I'm my original character Blonic! Let's Play Freedom Planet

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > I'm my original character Blonic! Let's Play Freedom Planet

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

Space Bat posted:

What part was that? I think my friend who beat the game mentioned something like that but I don't remember.

If I had to guess, it's the part where the villain electric-tortures one of the heroes in front of another one to test their resolves. It's pretty messed up.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2015 21:05

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 05:23

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

SupSuper posted:

I challenge you to figure out what the third character is without looking it up.

Dog. Specifically, basset hound. I think this is only stated in-game once (said character proclaims "I'm a super-dog!" at the end of a certain level), so the mistake is very easy to make.

The original artist, Ziyo-Ling, got so many people mistaking that third character for the wrong species that they wound up making another character (who looked fairly similar but was male instead of female) that was the mistaken species. (The resulting character is not in Freedom Planet.)

Dr. Buttass posted:

Supposedly the missing characters (with missing cutscenes for the third character) are supposed to be DLC at some point in the future. They were kickstarter stretch goals rather than being planned in from the get-go. Yacht Club these guys ain't though, so we'll see if that actually ends up being a thing that happens.

For what it's worth, they've been going around to various cons showing off Torque's gameplay, and Strife's tweeted suggesting that the third character's story mode should just come out sooner than later, despite originally planning to hold it for the update with the other two characters' story modes.

Although as somebody who was an alpha tester for the game, I'm mildly annoyed that various con-goers can play as Torque, but us Kickstarter backers haven't been able to, as yet. (We were able to play as Spade, though.)

# ¿ Sep 22, 2015 17:31

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

There's a lot that didn't make it into the game.

The cutscenes were the last thing worked on in the game. Fortunately, that means the important part (the gameplay) was where the focus was placed, which was a wise decision - but it also meant that Strife was racing against the clock to implement the cutscenes before Valve expected him to release the game on Steam as he'd promised.

This led to an uneven narrative - it's too heavy on exposition at the beginning (there's supposed to be a stage between Relic Maze and Fortune Night - originally "Rage Ravine" but presently planned to be called "Cedar Point" (yes, it's still planned to be made) - that'd break up the otherwise roughly fifteen minute plot dump there) but too light on it at the end (there's supposed to be this plot thread going on in the final level where all the heroes you're not playing get incapacitated or otherwise tied up, making you the only one still capable of taking on the final boss, but almost all of that got cut for time - although it admittedly works rather well as-is).

It also meant that we couldn't comment on any potential plotholes until it was too late to fix them. For instance, the opening cutscene in Lilac/Carol's story modes originally had them talking about how it'd be "the best charge-up ever" - but while us testers were privy to that meaning "annual fetching of energy from the Kingdom Stone so we can power our refrigerator for the next year", the game didn't actually say as much, so that line had to be cut lest things confuse players. There's also Lilac's comment that Carol and the third character agree on something, yet no cutscene had ever shown them disagreeing up to that point.

Also, the cutscenes for the third character were barely implemented at all, hence why she's only playable in Classic Mode. Sounds like that might be changing sooner than later, but hell if I know what the release schedule for that's going to be - the Wii U version apparently takes precedence.

Adventure Mode was supposed to have little hub worlds in-between stages to break up the plot dumps, let you interact with townsfolk, heal up (your health originally carried over from stage to stage) and so forth. Only one ever got made (Lilac's treehouse) before this was dropped for time constraints.

For what it's worth, Strife's admitted the whole game was a hell of a humbling learning experience - that it became very obvious he shot too high with this one, and that any sequels would scale the plot back considerably. That's for the best, honestly.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2015 17:37

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

Yeah, I hope I'm not coming across as hating the game with all these walls of criticism. Friggin' love the game.

I just wish the parts of it that clearly needed work were better. But, well, it's the guy's first commercial project, and poo poo happens. Better it happen to the plot than the gameplay.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2015 20:57

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

Maple Leaf posted:

I'll echo that the gameplay is great and fun, but the one thing I hate is how punishing it is to your momentum when you don't have your special meter. It'd make sense if the game was inherently competitive, like a racing game, but it's not - I want to run fast, but because I used my special meter to run straight into a wall, now I have to wait for six seconds before I can run fast again. Sonic 1 had this same problem, but they fixed that in Sonic 2 by introducing the Spin Dash, which required nothing beyond a direction and an input to use. "Wise men learn from others mistakes," and all that.

For me, Carol was more interesting to play as than Lilac because, although she didn't have a high top speed, she, like the Spin Dash, could get to it with just a button press. And the motorcycle was a well-implemented idea because not only did it have a high top speed, and not only did it have a Spin Dash (that used meter, but unlike Lilac, it didn't use it all at once), and not only did it have more mobility options than any other character, but it gave me an incentive to play the game well. If I didn't, I lost the bike, and now I'm back to being slow and lame. It rewarded me for exploring and for playing the game well, without punishing me to the point of making the game boring just because I pancaked into a wall in a game where you can't clearly see where you're going.

That said, I also enjoyed playing as the third character despite her mobility shortcomings, because she played so totally different it was essentially an entirely different game.

Funnily enough, that third character is apparently the fastest to speedrun, if you can come to terms with her quirks.

I imagine this is mostly because she doesn't fight some bosses the other two do (particularly in the endgame), but she can get some pretty nifty speed through use of her Phantom Block recoil (it's like G-rated rocket jumping), and her DPS is apparently higher than the others to compensate for how comparatively slow she attacks in general. And, hey, no Special Meter to worry about, either.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2015 05:19

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

So, that Wii U version I kept saying I had no idea when it'd be coming out? Comes out Thursday in North America, apparently. Not in Europe, though, apparently they've a few more hoops to jump through for them.

Spiritus Nox posted:

I also feel like leaning too heavily on the "Sonic Fanart" comparison kind of does the game a disservice, since that implies a kind of sexualization or outright furry porn that isn't there at all.

Honestly, the only real sexualization angle I can fathom is the boobs-and-butts poses that Gashi-Gashi kept pushing in his art for the games, particularly where Lilac is concerned. Or maybe you have a paw fetish and Milla going barefoot titillates you, hell if I know or care to judge. (...much.)

# ¿ Sep 30, 2015 00:19

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

mycot posted:

Nobody remembers Spyro the Dragon.

I remember Spyro the Dragon. Probably the best offering the collectathon platformer subgenre ever had.

Although I've only ever played the three PS1 games, and kind of intend to keep it that way.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2015 06:26

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

Maybe? I dunno, the comparison that I was thinking of writing that was Banjo-Kazooie, which isn't as far off the deep end as Tooie or especially DK64, but still pretty big. I feel Spyro favors comparably to that, since the levels are smaller and more focused, so you can relatively easily find everything that needs finding in one pass instead of wasting an hour or two combing the stage for that last damned music note.

Although the latter games of the PS1 trilogy got quite bloated with those playable sidekicks and minigames. Bleh.

The collecting in Mario games didn't really feel like the focus to the same extent - other than Power Stars/Shine Sprites, but those are more like the goal posts for various usually-mutually-exclusive obstacle courses in the level than something you're grabbing along the way while you give the level a once-over. (Less so in Mario 64, where you'll cover a lot of the same ground going after the different stars and can often do the stars out of order as a result; much, much more so in Galaxy, where the paths to each star are significantly more divergent.)

# ¿ Oct 1, 2015 07:03

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

For what it's worth, the voice clips for the unimplemented cutscenes are all present in the game's data folder as OGG files just lying there for you to take a listen, so you can get a clearer idea of what, exactly, got cut.

Oh, and the game's out on Wii U now, so I guess they can get back to working on the DLC full-time.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2015 22:32

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

SuccinctAndPunchy posted:

That stage even has its music straight up on the official soundtrack. I think it was even sort of playable on really old builds of the game? I can't find it digging through on newer versions so I presume it got cut fairly early on the development cycle.

Having had access to every really old build of the game, it was never playable in any of them.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2015 05:15

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

I may have mentioned this already, but that cooties scene was actually supposed to go on for a fair bit longer while they discussed their former families. Carol's thinking about her sister, Milla's looking for her lost parents, Lilac and Carol adopt Milla as their foster sister, hearfelt poo poo.

Strife thought mentioning Carol's sister but never referring to her again would be a plothole of some sort, so he cut it off at the cooties line for time... which frankly makes the scene even more superfluous than it was to begin with. I did ask him to include the rest in Milla's version of the scene, since it applies more to her than the other two, but hell if I know if that'll happen.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2015 16:54

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

anilEhilated posted:

16 minute cutscene in a 2D platformer? That's some Kojima poo poo right there. It really makes me wonder how self-aware the devs were about it: on one hand, there's the skip cutscene option, on the other, someone obviously spent a lot of time on that script.
"Robots and aliens aren't gonna slow a dragon down!" is basically this game in a nutshell, it's a 10 year old's dream come true.

Somewhat self-aware, since that's actually a (very, very slightly) condensed version, and as noted, there was supposed to be a short stage in the middle of it.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2015 17:25

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

mycot posted:

The other day there was an update for this game. Turns out the Torque DLC (who's supposed to play as a walking Gunstar Heroes homage) now has a release date for December.

Also Milla's story, which, at the very least, would answer just where the hell Aqua Tunnel is supposed to go.

I've seen several people suggest it's after Sky Battalion and before Jade Creek, which sort of makes sense given the background graphics for one of the cutscenes in-between those stages look pretty similar to Aqua Tunnel's, and the plot has Milla running off to do something off-screen - but then, the stage is laid out like a tutorial for Milla, which wouldn't make sense four stages into the game.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2015 20:34

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

I never really had that much trouble with it, given their color-coding. Red protects you from fire, blue lets you breath underwater, yellow attracts gems, green attracts life petals, white lets you walk on spikes like it weren't nuthin'. They have slightly more quirks than that, but those are the important ones. It's basically just a matter of remembering that the first three are roughly S3&K analogues, and that there's two new ones on top of those.

Took me a while to learn what the white one even did, though; getting a shield and then throwing yourself at spikes is somewhat counter-intuitive. At least the green shield showed up early in the game and the item it attracts is commonplace enough that stumbling into its usage is easy.

Incidentally, this game is the next IndieBox title, and there's still roughly eleven hours to sign up.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 18:50

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

Let's see, you're up to Jade Creek? Okay, so to recap everything so far:

Alien warlord Brevon crash-lands on Avalice. A few days later, another alien crash-lands after the warlord. This latter alien, Torque, is found by Lilac/Carol, and tells them the Kingdom Stone is about to be captured. (Dragon Valley)
Lilac/Carol rush over to its shrine, and what do you know, it is captured. They meet Milla (after she saves Carol's life), and have a bonding session that doesn't advance plot much. (Relic Maze)
Torque's cover from the girls is blown, so he explains everything about his mission against Lord Brevon. Shang Tu (henceforth "Sky Country") is concerned about the theft, and hires the girls to intercept it at Shang Mu (henceforth "City Country"). They fly to City Country on a plane owned by Sky Country and get attacked by the snake Serpentine, piloting various mechs. This distracts them long enough to allow Shuigang (henceforth "Water Country") to steal the Kingdom Stone from City Country - using the same thief, no less. (Fortune Night)
Mayor Zao of City Country basically admits to hiring the thief to steal the Kingdom Stone. After treating the heroes to a big dinner, he gives them an airship to head to Sky Country to explain the Stone's further kidnapping. Except, as it turns out, Zao sent them directly after the Water Country airships that were hauling the Stone off instead of to Sky Country; three of Water Country's escort ships attack the heroes' ship, causing it to crash into the river. (Sky Battalion)
The heroes take their broken airship downriver to Sky Country to explain what's going on, anyway. Unfortunately, one of Sky Country's officials, Neera Li, doesn't buy their story about aliens, and orders them held pending review of the evidence they brought to support their claims (metal from one of the mechs). Milla tries to break out, but Neera catches her before she can get far. (Aqua Tunnel, I think?)
Lilac falsely confesses to Neera's suspicions so Torque can go free; then all three break free somehow (who knows). Fleeing Sky Country as Neera tries to recapture them, the girls arrive to find Brevon capturing Torque. Serpentine further distracts them as Brevon escapes. Now fugitives, and without the leadership of the only guy who actually has any idea what Brevon's doing, Lilac and Carol snap at each other out of stress and split up. (Jade Creek)

...I'm not the best at skipping over unnecessary details myself, but that seems like a decent Cliff Notes version of everything up to the most recent video (and maybe a little bit of the next; I actually haven't watched to see where the cutoff point was).

# ¿ Dec 13, 2015 07:25

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

About all I remember is that they're thieves and assassins. The former you get to see with Spade stealing the Kingdom Stone; the latter is more of an informed ability.

I know there was a line about Carol missing her sister that was cut from the cooties scene. Maybe her sister was a Red Scarf too and didn't defect? (I sincerely doubt it, but it's not like Carol's sister ever shows up in the plot to confirm or disconfirm this - that's why the line was cut, in fact.)

# ¿ Dec 21, 2015 04:44

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

Honestly, the game always felt like a Mega Man Zero game with Sonic physics (or at least Zero in Mega Man X4), so that isn't a huge complaint on my end.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2016 05:51

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

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.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2016 01:35

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

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

It really doesn't. There's even a causality loop present in it, that's how much attention they paid to their writing.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2016 23:48

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 05:23

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

Yeah, I can't agree that FD should've been cut down to a single stage. Every single one is among the most memorable stages in the entire game. If anything, the other stages of the game should've been broken up as well as FD was (which, going by how FP2 is apparently being designed - broken up into smaller stages - is exactly the plan going forward).

Well, okay, I don't remember too much about FD3, beyond big circles and that :stare:

bossfight. But I still wouldn't have cut it.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2016 17:37

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