The 3rd Birthday - The Assassination of Aya Brea by the Coward Square-Enix

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > The 3rd Birthday - The Assassination of Aya Brea by the Coward Square-Enix

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AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

NeruVolpi posted:

Is it just me or Aya does look a hell lot like remake / Crisis Core Cloud?

Well, TDI did just say that Tetsuya Nomura was the character designer.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 03:22

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 15:25

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Defiance Industries posted:

And it all came from a Japanese novel about how the only thing worse than people who provide organ transplants are the people who get them, and those people need to be punished with a raping.

Please tell me you're joking.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 23:10

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

There's a clothing damage "mechanic" that's only there for cheap fan service and affects nothing in the game at all. Yes, quite classy indeed. :ughh:

# ¿ Apr 30, 2016 00:47

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Defiance Industries posted:

This is the same company where the voice actresses were told to make their getting hit noises "more sexy." The people in charge clearly thought this would be sexy and the fact you can't see it that way just means you aren't hosed up like they are. Be proud

I'm starting to think that what might help Square-Enix be a good company again involves launching most of the current employees into a collapsing supernova and hiring new people to run every part of the company.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2016 22:07

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Cathode Raymond posted:

Your suggestion of finding a collapsing supernova is outlandishly expensive though. Maybe we could just trick them all into getting on the same submarine and sink it somewhere.

And yet, fitting because of how much money Square-Enix probably invests in making their games look pretty.

Defiance Industries posted:

You'd need to figure out what the gently caress is wrong with Japan and fix that, while you're at it.

A quagmire resulting from the modern era clashing heavily with their deep rooted historical traditions, and nobody realizing (or wanting to accept the truth) that the modern era is slowly winning the battle.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2016 22:49

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Captain Oblivious posted:

Oh no. Oh noooooo.

Yoshi-P and his team are the only sane human beings left at Square-Enix aren't they? I feel like someone should send in a rescue team to extricate them from the building.

Unless Yoko Shimomura has gone off the deep end, she should still be relatively sane. But that's mostly because she works on the music side of things, the one last thing Square-Enix has yet to truly gently caress up in their games.

# ¿ May 1, 2016 01:11

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Jetrauben posted:

And yeah, Resident Evil actually gets huge props for its cast visibly aging (albeit very gracefully).

I'd argue that the RE cast has aged somewhat realistically over a 15+ year period. Barry genuinely looks like he's in his early 50s, Chris, Jill, Claire and Leon all look like people relatively in their mid to late 30s, and we'll see how Rebecca looks in the upcoming third CGI film I've heard is apparently in production. The only outliers are Sherry, who's youthful appearance at 26 is handwaved as a side-effect of the G-Virus and Ada, who seems to buck the trend and always look beautiful despite being almost as old as Chris.

Compare that to Capcom's other big franchise, Street Fighter, where the bulk of that series occurs over a seven year period from 1992 to 1999 with very little signs of the cast aging in any capacity.

# ¿ May 1, 2016 20:46

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Byers2142 posted:

The clothing thing is awful, but what's really bad is that they've made the upgrade systems boring. Upgrades that you can reroll over and over to get the best results for were proven boring and/or broken all the way back in the Icewind Dale character creation days. Weapon upgrades that depend on RNG rolls to have them work effectively are unreliable at best and infuriating at worst. Either the game was balanced to assume the player ignored the upgrade system, or balanced to assume the player optimized when RNG means they can't control it.

I don't know which balance method is worse, boring because it's too easy or boring because it's so hard you're just hoping the RNG gods favor you this time through. But boring should not be used to describe a game series that included grenade launching handguns and Daniel loving Dollis. For anyone who doesn't want spoiled on the greatest cut scene from the first Parasite Eve game, don't follow that link, FYI.

They also seem to have set it up so that in order to get the most out of the upgrade system, you have to replay the game multiple times in order to use everything, which is also never a good idea. If it was bonus content like different outfits or extra characters/weapons/difficulty modes, that'd be understandable. I should not have actual gameplay mechanics locked off until I clear the game more than once, however.

It amazes me that Square-Enix really did genuinely think everyone would constantly replay this game and never once thought to consider the game would not go over well with people. But, that's pretty much been their company mindset for roughly the past decade: "Everyone will love our games. We do not have to worry about negative press or backlash, because it won't happen!".

# ¿ May 2, 2016 02:54

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

The Dark Id posted:

I nixed it in this update after deciding we ought to dive right in to the dress up creepshow. But hey, you know how Final Fantasy XIII hid away a lot of information about the world and what was happening, as well as background information on characters in an optional datalog codex separated from the main game? Guuuuueeess what game was a dry run for that sorta garbage?

Oh God loving damnit. :ughh:

# ¿ May 2, 2016 03:50

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

DOOP posted:

this is awful

someone save Dark Id from himself

The man has survived and 100%'d 4 games made by Taro Yoko, almost all of the Resident Evil franchise (aside from RE5 and onward plus the Damnation CGI movie), Dirge of Cerberus, Chrono Cross, and 100%'d Final Fantasy X.

He'll be fine.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 04:18

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Acne Rain posted:

Someone's imaginary girlfriend

Except Aya looks nothing like Lightning at the moment.

# ¿ May 3, 2016 01:14

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

CommissarMega posted:

Man, what if we replaced this Aya with Zero?

We'd probably get a hilariously bad game instead of a painfully agonizing game that murdered a franchise.

# ¿ May 4, 2016 01:00

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Kaboom Dragoon posted:

It's interesting to compare this to Nier. They both have otherworldly invasions overrunning the populace, only hinted at by the game unless you do further reading, but they both feel so radically different. Nier's reads like the best disaster/horror movie you'll never see and adds context for the world as we find it - it feels like a reward for investigating further. T3B, like FFXIII just feels like the devs saying 'we could've explained this in-game, but, eh', and then dropping a homework assignment on you.

What makes Nier stand out more is that it is pretty much the only game I can think of that uses this info dump method effectively. Nearly everything else either comes up short or takes the FFXIII/3rd Birthday approach that makes the method frustrating and/or harms the game more than it expands the backstory.

Perfect example of the FFXIII/T3B method harming a game: Resident Evil 6 uses the optional Serpent Emblems to hide all of its backstory behind. And in those files, you learn things like Jake becoming a mercenary partially to find his father and drag his rear end home or that President Adam Benford, prior to being elected president (and shot by Leon), was the government official that got Leon his job at the DSO. But since all of that information is hidden behind an optional target shoot collectathon, it affects the actual game for the worst. Leon's in-game motivation is "generic protagonist anger at the evil villain's plan" instead of what should be a personal motivation over having to kill the man that gave him a career post-Raccoon City. And Jake's threat of killing Chris in chapter 5 of their campaigns seems to come from out of nowhere with no explanation, when in fact Jake is angry that Chris killed Wesker and that he will never be able to confront his father for being a egotistical megalomaniac that abandoned his family.

# ¿ May 4, 2016 02:53

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Sindai posted:

There were people working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art two months after a quarter of the state was dead and a year after giant trees destroyed the city? Huh?

If they said "refugees camping at the Met trying to hide from tentacle monsters", I'd believe it a bit more. But no, they went for the stupid option and had actual museum employees working there like nothing loving happened in the past year to wipe out Manhattan. I mean, the Met has a bunch of priceless art pieces that I'd believe would be heavily protected by the staff, but anyone with a functioning brain cell would have run like sensible human beings and evacuated the city with the artwork. Hell, this is the Upper East Side of Manhattan we're talking about here, where a good number of super rich people live. They definitely would have bolted for safety almost immediately after the Babel things started sprouting up, especially since Park Avenue (where these aforementioned people usually have homes) leads to and loops around Grand Central Terminal, where the first Babel sprouted.

It's like no one on the writing staff did the "say what you are writing out loud to see if it is loving stupid" test before writing...well, everything it seems.

# ¿ May 4, 2016 04:15

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Mundetiam posted:

I thought one of their problems was that they had multiple teams (Art, Music, Modeling, Environment, etc.) with little communication between them

That's another problem that at least FFXIII had, no internal communication between dev teams until late in development. Which, if you're a big game company, should be top priority and not something that gets taken care about 75% of the way through a project. I would not be surprised if that problem extends to other games made by Square-Enix during this time (like 3rd Birthday) as well.

# ¿ May 5, 2016 22:46

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Happy Landfill posted:

That white liquid will never be explained, will it?

I think the developers went: "Everyone will immediately figure out it's some kind of harmless slime and not jump to any sexual connotations or be completely confused because we have written this scene in such a way that it cannot happen."

Except that is exactly what happened.

# ¿ May 6, 2016 02:32

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

tithin posted:

I've never read any of the drakenguard games you guys keep banging on about, what should I be reading / in what order and should I have anti-depressants on hand?

Chronologically, the Drakengard games sort of go like this: Drakengard 3-->Drakengard 1-->Drakengard 2/Nier, with Drakengard 2 spinning off from Ending A of the first game and Nier spinning off from Ending E of the first game. You can read them in any order, but Drakengard 2 and Nier will make a little more sense coming from the first game. Just understand that, with the exception of Nier, all of these games are absolutely insane and depressing, sometimes at the same time. Nier is a little more somber and grounded, but still has its fair share of soul-crushing depressing moments. I also highly recommend listening to Nier's soundtrack, as it is absolutely fantastic.

Also, be prepared for Drakengard 2's protagonist and their...attitude towards everything. Just, be prepared.

# ¿ May 7, 2016 04:56

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Canemacar posted:

I guess he had to draw with his off hand since his main was...occupied.

Given how little progress has been made on Kingdom Hearts 3 (even at the time this game was made), Nomura's main hand was definitely not occupied.

# ¿ May 8, 2016 00:58

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

The Dark Id posted:

Huh. Word apparently auto-corrected it as I went. As obviously there was NO way it could actually be that stupid a name. Fixed(...?)

I would not be surprised if his name was chosen by throwing a pair of darts at names on a wall. Unfortunately, whoever threw them had a really lovely throwing arm.

# ¿ May 9, 2016 22:10

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

I want to know what the designers were thinking when they came up with "deck patio-sized" fire escapes as something that makes architectural sense.

# ¿ May 12, 2016 22:49

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

W.T. Fits posted:

Did you see how big that club was? If that place was packed to capacity and an emergency broke out, do you think a dinky little standard-size fire escape would be up to the task of holding everyone as they trample each other to death on the way down?

The comically sized 14-foot fire exit doors should be enough to handle that since everything would be on the ground floor, thus allowing people to hop on someone's shoulders and run out. I mean, I can't recall any currently open Manhattan nightclubs that are on the 5th or 6th floor of a building, where Aya exited onto said giant fire escape.

# ¿ May 12, 2016 23:08

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Rainuwastaken posted:

Ugh, that Angry Boss archetype is so tired and unwelcome. "I'm angry all the time because I'm a hardass boss and it's what I do! I don't trust you because reasons! You're no better than the monsters, despite being....not a monster! Now let me point a gun at you threateningly despite you being our only hope."

Talk about your artificial conflict.

I'm right with you there. This archetype is just boring and overdone, and I have yet to see it pulled off in a way that doesn't involve massive amounts of eyerolling and facepalming.

I look forward to the liberties taken with this game's version of Spanish Harlem. I fully expect to see the 9 and the G trains serving the area, as well as the M6 bus line too. Or maybe they'll go all out and actually have the Second Avenue subway line complete and operational in this timeline.

# ¿ May 13, 2016 23:08

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Y-Hat posted:

So after that avalanche of bullshit, it turns out absolutely nothing of consequence happened from our mission except that some FBI agent is now magically revived and one of the crew members is magically dead, for some reason? I'm through making sense of this game. I can't for Aya's trip to "the" Spanish Harlem and its horrible design.

Speaking of Spanish, people who speak that language name their kids "German." It's pronounced "Herman."

No timeline in existence has this.

Oh, I know that won't show up. Hell, it's "supposed to be" complete this year (after what, at least 6 years of delays?), but I certainly doubt the MTA will get it done. Like, I personally will not accept that the Second Avenue line exists until I have set foot on the train cars myself.

# ¿ May 13, 2016 23:25

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

The Dark Id posted:

I could not resist.

# ¿ May 14, 2016 00:11

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

The Dark Id posted:

Here's the stupid loving shower scene. Gotta keep that off Youtube, Squeenix. Think of the children. (Mildly )

Moving onto other things, how exactly is Gabrielle appearing all over the place? Is she secretly teleporting or is Aya genuinely not noticing someone following her around the building?

# ¿ May 18, 2016 01:39

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

After reading Crowetron's LP of the first game, I could plausibly see Daniel Dollis managing to convince the NYPD top brass to build a low-orbit satellite laser. The problem is that Daniel Dollis was either erased from the timeline by Aya's time jumping shenanigans, or the Twisted locked him away so Daniel can't punch monsters to death while on fire. Thus, this version of the NYPD having a satellite laser just seems like someone on the dev team saw the similar laser weapon from Resident Evil 5 and threw it in this game because he (or she) liked that weapon. Because like the RE5 one, it makes just as little sense for the NYPD to have a satellite laser as does a pharmaceutical company.

# ¿ May 24, 2016 01:05

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

MonsieurChoc posted:

Aya, is the moon out?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgxlCRvSJLI

I would enjoy a sudden appearance of Garrod Ran and Tifa Addil to make things more interesting.

I would also enjoy Daniel Dollis punking the Frost Brothers repeatedly.

# ¿ May 24, 2016 04:31

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Glazius posted:

What the heck happened to Gabrielle? She was in a helicopter! It just had to land!

...oh, wait, right, this is a video game. Video game helicopters never land.

Unless it's the end-of-the-game escape helicopter. Those get special exemptions.

# ¿ May 25, 2016 04:41

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

On the one hand, they're getting the "member of the good guy party betrays everyone for nefarious reasons" cliche out of the way quickly.

That said, "I am going to cripple a federal organization and potentially doom the entire planet just so I can have a nicer desk and maybe a better paycheck." is perhaps one of the dumbest loving motivations for this kind of character. Maybe if they dropped a line about Owen not liking Aya due to her connection to the Twisted or any of the ideas TDI mentioned, it'd make some sense. It'd be stupid, but there'd be something resembling characterization here. But no, this is the explanation that everyone at Square-Enix from the writer to the producer thought was the best.

What the gently caress?

# ¿ May 29, 2016 00:03

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Solumin posted:

I think he does say that:

[Your backup's arrived. Now's a good time to show your true colors.]

That whole section is basically him negging Aya, it's weird.

The problem with that line is that it's so vague, Owen's tone could be interpreted one way or the other. Is he referring to various shmucks for Aya to dive into or is he talking about the Twisted? It could be a unique moment where the player is unsure of what Owen is talking about and add to the mystery, but then any hope of interesting developments get derailed by Owen's half-assed reasoning for backstabbing CTI. It's also not helped by Aya's "characterization" lending nothing to the conversation and making it all one-sided. Aya doesn't react to any of Owen's words until he reveals his betrayal, and then proceeds on almost unfazed by the reveal. It feels almost as if this was a plot point from a previous draft that got revised to a point where it just stands out like a sore thumb and loses any impact of the original concept.

# ¿ May 29, 2016 02:11

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

GeneralYeti posted:

My favorite is Jimarcus. It's like his parents were split on the first name and then decided 'Why not both?'

Or, they found former NFL quarterback J'Marcus Russell's name and thought the apostrophe was in fact part of a lowercase i.

# ¿ May 29, 2016 23:24

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

So let me get this straight:

We open the game with a NPC being dead prior to the game who helped train Aya, bring her back from the dead via timeline shenanigans (while retconning another ally to his death). Then, have her incapacitated in the present by a stupid betrayal after we save the dead guy ally in the past, while the resurrected female ally (also in the past with us somehow) mutated off-screen into the boss of this chapter. All while she was perfectly fine in the present until we erased her from all existence, and her very definitely for sure death will proceed to have no emotional impact on Aya.

:cripes:

# ¿ May 30, 2016 23:10

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

I think what infuriates me more about this revelation is how the game decided to handle the deaths. Gabrielle gets infected and we have a big boss fight that results in the ripple effect of killing her in the present. Meanwhile, Owen tries to destroy CTI and screw everything over for extremely petty and selfish reasons, and gets erased off-screen with no fanfare. But then the game compounds this by trying to make Aya sympathetic towards Owen (again, a man who tried to wipe out everyone including her) and barely acknowledging Gabrielle (someone who was somewhat friendly towards Aya and tried to build a relationship with her).

To top it off, all of this could have been fixed with the most minor amount of editing. Hell, Speedball had the best solution: have Owen get erased at the same time as Gabrielle and realize how much he hosed up. But unfortunately, whoever did script editing was too busy doing something else to actually loving bother with their job.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2016 00:48

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Nohman posted:

The gently caress kind of nickname is "Rib"?

...

They're talking about Eve, aren't they?

Add me to the list of people who missed that reference as well. :ughh:

# ¿ Jun 5, 2016 03:27

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

The Dark Id posted:

So in this version of New York:

--The 6 train and the 7 train no longer exist.
--The 3 train has apparently jumped lines from 7th Avenue to 6th Avenue and possibly merged with the Times Square--Grand Central shuttle line, given the gray color of the number.
--Also, the 6th Avenue line now connects to Grand Central Terminal and is also somehow near the Lexington Avenue line.
--Either that is a garbled B or G alongside the D train, I can't really tell.

They only did a quick search of the nearest subway lines to Grand Central and did not bother to check for accuracy, didn't they?

# ¿ Jun 7, 2016 01:48

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Oxxidation posted:

The New York subway is borderline-eldritch already, I don't blame SE too much for giving up on trying to understand it.

You'd think they'd at least get the correct subway lines for the area, not bring over subway lines that are at least several blocks away from Grand Central for no real explained reason. Like, if they threw in a comment about the Twisted distorting time and space, it'd make sense. But they don't and expect the player to take it as is without explanation.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2016 05:34

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

ACES CURE PLANES posted:

Sorry Id, looks like Squeenix still believes that Dirge of Cerberus exists. I'm so sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4Gz7BislTw

Roxas...err, I mean, Ventus' spin-off game looks way different than I was expecting.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2016 07:11

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Malachite_Dragon posted:

See, I could follow the time-stream fuckery of XIII-2 just fine.

This?

I refuse to believe someone actually read this script and approved it, Toriyama had to have bribed the editors or just straight up bypassed them.

Or, the "editors" are Toriyama's BFFs and they gave him a passing grade because friendship or something.

And yet, this betrayal has the foundation of what is clearly something that was either dropped or heavily rewritten during development. With Owen, that was just dumb petty behavior all the way down and nothing in that twist held weight. Here, there is a kernel of potential in all of this mess that could have been turned into something: Cray suffering from what looks like severe PTSD and going crazy is a lead-in for an interesting plot development and a chance to expand Cray's character. But nope, the staff on this game think that Shocking Twists For Pure Shock Value^TM is all a game needs to have a plot. Fleshed out and well-developed characters are unimportant for this development team. The option to play as a bloodied, nearly naked protagonist is the #1 top priority, however.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2016 01:16

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

Cathode Raymond posted:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

I'll admit, Cray's betrayal looks more believable compared to Owen's, if only because we've gotten to (barely) know Cray more compared to Owen. And in the hands of someone who could write, this twist could be something better. But maybe I'm just looking for this game to start being coherent and not just drop things in because someone without anyone to reign them in thought it sounded good. I'm fully expecting this wind up being something dumb like a fever dream imagined by Maeda after a night of bar hopping or something even dumber. Hell, I'll take the St. Elsewhere twist at this point.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2016 01:41

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 15:25

AradoBalanga: Jan 3, 2013

ZiegeDame posted:

You know, at this point Sin's Toxin is about the only thing that could explain how this plot happened.

I am fully prepared for the next Twisted boss to arrive in the form of a dress made from flesh belts.

But in all seriousness, how do you set up a boss fight and then just opt to have a literal giant wet fart stand in for the fight instead? That's a level of stupid I never thought possible, but apparently Square-Enix thought it sounded like a brilliant idea. I shudder in fear at how Hyde and Blank's inevitable death/corruption/fake-out boss fights will go down, because if the game really gets even dumber after this point, I can only imagine how they'll top this chapter's "ending".

# ¿ Jun 9, 2016 01:50

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > The 3rd Birthday - The Assassination of Aya Brea by the Coward Square-Enix

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