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Well... that was something.
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Jan 19, 2016 19:59
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Dragon Ball Bee e: also whoops I forgot that the spinny platform things from Sky Sanctuary classic were in Marble Garden rather than Sky Sanctuary back in the day. And these things seem more like the Marble Garden things than the Sky Sanctuary Classic things. Things. Paul.Power fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jan 19, 2016 |
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Jan 19, 2016 20:05
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It was after this point that I found out that Classic Mode was just the game without cutscenes. Thanks, internet. I could have used that knowledge earlier.
SirPhoebos fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jan 19, 2016 |
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Jan 19, 2016 20:47
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So yeah, go ahead and throw all semblance of tonal consistency out the window at this point. Good thing Classic Mode is still around!
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Jan 19, 2016 22:32
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The story reaching a new level of schizophrenia aside, that boss looks like it would have been vastly improved by actually having a health bar or regrowing balls that you need to destroy a finite amount of. I also just realized that I've watched the entire LP and still have no loving idea what most of those collectibles do. There are shields and, uh, blue gems that grant extra lives and red gems that restore health?
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Jan 19, 2016 22:58
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Blue for one up, red for health, everything else had its functionality patched out for being a not so good idea.
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Jan 20, 2016 01:13
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The colored spheres used to give you a shield automatically when you collected five of them. I forget what determined which shield you get, since you didn't need five of a kind; maybe it ran a dice roll on the set of five and chose whatever color was in the relevant slot. This turned out to be a particularly bad idea for game balance, so that got axed. Then they were going to be currency for the Adventure Mode-exclusive stages where you could walk around and talk to villagers and such, letting you buy more health (since it didn't automatically refill between stages) or one-ups or start the stage with a shield of your choice or what have you. However, the deadline Strife set for himself wrt releasing on Steam was coming up too soon, so those got axed. So, now they're currency for the between-stage bonus minigames instead - unless you're Torque, since apparently he uses them as ammo for his guns (getting even more ammo if the element of his weapon matches the color of the orb). I'd be surprised if they remained in Freedom Planet 2 as-is, they kind of need a serious think-over.
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Jan 20, 2016 01:35
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LiquidRain posted:Blue for one up, red for health, everything else had its functionality patched out for being a not so good idea. Furthermore, collecting blue helps meter fill faster, collecting red while full-health acts as blue, and orbs also refill meter.
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Jan 20, 2016 03:30
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Just in case we all forgot, according to Strife himself Lilac is the eldest of our heroines at the grizzled old age of 15. Even in a story where this scene wasn't ridiculously out-of-place, brutally torturing an underage girl is at best an uncomfortable and questionable narrative decision; at worst it's actively fetishistic in more than one way and speaks to some troubling inclinations on the part of the author. I really, really want to know what Strife was thinking when he wrote this scene, and the train of thought that led from there to "yes, let's put this scene in my game about teenaged cartoon animals saving the world." Except I also kind of don't. I'm also not really a fan of the trope where the villain guilt-trips the hero by saying everything bad that has happened in the story was because the hero decided that what the villain was doing was wrong and needed to be stopped. Even when they're not transparently lying like Brevon is, it gives the impression that they're five years old and can't take responsibility for their own actions, and yet the hero always falls for it. "Would he have really baked all those puppies into a pie and eaten it if I hadn't tried to stop him from robbing that pet store after I heard him telling everyone who would listen that his favorite food was puppy pie? Oh my God, am I the real monster?!"
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Jan 20, 2016 08:35
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What I want to know is why does Brevon have to have such a painful voice modulator. I understand you need to be able to tell he's THE bad guy but seriously, is every villain required by law to have a booming voice even if the actor can't pull it off convincingly?
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Jan 20, 2016 08:42
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Ultigonio posted:Furthermore, collecting blue helps meter fill faster, collecting red while full-health acts as blue, and orbs also refill meter. 
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Jan 20, 2016 10:34
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I'm going to risk making a post before I've watched the LP in order to talk about something completely different! The stage! The double boost mechanic is awesome in so many ways. It made the boss fight really interesting for me, and even though it's the encounter I'm the slowest at now it's lots of fun to boost along with the dragon. The solid black background for it was a great style choice too! The stage gets annoying sometimes (those flies!!) but stays fun throughout I think. Having only a time penalty for not opting to complete the invisible block section is a great move that fits in with the game's "don't punish the player" level design in my opinion. Music is fantastic in the second half, and the boss fight theme here is an easy favourite. Almost reminds me of Mega Man X4's Iris fight in a way.
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Jan 20, 2016 12:36
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That dragon boss is godawful, seriously
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Jan 20, 2016 15:57
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you idiot! now you're going to get the ending where meryl dies!
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Jan 20, 2016 16:06
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My associates tell me that the latest plot section was about torturing a teenager. ew
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Jan 20, 2016 16:16
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Great Joe posted:My associates tell me that the latest plot section was about torturing a teenager. I dunno why the teenager part is the most important part but yes it is about horribly torturing and disfiguring a cutesy anime furry girl for some reason. And then she heals in a magical bathtub in the next scene rendering that completely pointless so... Listen releasing your first real attempt at writing to the masses is just a really bad idea okay? corn in the bible posted:That dragon boss is godawful, seriously Yeah, I generally like the bosses but this one kinda sucks. Too much waiting, his weak points are too annoying to hit, too much reliance on boosting in order to dodge pretty much all of his attacks, it's pretty messy. Augus fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Jan 20, 2016 |
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Jan 20, 2016 20:06
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LiquidRain posted:I'm going to risk making a post before I've watched the LP in order to talk about something completely different! Oh yes, stylistically, that boss and its black background were very good. And you're right, compared to the millions of ways those vanishing blocks could have been handled (see: Sonic, Mega Man or - now I think about it, the thing they most remind me of with the "chain of them appearing and disappearing in rapid succession" - Super Meat Boy), the ones here did a nice job of being challenging without being punishing.
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Jan 20, 2016 20:59
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The disappearing blocks are indeed done quite well. They cycle quickly and are more a test of reaction time than having to memorize a puzzle, and Lilac's boost allows you to jump right back up at a later point in the section after being dropped down into the "huge gently caress-off swarm of enemies" penalty area below. Also double jumping to spin through a swarm of flies killing dozens of them feels really cool and satisfying even if you will inevitably take a hit or two doing that.
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Jan 20, 2016 21:41
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Yeah overall the level design is pretty solid and has a bunch of interesting routes and mechanics. Even the bees, they do not spawn and chase you around infinitely like in a lot of games, and Lilac's abilities work pretty well for dispatching them, specially with the spinning tops. You can even destroy the hives if you're that bothered (I think they only spawn extra enemies once). However I don't see them working with other characters, as they have much more limited attacks.
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Jan 20, 2016 22:23
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SupSuper posted:However I don't see them working with other characters, as they have much more limited attacks.
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Jan 20, 2016 22:36
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Augus posted:I dunno why the teenager part is the most important part but yes it is about horribly torturing and disfiguring a cutesy anime furry girl for some reason. And then she heals in a magical bathtub in the next scene rendering that completely pointless so... Yes, when you make your villain character brutally torture someone, you are committing them to a new level of evil and all the narrative consequences that come with that decision no matter who the victim is. But, when the victim is a woman, that brings with it all kinds of baggage regarding how writers tend to treat fictional women (Cliff's Notes: not well). Brevon's initial premise that he's doing it to motivate Torque to spill the beans is bad enough, writers use women for this all the time and half the time it's literally the only reason they're in the story to begin with; when he admits that actually he was just doing it for kicks because he reckons she can take it and keep resisting him until sometime after the body's gotten cool, that's worse, because it brings along its own issues, including a grab bag of sexual poo poo. "The teenager part" means that all that stuff I just said is being done to someone who is, in every way that matters, a literal child. It's not that it's "the most important part," so much as the straw that broke the camel's back. Strife already decided that the best version of this scene was the version that was really skeevy in a lot of ways, and then with a single detail made it even skeevier. If we wanna talk about pointless you could legit have cut the entire sequence and lost nothing except "this is whycome Lilac is in Pangu Lagoon now," which ought to be reasonably easy to replace with something more appropriate. In terms of character development it reveals nothing new about the characters; everything said or done in this scene has already been said or done or shortly will be in a much more appropriate scene (in fact, it was just the previous cutscene where Lilac had exactly the same conversation with Carol with pretty much the same result); ditto worldbuilding and backstory, which it barely touches on to begin with. It doesn't really move the plot forward either; as far as I can tell the actual torture itself is just a means to A) get Carol upset enough to make up with Lilac now so that later when they have an actual reunion scene it doesn't get bogged down with "I'm sorry" (not an issue, it wouldn't have bogged down at all if the writing was mediocre or better) and B) leave Lilac so physically wrecked that she's forced to give in to Neera without a fight (a much quicker and less creepy solution would have been Lilac getting caught in the self-destruct explosion, but surviving), incidentally contradicting the part about two minutes earlier where Brevon said Lilac was so awesome and determined that she'd keep fighting back even if she were nothing but a bloody torso on the ground. There are a few other reasons why I might leave a scene in a story when it doesn't develop characters or advance plot but pretty much none of them apply to the game overall to begin with so for brevity's sake I'll just tell you that even if they did this scene wouldn't qualify for any of them.
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Jan 21, 2016 01:39
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Paul.Power posted:You did say this was the Lilac-only level, do they appear anywhere else? If not, then no problem. They don't, iirc? So yeah, it's fine. Dr. Buttass posted:, because it brings along its own issues, including a grab bag of sexual poo poo. i am seriously hard-pressed to understand how that scene could possibly be interpreted sexually Like, the writing is incompetent but that is an extremely uncharitable interpretation of the writing and the writer.
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Jan 21, 2016 01:48
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SuccinctAndPunchy posted:They don't, iirc? So yeah, it's fine. Clearly, Brevon's voice turns him on Joking aside, that seemed like a good write up from Buttass. Speaking of straw that broke the camel's back, that's the only "good" reason I can think of for why Lilac seemed more upset the China cops showed up than when she was being tortured. Also, all these words about Brevon and everyone is distracted away from the fact they made Lilac stand before the king with chunks of her anatomy carved and fried off. Woulda been nice to give her medical treatment BEFORE you say 'yup, you were right I guess. our bad'. Section Z fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 02:00
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SuccinctAndPunchy posted:i am seriously hard-pressed to understand how that scene could possibly be interpreted sexually I don't know, man, Brevon seemed really, really into the idea of mutilating Lilac some more to see how long she'd keep going. More to the point, though: quote:Like, the writing is incompetent but that is an extremely uncharitable interpretation of the writing and the writer. People being tortured and men specifically torturing women is what you would call a "trope", which, aside from being the basic unit of exchange among our favorite community of neo-Nazi cargo cult writers, means it's a theme which recurs often enough that you can discern a pattern. That also means it brings along all the baggage attached to it whether the author meant to put it there or not; like, if you put a priest next to a small boy, there are some distinctly unpalatable associations going along with that even though the actual scene as written is completely innocent. So no, there was no material of an explicitly sexual nature in that scene (Brevon's obvious drooling aside); it just came along for the ride uninvited. It's not an uncharitable interpretation of incompetent writing, it's one of the reasons the writing is, in fact, incompetent: like a lot of plot points and narrative decisions he made throughout the game, it seems like Strife threw it in to be "mature" or "dark" or whatever without thinking about the what, the why, or the baggage attached to the trope.
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Jan 21, 2016 05:28
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actually it was bad because torture is out of place in a whimsical animal platformer
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Jan 21, 2016 05:30
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corn in the bible posted:actually it was bad because torture is out of place in a whimsical animal platformer yeah i'm going with this one
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Jan 21, 2016 07:55
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I mean, I disagree with a lot of that, but I kind of don't really want to put in the energy to contest it. I mean, I'm of the opinion that "unfortunate sexual connotations" is coming out of left field, and is something that Dr. Buttass is reading into it, and not something that was put there, either intentionally or unintentionally. Certainly, I didn't see anything sexual about it when I played the game, and I didn't think Strife had some weird hang-ups about women because of it. Still don't. Also, the darker tonal shift didn't feel as weird to me as it did to everyone else, I guess. I dunno. Maybe I just watched darker Saturday Morning Cartoons than other kids, but it just seems like even a whimsical animal platformer has room for emotional highs and lows.
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Jan 21, 2016 12:36
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Section Z posted:Also, all these words about Brevon and everyone is distracted away from the fact they made Lilac stand before the king with chunks of her anatomy carved and fried off. Woulda been nice to give her medical treatment BEFORE you say 'yup, you were right I guess. our bad'. I guess it just doesn't come as a surprise because nothing holds any weight. They love dropping drama bombs and tone shifts that just end up falling flat because not even the characters seem to be invested in them. "Oh, one of my citizens was brutally tortured by an evil alien, maybe I should show some emotion towards this. Nah, follow my orders regardless." Even if the torture scene was totally appropriate and meaningful, it's literally washed away the next scene, so what's the point.
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Jan 21, 2016 13:49
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Katsuma posted:I mean, I disagree with a lot of that, but I kind of don't really want to put in the energy to contest it. I mean, I'm of the opinion that "unfortunate sexual connotations" is coming out of left field, and is something that Dr. Buttass is reading into it, and not something that was put there, either intentionally or unintentionally. Certainly, I didn't see anything sexual about it when I played the game, and I didn't think Strife had some weird hang-ups about women because of it. Still don't. Okay, first off, whether or not Strife has weird hang-ups about women is irrelevant; our culture has weird hang-ups about women and that's what makes scenes involving the torture of women questionable. Most importantly, whether or not weird sex things are involved here is not that important. You've all kind of latched onto a single offhand comment I made as part of a larger point. Seriously, am I right in interpreting this outpouring of "women and girls getting tortured is never weird sex poo poo" as meaning you would all be totally okay with Lord Brevon horribly mutilating a teenage girl for funsies if only the tone of the story and the visual aesthetic matched up to it? I feel like I'm some kind of anomaly around here for thinking that's really ridiculously not okay for like actual moral reasons. C'mon guys. Don't be TV Tropes.
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Jan 22, 2016 06:28
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also the dialog is awful
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Jan 22, 2016 06:35
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Dr. Buttass posted:Okay, first off, whether or not Strife has weird hang-ups about women is irrelevant; our culture has weird hang-ups about women and that's what makes scenes involving the torture of women questionable. Most importantly, whether or not weird sex things are involved here is not that important. You've all kind of latched onto a single offhand comment I made as part of a larger point. Seriously, am I right in interpreting this outpouring of "women and girls getting tortured is never weird sex poo poo" as meaning you would all be totally okay with Lord Brevon horribly mutilating a teenage girl for funsies if only the tone of the story and the visual aesthetic matched up to it? I feel like I'm some kind of anomaly around here for thinking that's really ridiculously not okay for like actual moral reasons. As much as I love this game, I'm not going to hold up this scene as an example of great storytelling. It's a bit much, and as hamfisted as anything else in this game. But you are the one who specifically said that "at worst it's actively fetishistic in more than one way and speaks to some troubling inclinations on the part of the author." Also, it seems weird to make the leap from what I said ("I don't think the torture scene in Freedom Planet is some sort of weird secret fetish thing") to what you seem think I said ("It's okay to torture women and girls for funsies and it's never weird or gross in any literature it appears in"). All I'm arguing is that bad things can happen to characters in a story without it being intended to be somebody's jack-off material. 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. I will concede, however, that I did not notice Lilac's head tendril things getting ripped off the first time I played this game. All I saw was the discolored burns and stuff that were basically cartoon shorthand for "This character is injured." That's probably why the scene didn't hit me as viscerally as it did other people, and I do agree that that little detail could probably have safely been left out.
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Jan 22, 2016 14:15
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Section Z posted:Also, all these words about Brevon and everyone is distracted away from the fact they made Lilac stand before the king with chunks of her anatomy carved and fried off. Woulda been nice to give her medical treatment BEFORE you say 'yup, you were right I guess. our bad'. I also liked that the heroes were tossing out quips while trying to rescue their horrifically mutilated friend. As graphic as the scene is, it ultimately carries zero weight. SirPhoebos fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Jan 22, 2016 18:54
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That whole scene definitely comes off as juvenile in a typical "my first Serious Fiction" way, when new writers realize they can put in all that ultra-cool violence and sex that their parents get so upset about and wind up drunk on their own terrible power.
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Jan 22, 2016 19:40
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That or someone reenacting what they'd wish to do to furries. I think one thing we can all agree upon is that the entire scene is an incredibly stupid idea?
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Jan 22, 2016 19:42
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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. Yes, the bit between Thermal Base and Pangu Lagoon was poorly executed and excessive. But it's also not entirely inappropriate for the story at this point, thematically speaking, because this is the low point. Brevon torturing Lilac demonstrates that he is in control of the situation, that everything is going according to his plans, and it makes his power and villiany seem unassailable. He repels Lilac's attack on him almost effortlessly, 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), and renders her helpless. It's only thanks to the interference of her friends that she's able to survive and escape at all. 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. In fact, up to this point, much of the story has been concerned with Lilac's relative inability to change the circumstances happening around her. She tries to warn General Gong of the theft of the Kingdom Stone, and he and Neera refuse to believe her. She tries to prevent the theft of the stone herself, only to arrive seconds too late and see Spade make off with the stone. She tries to warn the Magister directly, but again, her pleas fall on deaf ears, and she and her friends are tossed in prison. So, she busts out and tries to solve the problem herself, by going after the bad guy behind everthing directly, even after her friends lose hope and abandon her along the way. And when she does, Brevon crushes her attack almost effortlessly, and makes her suffer for it. Lilac gave it her best shot, everything she had, and she failed. For the whole game, Lilac has had the clearest picture of anyone of the disaster unfolding on her world, and has tried harder than anyone to prevent it, only for all her efforts to be in vain. She escapes the Thermal Base wounded, robbed of her power by a villain, and stung with defeat. And then Neera shows up, the character who twice now has turned a deaf ear to Lilac's pleas, and it breaks her. It's the straw that breaks the camel's back, and Lilac's spirit is finally crushed. This is Lilac's Crisis, the lowest point in her story where all hope seems lost. But it's also the critical dramatic turning point. Finally, Lilac's warnings had been believed. They're willing to tackle the problem, and they can't do it without her. 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, to go on a journey of self-discovery (as literally happens in Pangu Lagoon), and regain the power that had been stripped from her and at last tackle and overcome the great evil that she's stood herself against. So, yes. In the context of bringing our protagonist to the Crisis of the story, I don't think the torture scene was out of place. Hamhandedly executed and needlessly grisly, yes. Yes it was, and there were certainly details about that I'd be more than happy to leave behind. But tonally incongruent and thematically inappropriate? I don't believe so. I think it's entirely fitting with the overall arc of the story. I don't like seeing people get tortured. But I very much do like seeing characters I love overcome their hardships and pull through. And as for Dr. Buttass's concerns regarding the moral tone and uncomfortable implications of the scene, I honestly disagree. The easiest way I can describe my perspective is to say that I think the torture scene in Freedom Planet is really no worse than the bit in The Empire Strikes Back where the bad guys torture Han Solo. The fact that Han Solo's a dude and Lilac's a girl honestly didn't make any sort of difference to me. 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. Valcione fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Jan 22, 2016 22:02
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Get ready to be made fun of a lot with such content-filled posts as "lol," "lmao," and "fuckin nerds"SupSuper posted:Clearly they would've just left her to die if she didn't accept.
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Jan 22, 2016 22:32
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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. none of this was necessary in a whimsical animal platformer and you know nothing about writing if you think this is how it's done
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Jan 22, 2016 23:22
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sonic 06 has a weird time travel multispecies romance plot and im sure its all structured fine and it makes sense but it is still awful because theres no reason for any of that to be in there, there is no point, there's nothing
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Jan 22, 2016 23:23
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corn in the bible posted:none of this was necessary in a whimsical animal platformer and you know nothing about writing if you think this is how it's done 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." It's fine if you don't like it, though.
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Jan 22, 2016 23:35
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| # ? May 17, 2024 20:06 |
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corn in the bible posted:sonic 06 has a weird time travel multispecies romance plot and im sure its all structured fine and it makes sense
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Jan 22, 2016 23:48
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