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 A Girl Solves Problems With Her Rock Hard Friend, Let's Play Primal Primal is an adventure game originally released for the PS2 in 2003 by SCE Studio Cambridge and was re-released on the Playstation Network in 2012. I'm playing the original PS2 version. The game itself tells a gothic tale of Jennifer Tate becoming a ghost in order to find her boyfriend with the help of a gargoyle buddy Scree. The notable hook of the game is that Jen will unlock the ability to transform into permutations of the denizens of the assorted worlds she visits. It's rather like Majora's Mask in that vein. Format I've originally played this game several times in my formative years and really enjoyed it. I'm going through this game again with Jakale (who watched my original play), Arcanum (beat Solum years ago), and Anoch (never heard of this game). Along the way I'll find all the collectible tarot cards (28 in total) which unlock some nifty concept art and will display the cards below. There are also bonus behind the scenes videos unlocked during normal gameplay that I'll likely make as side videos as they're unlocked. Videos will be entirely post-commentary with uncut footage. Updates should occur weekly. Spoiler Policy I feel the game went under the radar for a fair number of folks. As such I'd ask to keep discussion limited to the story as it happens. Updates Playlist EP 01: Ghost Girl Visits Solum EP 02: Ghost Girl Gets Horny In The Temple EP 03: Goat Girl Sees The Solum City EP 04: Rock Guy Learns The Ropes EP 05: Goat King Falls For A Girl Bonus EP 01: Actor Featurette EP 06: Ghost Girl Gets Wet EP 07: Fishy Female Addresses Aquis Automation EP 08: Fishy Female Says No To Crabs Bonus EP 02: The Making Of EP 09: Ghost Girl Visits Ghost France EP 10: Ghost Girl Gets An Earful EP 11: Wraith Woman Meets Prominent Figureheads EP 12: Rock Guy Rescues Hasty Heroine EP 13: Wretched Royal Samples Special Sauce Bonus EP 03: 16 Volt Interview EP 14: Rock Guy Is In the Volca Know EP 15: Torch Chick Kicks Off Spartan Conditions EP 16: Magma Matriarch Asks To Have A Heart EP 17: Molten Mountain Gets Fired Up EP 18: Rock Guy Reflects On Current Events Bonus EP: 04 Game Trailer Characters/Tarot Cards                            
Sternieliscious fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Aug 19, 2016 |
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Mar 5, 2016 20:04
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Your commentary seems to be coming only from the left channel. Is that on my end or on the video's? e: I downloaded it and am playing it mono, and wow, I agree with your pals, this looks magical! Zanzibar Ham fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Mar 5, 2016 |
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Mar 5, 2016 20:20
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I don't know if I can follow this thread but I also love Primal so much and I hope you get to share it with a lot of people.
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Mar 5, 2016 20:21
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Zanzibar Ham posted:Your commentary seems to be coming only from the left channel. Is that on my end or on the video's?
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Mar 5, 2016 21:21
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I'm terribly sorry about the audio. I''m completely deaf in one ear and hadn't known there was an issue. I'm currently working on fixing video one for re-uploading and should have the future ones running mono.
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Mar 5, 2016 22:26
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Oh you might also want to apply some ducking, dimming the audio just a smidge when you guys are speaking. Audacity has a autoduck filter you can use. Also theres some weird audio issues. I recommend you make everything in mono. I saw it once in a some gaming magazine and it looked drat good. I really wanted to play it, and it looked drat good for a 2003 game. Seriously I can't not praise this game for how good it looks. Rigged Death Trap fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Mar 6, 2016 |
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Mar 6, 2016 00:28
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Okay, The change has been made. Hopefully that'll be much better. I apologize again for the audio issue. I can't say that I've really experimented with autoducking. Would it be relevant if I have a tendency to talk over cutscenes? As for the game, it's graphically held up surprisingly well. I'm a little curious to know if the re-release for the PSN network was just a release or a graphical update as well.
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Mar 6, 2016 01:34
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The studio's next game, Ghosthunter, was pretty underwhelming compared to this. And the print quality was abysmal. I played Primal for the first time last year and absolutely loved the voice work. It's amazing, and luckily the first bonus video you unlock will be about it. Unfortunately, they added hesitation into many animations to mask loading. It's not that bad early on, but gets annoying in watery areas.
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Mar 6, 2016 19:33
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Update Number 2 is now up. Since we have more cards I'm also able to rearrange the original post accordingly. Next week should be a Friday update. As to the bonus video, it's really quite nice how it goes over the voice actors. It's something that I really wish other games did. As a matter of fact, in the era of Early Access game updates being a thing (Prison Architect, We Happy Few, Etc.) why don't we have more behind the scenes features put into games? I feel the indie space would benefit given the nature of small studio having a more personal relationship between creator and consumer.
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Mar 12, 2016 15:44
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Episode 3 is now live. Next week should update Saturday. I find myself making several comparisons throughout this LP to Dark Souls. To me this isn't surprising as I had only started playing it during the STFU run last fall and had beaten my run of the game about a month ago. I suspect that the reason for making the analysis is due to the notion that Dark Souls feels like the new de facto standard on how action gameplay operates alongside Platinum Games. The controls take a little adjusting to but the combat feels more rewarding as mastery of the game mechanics take place. Contrast that to Primal and you just have a parry move. You don't get a backstab mechanic nor a method to dodge or sidestep out of the way of an attack. There's no real point in trying to dodge since mooks magnetize attacks to your body. It's been fun to go back to Primal and see hoe gameplay has evolved.
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Mar 18, 2016 12:30
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Maybe the architecture is from several time periods?
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Mar 21, 2016 20:30
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Maybe. I'm personally leaning towards Roman styles. Seeing as how the Ferai were more in the realm of hunter-gatherers and not so much into the whole crops / livestock scene I would put them closer to early Roman times. That may explain the face on the pillar on the way to the Necropolis (still confusing) and the fact the detail on columns aren't particularly detailed. If it is Roman then I think it's cool that the designs lifted weren't really togas and Spartans but rudimentary residences instead.
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Mar 22, 2016 22:08
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Sternieliscious posted:Update Number 2 is now up. Since we have more cards I'm also able to rearrange the original post accordingly. Next week should be a Friday update. Aquaria on Steam straight up lets you rename its glyph font and substitute in an English alphabet one, if you want to see its made up language translated from the get-go. Otherwise only a couple of instances will be translated when you approach them, a-la Cold Fear or Singularity's treatments of Russian signage.
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Mar 25, 2016 22:36
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I knew nothing of any of those games and their language trickery. I'll need to ask to see if those were the games Anoch was talking about. Fun tidbits nonetheless. Another fun language tidbit would be the guys at Zachtronics who invented a nonsense alphabet and drove their fans mental trying to discern meaning from the writings in the game Infinifactory. I love it when devs mess with people like that. Update Numero Quatro is also up. I rather enjoy this one if nothing else but for the rambling that goes on in the end.
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Mar 26, 2016 16:01
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It's update number 5 and time to beat the first world. On top of that we unlock Our first bonus video and get a look at the voice actors for Jen and Scree, both known for work in television. I'm curious if this is the case for others, but it was a fun surprise to learn that one of the folks from Xena was in this game and actually sold me on making it a goal to beat the game in the first place. This game was my first introduction to enemies with counterattack moves and while initially frustrating I'm glad I stuck with the game.
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Apr 2, 2016 15:14
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Update 6 has us going to a new realm with new problems to solve. We also see a little exposition for our intrepid heroes. I find this particular world interesting from a graphical sense. The faces feel a tad shortchanged since the devs found a way to explain how characters talk in a way that conveniently makes animating lips less of a priority. I'll keep pining for our buddy the Ferai Shaman and his wonderful facial animations.
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Apr 9, 2016 15:38
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A friend of mine had this game back when I was a kid, but all I got to watch of it was that point when Scree pulls the bullshit move with the Undine Aspect. I still remembered it was going to happen, for some reason.
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Apr 10, 2016 22:21
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Yeah, Scree is pretty horrendous at being up front about things. I could understand it being a tough subject to approach with the Ferai aspect, since that's the first time and he had no way of knowing when it would come into play, but here Jen's been game enough to deal with the Ferai area and still come to the next world and here he is still being all cloak and dagger about it, even to the point of accidental suffocation. It says something about Jen that she didn't hold a grudge and still made playful banter about him crushing on the Queen.
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Apr 11, 2016 00:12
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Update 7 has us finding three sexy tarot cards while the plumb the depths of the issues in Aquis. As for Scree, he strikes me as a guy willing to use anything as a means to an end but at the same time is an agent of good. I suppose we can file him under chaotic good, then. I'm certain that there are more games with that archetype, but I can't recall them off the top of my head. Looks like I'm spending the afternoon on TV Tropes.
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Apr 16, 2016 16:22
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Update 8 has Jen and Scree wrapping up Aquis. Looks like we're halfway through. Also, bonus video 2 gives a few glimpses of the next two worlds we're going into. I debated holding off on this video until we actually got to world 4, but since the game unlocks the bonus films I'll count this as fair game.
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Apr 24, 2016 14:00
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Actually, Adaro's regen makes sense. Jen can only auto-regen in clean water, right? He's the reverse, regenerating in the poisoned water. Once you do whatever super wheel magic that pumps all the poison out and fills it with clean water, he can't regenerate health anymore and gets his poo poo kicked in.
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Apr 25, 2016 01:34
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Oh wow, Primal. I was thinking about digging my ps2 out the other day to mess about with this game, but now I don't have to! I have such mixed feelings about this game. Overall, it's not what I'd call good, but there's a lot of things about it I like. I'm looking forward to you guys doing World 3, that was always my favourite design-wise.
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Apr 25, 2016 04:52
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Derek Barona posted:Actually, Adaro's regen makes sense. Jen can only auto-regen in clean water, right? He's the reverse, regenerating in the poisoned water. Once you do whatever super wheel magic that pumps all the poison out and fills it with clean water, he can't regenerate health anymore and gets his poo poo kicked in. I can see that logic. My original impression of the poison madness was that Undine normally regenerated in clean water and went mad because they lost that ability. What if they could always regenerate, but the poisoned water is a form of sanity drain that also physiologically changes the type of water they can use as a medium?
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Apr 25, 2016 11:42
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As baffling as it is that you need Scree to climb up to the very top and insert the key (which lends credence to theory that the architecture was all done by gargoyles), how did Jen get up there as well? Maybe the fish people can hold their breaths for a really long time (as evident by the Queen's lasting 15 minutes above water) and have abnormally strong arms to lift themselves up through way too many leaders, and I guess somehow, Jen is capable of scaling Scree-only walls during cutscenes offscreen, so maybe we're not giving the fish people enough credit here.
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Apr 29, 2016 06:17
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I like to imagine that Jen is pulling off some Prince of Persia Sands of Time parkour between those two walls in order to get up. Off screen of course. Sure, we COULD go with the idea that she's packing Ferai jump moves, but that's not as fun. Update 9 has a change of landscape in world 3. Of all the worlds so far I feel this one just leaves me speechless. Suffice to say the next few updates are going to be interesting.
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Apr 30, 2016 14:58
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To be fair to the whole "Threw his soul into the nearest stone gargoyle body" thing, Scree probably didn't have much body left if he'd been tortured for a decade or two for information on Jen's whereabouts. The midget gargoyle was probably a step up.
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Apr 30, 2016 22:17
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I imagine Scree was pretty wrecked as well and the gargoyle was lucky happenstance. That said, I think it'd be funny if the thing he occupied was a little less useful. He could have his own game basically playing Ghost Trick.
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May 1, 2016 14:15
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So there were two halfling babies that were both sent to the Material World for protection; does this mean that Jen's been boinking her twin brother?
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May 3, 2016 16:40
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Well, all we know is that they're the only two that exist and Abaddon had them before Scree/Abdizur got them in the war. We don't know if they were born or magically formed and I'm not sure if we know their ages. So...maybe, maybe not.
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May 3, 2016 17:16
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Hopefully not because urgh
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May 3, 2016 18:01
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It probably wouldn't have made it past the censors if that was the case. I hope.
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May 4, 2016 00:39
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This has turned into a strange topic this week, admittedly. Even stranger is that I honestly forget if there were more details on the incest question. At any rate Update 10 gets us through the rest of the village portion and one step closer to the hopeful clarification of Jen's very awkward choice in boyfriends.
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May 7, 2016 18:08
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Edit: It's working now. Maybe some mid-processing thing? ElTipejoLoco fucked around with this message at 22:38 on May 7, 2016 |
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May 7, 2016 20:31
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No idea. I seem to be able to see it no problem.
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May 7, 2016 22:18
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Update 11 is now up and we see our way through the castle's dungeon. On the topic of dungeons, I find it interesting just how linear the game feels at times. The dungeon isn't a straight line thanks to the occasional twist and turn, but it's not a maze of corridors, locked doors, and treasure chests like a Zelda game might be. I think that in the case of a game more focused on story I can appreciate that the dungeon parts don't seem to present too much of a barrier between story elements.
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May 14, 2016 17:32
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I kinda like how shortsighted Abaddon is - without order everything becomes pure chaos, yes - but that means the laws of entropy would severely gently caress him over. With no order in the systems, everything would decay with no way to prevent it, and the world would end up basically nothing. Oops! No change? Nothing exists to change anymore as everything is dead or dispersed, as DNA fails to hold together, amongst other things? No change sounds like perfect Order. If arella dies, abaddon will eventually lose too, unless his magic can hold things together enough to leave him something to rule or he'll end up ruling over a bunch of atoms dispersed into nothing.
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May 19, 2016 08:44
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You've pretty much summed up why stories featuring good vs evil forces vying for power only get you so far. They exist as a sort of worldbuilding equivalent to the prisoner's dilemma. If both forces cooperate or are equally matched then we see balance preserved albeit with varying levels of hostility. One dominant force brings about what you describe: a winner who in the end has lost everything. It's rather fascinating to think about just how many stories out there feature the good vs bad trope and would normally bring about mutually assured destruction if not for the story's protagonist as an agent of balance. I guess Chronos is even more of a badass entity in this game than originally thought. Update 12 is now up and it's one of my favorite episodes to be certain. It really shows off what Aetha has to offer.
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May 21, 2016 17:30
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I like how the environments are getting more and more intricate, like you guys have been saying. Though what is up with the multitude of empty chests scattered around? The barrels, I could understand, since you also get the satisfaction of shattering them and getting stuff is just the bonus, but you can't even break down empty chests. On the other hand, it was nice that you can climb up the dinner table, despite being unable to knock down those chalices but I guess the physics engine wasn't invented yet at the time.
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May 26, 2016 09:29
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The environments are significantly more detailed in Aetha, but that could also be a result of its origin. Solum and Aquis are fantastical in nature without much reference for how the area should look. At best Solum is a sparse Rome in the mountains. Aetha is France and has plenty of material to refer to. Additionally the very theme of civil unrest among the commoners is nothing new to France either, hence the fantastical story of bringing down the aristocracy. I'm just amazed we went the run without using the moniker "Jen Val Jen". The chests are just mean. They might have been a product of a previous build where there were more collectibles. For all we know they could have been more energy / lodestones. There haven't really been all that many energy stones in this world when compared to previous ones. Solum was absolutely rife with them. Fun fact: The Havok engine dates as far back as 2000 and Gamebryo starts at 2001. Maybe particular items falling about weren't a thing at the time outside of Elder Scrolls, but it's cool to see where we've gone from in 16 years.
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May 26, 2016 12:03
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Update 13 sees the end of Aetha and Bonus Video 3 gets unlocked to show off the band 16 Volt. We now should have just one more world to visit before we're done.
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May 28, 2016 17:39
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