a wildland, the meadow between all civilization, the one place barely touched - but while there is a clear path, which makes sense as the main thoroughfare, it's not a complete one, and considering how even the grass is in height, it feels like someone is mowing the entire field each day, but not bothering to maintain the paths, which results in it feeling very "gamey", very "Trying to be natural but you know it really isn't" - you can see the velvet ropes on the sides of the attraction. However Spiderwick is carefully laid out, certainly, but it is also incredibly wild and overgrown. It feels untouched, like an actual forest even though the ease of navigating it gives it away. It has a kind of heightened reality as it feels realistically neglected, but simultaneously it feels comfortable because you always know exactly where you are within that realistic setting. It's a hard thing to get across. In summary: It's like it's a real place, but an idealised version of it.
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Jun 1, 2018 20:24
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Interestingly enough, Thimbletack becoming a boggart is based on actual mythology as some helpful household sprites such as brownies are believed to turn into malevolent boggarts if offended or ill-treated. it's also interesting that while Thimbletack speaks in rhyme as a brownie, he doesn't do it as a boggart. Chimera-gui fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Jun 1, 2018 |
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Jun 1, 2018 21:43
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Just so you know, it's pronounced "cockatriss" 
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Jun 2, 2018 07:02
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Part 5 - Simon's Quest We finally see why Simon is my personal favourite character in the game, after a few minutes of being a bit annoyed with him. An awful lot happens in this part!
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Jun 7, 2018 07:13
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This fairy mechanic is absurd, whoever made the game clearly missed the memo that collectibles are supposed to be bland, useless, and not incentivize the player to collect them through gameplay variety or unique rewards
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Jun 9, 2018 09:45
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Part 6 - Faries and Farenheit In which we put the plot on hold for 20 minutes to do SIDEQUESTS! Then get back on track. Interesting things happen today, including a mini-boss.
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Jun 17, 2018 14:20
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But... phoenixes don't lay eggs. They're reborn out of the ashes of their past life.
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Jun 18, 2018 05:07
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fractalairduct posted:But... phoenixes don't lay eggs. They're reborn out of the ashes of their past life. They do both, that's how you get more than one pheonix.
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Jun 18, 2018 06:01
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I appreciate these kids' willingness to cut the Lovecraftian knot in the traditional manner, even if ultimately it didn't work. That is one potent book.
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Jun 24, 2018 22:30
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I think I bought this for the PC for around 5 bucks from the bargain bin when I was around 10 or something. It corrupted and gave me all sorts of glitches and graphical artifacts though so I never got through it. Interesting to see how it holds up today. Can I make a suggestion to turn up the brightness/gamma for the game a bit? It's a little hard to see some of the details on my monitor.
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Jun 25, 2018 03:16
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Part 7 - Sidequests in The Deep Woods We do some optional stuff but it's very nice to get it done because of the reward we get. On top of that, we see a new area and explore it fairly thoroughly, despite me missing a couple of things that I'll need to go back for later. We also find my personal favourite fairy. I never use it, but it's cool that it's there. Also Aesculus, I will try to bump the brightness for the next video without blowing it out completely.
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Jul 1, 2018 20:04
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Just figured I'd update you as it's been a couple of weeks - I've recorded and edited the next part, it's not going to take much longer. Just to let you all know I'll try to bump the brightness a tad, but not too much as it seems to only be Aesculus who is having the issues seeing it and I don't want to blow it out for everyone else.
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Jul 17, 2018 22:38
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Part 8 - The Tunnels This part has a really cute puzzle that makes interesting use of the fairy mechanic and I like that.
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Jul 19, 2018 06:35
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BioEnchanted posted:Part 8 - The Tunnels so are there more puzzles like that later?
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Jul 19, 2018 09:39
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Unfortunately no, that's the only puzzle like that in the game, which is a shame.
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Jul 19, 2018 19:01
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BioEnchanted posted:Unfortunately no, that's the only puzzle like that in the game, which is a shame. That's weird. Why would they only try it once? It seems like the game was meant for it.
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Jul 20, 2018 00:03
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GamesAreSupernice posted:That's weird. Why would they only try it once? It seems like the game was meant for it. Because honestly there’s not much of the story actually left. The movie already truncated the books somewhat heavily and the game is only slightly better.
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Jul 20, 2018 02:20
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Lord_Magmar posted:Because honestly there’s not much of the story actually left. The movie already truncated the books somewhat heavily and the game is only slightly better. Well, one is better than none.
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Jul 20, 2018 06:56
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Part 9 - Thimbletack's Remaining Errands In this video we find an interesting use for Thimbletack's scurry, and see some new scenery behind the walls!
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Jul 21, 2018 19:31
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Part 10 - Raiding the Quarry Today we raid the Quarry, clear out the Goblins there once and for all and retrieve our page to summon the Griffin!
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Jul 28, 2018 11:48
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BioEnchanted posted:Part 9 - Thimbletack's Remaining Errands "I need to shift my weight in the air." Whatever you need to tell yourself to make defying physics less terrifying, Thimbletack
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Jul 29, 2018 04:50
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Part 11 - Rounding up most of the Sidequests. We complete the vast majority of the sidequests! The stuff we could do but haven't yet (ie 1 fairy and 2 cockroaches) will probably come later in a heavily edited format, maybe as part of a different session.
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Jul 29, 2018 17:00
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I like how Hogsqueal is presented as a decent guy despite the fact that his species are predators.
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Jul 29, 2018 20:57
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Chimera-gui posted:I like how Hogsqueal is presented as a decent guy despite the fact that his species are predators. To be fair, so are we in a way. Can't get pissy at him for eating a robin while we are chowing down on a burger.
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Jul 29, 2018 21:01
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That doesn't stop predatory animals in fiction from being caste as villains. Even in settings with predators as protagonists like Lion King, you get hyenas, jackels, vultures, cobras, and crocodiles as villains.
Chimera-gui fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Jul 30, 2018 |
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Jul 30, 2018 02:37
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Part 12 - Final Boss We fight the final boss, but we aren't quite done. We still have a very tiny number of sidequests to round things out, so that video will be coming soon!
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Aug 2, 2018 08:14
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Part 13 - 100% Complete The final episode of the game - we have officially done everything. This post will be edited with a link to a second video (sans-commentary) of my going through the pages of the journal to show off all the art and descriptions. Some of them are interesting Arthur's Completed Journal If anyone has any final thoughts I'd love to hear them. I'll probably do my normal thing of leaving it for a couple of weeks before requesting Archival. BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Aug 2, 2018 |
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Aug 2, 2018 21:04
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