I found Order of Ecclesia to be kinda lackluster up until the climax. It then becomes excellent, for at least halfway into the final big area. Well the final boss is also pretty awesome.
Though it's arguable that that is consistent with the narrative of the game.
Haven't finished. Sunk a few hours in and never felt the need to pick it back up. Level design is also pretty bad, as is the combat. The glyph mechanic is marginally interesting but you still end up with, say, the redundancy of having both hearts and magic power. Difficulty focuses on high-damaging, high-health, boring enemies.Most of the post-Symphony games' flaws with none of the unique aesthetics or seemingly endless depth.
FWIW much of Symphony's mechanics haven't aged well but aesthetic and stuff like Familiars, Spells, and weapons with unique powers were seemingly vestigial but nonetheless were a major part of the game's appeal.
Yeah, Symphony's variety of gameplay options and features is definitely a distinctive charm to it. Even stuff like being able to look through a telescope.
There's just something about Symphony that the games since them haven't quite lived up to. And I think part of that something is how the castle came alive with all these little details. And odd level design.
As for Ecclesia, I was actually pretty underwhelmed by the game -- including but not limited to its repeat use of art assets -- for most of the wandering around the countryside. It only got good when the plot finally kicked into high gear -- at which point it proceeded to be very, very good. So I guess the payoff was worth it, but it's not something that would have been apparent had I not stuck with it.
Meanwhile, I still have Portrait sitting there, tempting me with all its completion percentages. Dracula is twiddling his thumbs and probably playing cards with Death while I'm repeatedly going through the Nest of Evil for no good reason.
Looking at Symphony's map, I just noticed a few other interesting things:
1. more variety of areas. For example, the entrance has two major hallways. The one closer to the front door has red curtains; the other doesn't. Many rooms have very unique appearances. The path from the Marble Gallery back to the Entrance has a distinctively large room, with one major enemy in the middle, and has a distinctive red coloration. The western half of the Marble Gallery has a blue background while the eastern half has a red background; the two halves of the Long Library are similarly differentiated. Olrox's Quarters have the very formal and stately section and the section with all the prison cells and torture chambers. The upper cave shaft of the Abandoned Mine is lit by torches while the lower cave shaft isn't. The elevator shaft in the Alchemy Laboratory is narrow and is something that wouldn't ever show up in any other castletroid.
Granted, there are some self-similar areas in the game, such as the Underground Caverns, Catacombs, an Alchemy Laboratory. And maybe the Colosseum. But then again the Colosseum has its own self-contained logic, being symmetrical around the main arena.
And yeah, lots of little things like the bottom of the Outer Wall and the confessional room in the Royal Chapel.
2. The save points are not right next to bosses. Save points being next to bosses is a glaring feature in some newer castletroids. Also, boss rooms are not marked by an obvious door. There are some more subtle indications, the most prominent of which is that the music stops. One of the boss rooms does actually have a unique door (Olrox's).
That said the bosses tend to be relatively easy -- which I usually say is a bad thing but could actually be seen as a good thing since it makes the adventure feel more seamless.
Compare, say, Harmony of Dissonance, because I have the maps to this game on hand.
There are two or three distinct sections of the Luminous Caverns. There's the path that leads to Golem/Talos, the path that leads to the water control and the shopkeeper, and the (submerged in one instance) path that leads to the second keyhole warp / [spoiler boss]. But these are never visually distinguished from each other. So you have to keep checking your map to make sure you've gone the right way.
Really good point actually. Jim Sterling made a point about how the Spencer Mansion was so important because it was a space players would have to become intimately familiar with to navigate and understand. SotN was quite the same. I almost never had to use the map.
Incidentally I have that same feeling about La-Mulana, which is another metroidvania that I highly praise. Most of its rooms are such that I know where I am without checking the map. (Heck, it's kinda designed to be somewhat navigable without maps since the maps are items you have to find.)
The prominent exceptions include such places as the Twin Labyrinths, with all its one-way passageways, which are pretty much designed to be a labyrinth intentionally (as befitting the name). And the map wouldn't even be helpful there -- you're better off drawing your own map. Which would be really, really in-character and immersive, despite not sounding like it, since you're playing an adventure archaeologist after all.
The map also doesn't mark off the rooms you've seen or not seen...which is probably a good thing since your character is much smaller compared to the size of the room and the number of potential different passageways and features it can contain. Instead, you end up navigating the place by landmarks and memory much of the time.
Surprisingly there have only been a couple bosses I'd call outright unfair. Mostly Lord Pumpkish, and mostly because they made him a shit-ton harder in the Steam release (the way I did the no-hit kill was 100% pure cheese, and I regret nothing). I've been able to tear most of them to shreds once I learned their patterns or identified a way to multi-hit them with Spike Hammer.
I did love the photorealistic cat boss though. Years later and it's still funny.
I also think it's kind of brilliant the way the areas were designed to be navigable without any of the navigation powerups, if painstakingly. Sure, some of them involve guard-bouncing up a long shaft of spikes, but that means they put a shaft of spikes there for exactly that purpose.
Just finished Bunny's story. Ironically, Chelsea might have been one of the more reasonable bosses as long as you came halfway prepared. I even got the achievement to kill her without dying.
They say that Kojima is leaving Konami after Metal Gear Solid 5, though it has neither been confirmed nor denied by either party. Considering that Konami's had him working on the same series for all this time, it isn't really that much of a shock.
The news doesn't bode well for that Silent Hills game they had in the pipe but seeing what he'll be able to do independently may be interesting.
Not really my kind of thing, but still disappointing news. Poor del Toro can't seem to catch a break in gaming.
Also, I know they're doing their best to give the impression that Kojima's staying with Konami, but I don't know if it's gonna last after hearing this.
Comments
It's not TERRIBLE, but it does consistently lack any charm
Though it's arguable that that is consistent with the narrative of the game.
There's just something about Symphony that the games since them haven't quite lived up to. And I think part of that something is how the castle came alive with all these little details. And odd level design.
As for Ecclesia, I was actually pretty underwhelmed by the game -- including but not limited to its repeat use of art assets -- for most of the wandering around the countryside. It only got good when the plot finally kicked into high gear -- at which point it proceeded to be very, very good. So I guess the payoff was worth it, but it's not something that would have been apparent had I not stuck with it.
Meanwhile, I still have Portrait sitting there, tempting me with all its completion percentages. Dracula is twiddling his thumbs and probably playing cards with Death while I'm repeatedly going through the Nest of Evil for no good reason.
1. more variety of areas. For example, the entrance has two major hallways. The one closer to the front door has red curtains; the other doesn't. Many rooms have very unique appearances. The path from the Marble Gallery back to the Entrance has a distinctively large room, with one major enemy in the middle, and has a distinctive red coloration. The western half of the Marble Gallery has a blue background while the eastern half has a red background; the two halves of the Long Library are similarly differentiated. Olrox's Quarters have the very formal and stately section and the section with all the prison cells and torture chambers. The upper cave shaft of the Abandoned Mine is lit by torches while the lower cave shaft isn't. The elevator shaft in the Alchemy Laboratory is narrow and is something that wouldn't ever show up in any other castletroid.
Granted, there are some self-similar areas in the game, such as the Underground Caverns, Catacombs, an Alchemy Laboratory. And maybe the Colosseum. But then again the Colosseum has its own self-contained logic, being symmetrical around the main arena.
And yeah, lots of little things like the bottom of the Outer Wall and the confessional room in the Royal Chapel.
2. The save points are not right next to bosses. Save points being next to bosses is a glaring feature in some newer castletroids. Also, boss rooms are not marked by an obvious door. There are some more subtle indications, the most prominent of which is that the music stops. One of the boss rooms does actually have a unique door (Olrox's).
That said the bosses tend to be relatively easy -- which I usually say is a bad thing but could actually be seen as a good thing since it makes the adventure feel more seamless.
There are two or three distinct sections of the Luminous Caverns. There's the path that leads to Golem/Talos, the path that leads to the water control and the shopkeeper, and the (submerged in one instance) path that leads to the second keyhole warp / [spoiler boss]. But these are never visually distinguished from each other. So you have to keep checking your map to make sure you've gone the right way.
The prominent exceptions include such places as the Twin Labyrinths, with all its one-way passageways, which are pretty much designed to be a labyrinth intentionally (as befitting the name). And the map wouldn't even be helpful there -- you're better off drawing your own map. Which would be really, really in-character and immersive, despite not sounding like it, since you're playing an adventure archaeologist after all.
The map also doesn't mark off the rooms you've seen or not seen...which is probably a good thing since your character is much smaller compared to the size of the room and the number of potential different passageways and features it can contain. Instead, you end up navigating the place by landmarks and memory much of the time.
i want to play it seriously
character creation takes long, and even longer when i get to customize appearance
kinda don't want to, in some ways, because it just does take forever
About the only generic rooms were the Labyrinth -- which was kind of the point.
well i guess NWN2 _is_ a Forgotten Realms thing. which i know like nothing about lol.
it'll take a while to read through all these descriptions.
I did love the photorealistic cat boss though. Years later and it's still funny.
I also think it's kind of brilliant the way the areas were designed to be navigable without any of the navigation powerups, if painstakingly. Sure, some of them involve guard-bouncing up a long shaft of spikes, but that means they put a shaft of spikes there for exactly that purpose.
Also NakaTeleeli has a nice LP of this game.
I finished the first part of it but don't feel like even trying the second.
alternatively: how annoying are the controls?
by my understanding i HAVE to 100% it to unlock C7D mode
And yes, I believe 100% is required.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
The controls are a bit weird, but you get used to them. Probably. I did anyway, but I also like beating my face against Ys Nightmare.
Not really my kind of thing, but still disappointing news. Poor del Toro can't seem to catch a break in gaming.
Also, I know they're doing their best to give the impression that Kojima's staying with Konami, but I don't know if it's gonna last after hearing this.
Ah well. Dude'll find a new gig in no time.
And, well, Keiji Inafune left Capcom and started his own company to start making a Mega Man game again.
So...hm...
I've done it. I've reached the pinnacle of my One Way Heroics career. Where can I even go from here but down?
Though props for jumping on the opportunity and making a Zenura run just to say that at the end. XD
Also, does it really count as a Zenura run when pirates can't cast Zenura Weave?
Wild theory: The entire game is a prequel to Demon's Souls detailing the birth of The Old One
why the hell would you make a barefisted unarmored run of a class that can't use zenura
And who the hell would do a run of dimension SAPPHISM wearing clothes, anyway?
then do a run of CLOTHED using zenura
that'll show 'em