250 hours. That's how long it took to finish Infinite Undiscovery with 1000 Achievement points. That's more time than it took to finish Oblivion AND Fallout 3, two notoriously lengthy (not to mention better) games. If there was ever any doubt that Achievements are driving me to madness, Infinite Undiscovery represents indisputable evidence.
Over the course of the week I'll be putting up some posts about the game. Mostly, I'll be talking about the NUMEROUS ways that it went wrong. Bear in mind that ID was not made by some fledgling company taking their first crack at a mainstream RPG. It was developed by Tri-Ace, the company that made the much-beloved Star Ocean series and is responsible for several other under-the-radar RPG gems, plus it was published by Square-Enix, a company best known for a little series called FINAL FANTASY...perhaps you've heard of it? With that combined track record, you'd expect them to be make a great game.
ID is not a great game. It's not even a good one. As is always the case with RPGs, it starts with the story. ID takes place in the kind of fantasy setting that makes perfect sense to Final Fantasy devotees and nobody else. It's a world where people use swords and bows to fight monsters but have magical teleporters to move from one area to another. Where towns are made up of an inn, an item shop, three little houses, and a gigantic castle in which the king lives. Where three paces away from town there are dangerous monsters just hanging out waiting to attack your characters.
In this world, the moon sprinkles magical beams (which look a lot like bright yellow rain) down on the earth. The moon magic is thus transferred to the people, with the amount of power received proportional to the phase of the moon at the time of their birth. Born under a full moon? You're going to be a mighty hero. New moon? Sorry, no magic powers for you, but can we interest you in a lifetime of prejudice and servitude?
Anyway, an evil empire has risen (because all video game empires are evil) and is siphoning away the power of the moon for themselves. To do this, they have built huge CHAINS that stretch from the surface of the planet to the moon. I have no idea how the chains steal moon power (maybe they hold it in place over the evil nation?) or how they were built in the first place, but that idea is really stupid both in terms of astronomy and practicality. Plus they just look ridiculous. The main plot thread of the game follows a group led by Sigmund, the mightiest hero in the land, that is attempting to "liberate" the moon by traveling around the world and destroying the chains.
That description makes it sound like Sigmund is our main protagonist. He's not. Enter Capell, a penniless musician who was born under a new moon. Capell is utterly unremarkable except for one bizarre coincidence...he looks EXACTLY like Sigmund. As in, they could be twins. Of course, Capell is a weakling and a coward, not a great hero like Sigmund. It should come as no big surprise that mistaken identity ensues and Capell gets dragged into the conflict against his will.
At this point, I'd like to give ID some rare praise - I liked the way they handled Capell as a character. He's your standard reluctant hero, a cowering whiner with a bit of a selfish streak. But there's two reasons why he works better than most reluctant heroes. First, he has good reason to be reluctant. After all, he's a musician, not a warrior. The first time he has to use a sword to defend himself, he holds it as one might hold a snake which may or may not be poisonous. Since he was born under a new moon, he has no powers and is portrayed as weaker than most average townspeople. When he says things like "I try to avoid trouble at all times" it seems like a pretty logical position for him to take. The other reason Capell works is that his transition from weakling to warrior is slow and believable. Even well into the second disc, Capell is unsure of himself. It takes a number of traumatic experiences to really inspire him into action. I'm sure a lot of people got tired of his whimpy attitude, but I found it more realistic than "zero to hero" in a few easy cutscenes.
SPOILERS HERE...SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T WANT THE STORY RUINED.
The big twist comes at the end of the first disc, when Sigmund falls in battle (during a very confusing cutscene) against the top bad guy from the empire . The team decides that Sigmund's death will cause people to lose hope, and they need the support of the remaining nations that oppose the empire. But hey, here's a guy that recently joined our ranks and happens to look just like Sigmund...is that a plan formulating? Capell has to pose as Sigmund and "lead" the team while anyone is watching. Despite the fact that Capell doesn't sound or act like Sigmund in any way, their plan works perfectly and every major world leader is completely fooled into thinking that he's Sigmund. As you might guess, eventually the truth comes out and Capell is forced to put his cowardly ways behind him and step forward to be the leader he never thought blah, blah, blah. The last half of the second disc is contrived and predictable, right down to the big showdown that finishes the game. SIDE NOTE: What you might NOT expect is that the final showdown occurs on the moon, which the team travels to by JOGGING UP ONE OF THE CHAINS. Good thing they weren't too tired from their little space jaunt to fight the bad guys at the top.
So to summarize, the plot to this game is both dull and rife with cliches. The whole thing really boils down to a long hike around the world to break some chains (each with requisite dungeon and boss battle) capped off by one last boss fight in an improbable locale. By RPG standards, that's not breaking any new ground. The game could work as a character-driven meditation on Capell's "coming of age", but unfortunately that doesn't work very well either. The problem is that while Capell is a pretty well-written character, the rest of the team (and there are a LOT of them) are boring, one-dimensional caricatures masquerading as a supporting cast. You've got the bossy love interest who turns out to be a princess. The swordsman with an attitude who doesn't want to follow orders. The big muscle guy who drinks and breaks things. The annoying kids who's mother thought they'd be safer with me (no child services in this world I guess). The egg-headed mage (Rachel felt bad for him because he carried a big pack with all our gear). The token female with enormous breasts. And on and on and on. Every time you get a handle on all the characters, some more show up to join the team out of nowhere. Christ, there's a big scene near the end where everyone talks about their individual motivations to fight (because apparently we're too thick to work it out by context) and I kept thinking "Who are all these people?" A note to Tri-Ace: I'd prefer four fully developed characters to a dozen half-baked ones.
So we've got an RPG with a dumb story and bad characters. Not a rousing beginning. Next time: gameplay aggravations. Hooray!
Showing posts with label plot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plot. Show all posts
Monday, February 15, 2010
Friday, November 20, 2009
Prince of Persia - Plot
Most of the time I can see pretty early where a game is headed story-wise, and it'll be abundantly clear whether I'm going to like the plot or not. But occasionally a game will surprise me. Prince of Persia is one of those games.
PoP establishes a rudimentary plot right from the word go. Within the first hour you (as the titular character) meet a mysterious woman (Elika), save her from some bad guys, observe as her father opens the seal to a dark God in an ancient temple (why do people do this...it never ends well), and escape with your lives. The rest of the game involves hunting down a bunch of McGuffins, in this case Light Seeds, and healing the various sections of the land to prevent the reincarnation of the dark god.
My first thought: LAME.
Sorry Ubisoft, but we've been down this road many times before. Preventing the re-emergence of an evil being of terrible power is a REALLY common video game trope. And in this case we get very little backstory to make the task more interesting. Where is this strange land? Why does the Prince, a wandering tomb thief, care about this? Who is this dark god threatening, and why? How does Elika fit into all of this?
But no, the game just throws you into the adventure and says "Get to work" without a bit of explanation. Needless to say, I was not impressed.
Here's the thing though - I was totally wrong. The game isn't about all that "save the world from the dark god" crap at all. I mean it is, but only in the sense of having a reason to run around, explore the environments, and get in the occasional dust-up with an enemy. The REAL story is the burgeoning relationship between Elika and the Prince. Yep, PoP is a love story!
Don't believe me? Check out the two main characters. The Prince is your typical bad-boy with a heart of a gold. He makes his way by stealing valuables, but only from the tombs of dead rich people. He's a little rough around the edges, but it's largely a macho front designed to keep people at a distance because he's been through a past trauma. He constantly talks about only looking out for himself because it's the only person he can trust. Of course, that doesn't stop him from dropping everything going in his life to risk his neck repeatedly for a mysterious female stranger. He's wandered throughout the world on a number of adventures, but it's always been ALONE.
As for Elika, she's a princess who has spent her life carrying a terrible burden for her people. She has magical powers that protect her people from the dark god, but because of that she must live in protected isolation, never leaving the bounds of the palace. Plus she has her own emotional baggage, with a mother who died while she was young, a father who suffered depression since, and no friends to help her along the way. She's tough and proud, but mostly just to hide the fact that she's lonely and has never seen the world.
Now, I'm no expert on romance novels (that's my wife's territory), but are these two not straight out of central casting? He's the dark, wandering hero who the Princess can find frustrating and yet intriguing at the same time. And she's the proud, beautiful woman who needs his help and just might be able mend his (nominally) wicked ways.
The crazy thing is that their romance is completely optional, because they only really interact if you press the L Trigger to keep their conversation going. You can just ignore it (much like the Z-button scenes in Tales of Symphonia), but you'd really be missing out on one of the best parts of the game. The interactions between Elika and the Prince feel realistic and make the story a lot more interesting.
PoP establishes a rudimentary plot right from the word go. Within the first hour you (as the titular character) meet a mysterious woman (Elika), save her from some bad guys, observe as her father opens the seal to a dark God in an ancient temple (why do people do this...it never ends well), and escape with your lives. The rest of the game involves hunting down a bunch of McGuffins, in this case Light Seeds, and healing the various sections of the land to prevent the reincarnation of the dark god.
My first thought: LAME.
Sorry Ubisoft, but we've been down this road many times before. Preventing the re-emergence of an evil being of terrible power is a REALLY common video game trope. And in this case we get very little backstory to make the task more interesting. Where is this strange land? Why does the Prince, a wandering tomb thief, care about this? Who is this dark god threatening, and why? How does Elika fit into all of this?
But no, the game just throws you into the adventure and says "Get to work" without a bit of explanation. Needless to say, I was not impressed.
Here's the thing though - I was totally wrong. The game isn't about all that "save the world from the dark god" crap at all. I mean it is, but only in the sense of having a reason to run around, explore the environments, and get in the occasional dust-up with an enemy. The REAL story is the burgeoning relationship between Elika and the Prince. Yep, PoP is a love story!
Don't believe me? Check out the two main characters. The Prince is your typical bad-boy with a heart of a gold. He makes his way by stealing valuables, but only from the tombs of dead rich people. He's a little rough around the edges, but it's largely a macho front designed to keep people at a distance because he's been through a past trauma. He constantly talks about only looking out for himself because it's the only person he can trust. Of course, that doesn't stop him from dropping everything going in his life to risk his neck repeatedly for a mysterious female stranger. He's wandered throughout the world on a number of adventures, but it's always been ALONE.
As for Elika, she's a princess who has spent her life carrying a terrible burden for her people. She has magical powers that protect her people from the dark god, but because of that she must live in protected isolation, never leaving the bounds of the palace. Plus she has her own emotional baggage, with a mother who died while she was young, a father who suffered depression since, and no friends to help her along the way. She's tough and proud, but mostly just to hide the fact that she's lonely and has never seen the world.
Now, I'm no expert on romance novels (that's my wife's territory), but are these two not straight out of central casting? He's the dark, wandering hero who the Princess can find frustrating and yet intriguing at the same time. And she's the proud, beautiful woman who needs his help and just might be able mend his (nominally) wicked ways.
The crazy thing is that their romance is completely optional, because they only really interact if you press the L Trigger to keep their conversation going. You can just ignore it (much like the Z-button scenes in Tales of Symphonia), but you'd really be missing out on one of the best parts of the game. The interactions between Elika and the Prince feel realistic and make the story a lot more interesting.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Assassin's Creed Plot - A Lesson in Failure
More good comments from Rachel yesterday. She's wrong about one thing though...I have no issue with linking to her site no matter how big an Ubisoft fan girl she is. In general I really like Ubisoft and I've played a ton of their games. It's just that, thanks to Assassin's Creed, I'm once bitten and twice shy.
Speaking of Assassin's Creed, one of my biggest disappointments with the game was the story. A disgraced member of a brotherhood of assassins must redeem himself by slaying nine high profile targets in the ancient Middle Eastern holy lands, all the while unraveling the mystery of how they're connected and what terrible secret they're dying to protect? How can that miss? Well, it missed and by a wide mark.
More than anything, the designers' biggest mistake was in rationing out the story FAR too slowly. I like suspense as much as the next guy, but every time you eliminated a target you'd think, "Finally, they're sure to tell me a little bit about what's going on now!" But surprise...it's just more of the same ambiguous crap and idle prattle that you've been given in heavy doses all along. By the time the game decided to tip its hand and give us a big reveal (at the VERY end), I had long since stopped caring. I think a lot of this was borne of the fact that they were trying to make a series of games and didn't want to use up too many good ideas on the first one. Here's a thought guys: make a great game first and THEN develop it into a series if people like it.
Plus the dialogue was insulting to the player's intelligence on a variety of levels. I remember the doctor who maimed his psychologically ill patients to keep them under control. And when I killed him, the magnanimous bastard had the audacity to make it sound like he was the good guy, chiding me that he was only doing what was necessary and "you wouldn't allow a child to come to harm if it was throwing a fit, would you?" Uh no, but I wouldn't break it's legs to shut it up either, dumbass. Who are you kidding here?
I only bring these things up because my next post will talk about the plot of Prince of Persia, which is greatly streamlined compared to AC, and yet it works for me on a more subtle level. Also AC2 comes out soon and I'm hoping against hope that the story is better conceived. The tedious gameplay of the first game would have been well worth it if the story had lived up to expectations.
Speaking of Assassin's Creed, one of my biggest disappointments with the game was the story. A disgraced member of a brotherhood of assassins must redeem himself by slaying nine high profile targets in the ancient Middle Eastern holy lands, all the while unraveling the mystery of how they're connected and what terrible secret they're dying to protect? How can that miss? Well, it missed and by a wide mark.
More than anything, the designers' biggest mistake was in rationing out the story FAR too slowly. I like suspense as much as the next guy, but every time you eliminated a target you'd think, "Finally, they're sure to tell me a little bit about what's going on now!" But surprise...it's just more of the same ambiguous crap and idle prattle that you've been given in heavy doses all along. By the time the game decided to tip its hand and give us a big reveal (at the VERY end), I had long since stopped caring. I think a lot of this was borne of the fact that they were trying to make a series of games and didn't want to use up too many good ideas on the first one. Here's a thought guys: make a great game first and THEN develop it into a series if people like it.
Plus the dialogue was insulting to the player's intelligence on a variety of levels. I remember the doctor who maimed his psychologically ill patients to keep them under control. And when I killed him, the magnanimous bastard had the audacity to make it sound like he was the good guy, chiding me that he was only doing what was necessary and "you wouldn't allow a child to come to harm if it was throwing a fit, would you?" Uh no, but I wouldn't break it's legs to shut it up either, dumbass. Who are you kidding here?
I only bring these things up because my next post will talk about the plot of Prince of Persia, which is greatly streamlined compared to AC, and yet it works for me on a more subtle level. Also AC2 comes out soon and I'm hoping against hope that the story is better conceived. The tedious gameplay of the first game would have been well worth it if the story had lived up to expectations.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Resident Evil 5: Plot Spoilers
There isn't much plot to RE5, but what's there is pretty dumb. Here are some of my beefs with the story, which obviously contain spoilers:
- Okay, you're an evil corporation that's conducting secret research in Africa. There are some flowers that you need for their DNA mutating purposes (odd, but I'll go with it). They grow in a specific series of caves. Now if you're not an idiot, you put your base somewhere near the site and go to collect flower virus samples to study. Or if you absolutely insist on putting the base in the cave near the flowers (Why? The virus seems perfectly stable in an ordinary syringe), then you'd dig or construct a convenient entrance to the surface, right? Well not this evil corporation. For access to their secret base, the bad guys decided it would be more convenient to use an ancient underground temple complete with monsters, death traps, and doors that can only be opened by two people working in concert. There's all kinds of stone pillars and staircases that move around (how exactly?), and even a series of mirror puzzles used to power some kind of prehistoric African elevator (???). How the Hell did they set up their super-futuristic base in such a remote spot? How did they even get the materials through all these traps? The whole thing doesn't make any sense. One minute I'm walking around what looks like an Aztec ruin (in Africa?), and the next I'm standing in a room full of computers and cryopods.
- I would love to take a look at the Umbrella Corporation books. These guys must be worse with money than the entire US banking system put together. What exactly is their business plan here?
Step One: Build a REALLY fancy, hi-tech facility in a REALLY remote location.
Step Two: Mutate a bunch of people and creatures into various kinds of monsters (on purpose).
Step Three: Cackle with glee as the whole thing turns into a giant clusterfuck.
Step Four: ???
Step Five: Profit
You can find documents that mention nebulous "military contracts" while playing through the game, as if the military has a lot of use for a virus that turns people into mindless, unstoppable monsters. Let's just say that if I was on the Umbrella Corp. Board of Directors, I'd be selling my stock as fast as I could.
- Excella...this character makes no sense to me. I'm rich, I'm beautiful, I'm powerful, and I can pretty much have anything in the world. So what do I do? Give all my money to a mutated lunatic, purposely infect myself with a highly unpredictable mutation virus, and then follow him through a series of dank African caves to do his bidding until he betrays me. Hey Excella, you do realize you could retire to a tropical island and pay a dozen guys better looking than our villain to worship you like a goddess for a fraction of the cost of this idiotic plan, right?
- As for the main bad guy's scheme, this whole "I'm going to destroy the world and rule over what's left of it" plan has been done a million times, and it's ALWAYS stupid. Never once does he give a reasonable justification for his actions. At one point he claims that people constantly battle against each other, so their time is done (I'm paraphrasing here). So turning them all into hyper-violent zombies is better...how exactly? Gosh, I'm sure he can hardly wait to be the unquestioned lord and master of the decaying ruins of human civilization. Again, he's already got money and power, plus mutant abilities that put him pretty far beyond prosecution for most any crime. Why wreck the place up? How does he know some of the new mutants won't be even stronger than he is, and not particularly amenable to his rule?
- One final note to Capcom: LAVA IS HOT. Crash-landing in a volcano means instant death, not sweet boss fight. And anything I can hurt with bullets will be right-fucked if it's submerged in molten rock (actually biological material would float on lava since it's less dense...if it didn't incinerate instantly, that is).
However, I did get a laugh watching Chris Redfield punch a giant boulder into position. I guess that's why he needed those giant muscles.
- Okay, you're an evil corporation that's conducting secret research in Africa. There are some flowers that you need for their DNA mutating purposes (odd, but I'll go with it). They grow in a specific series of caves. Now if you're not an idiot, you put your base somewhere near the site and go to collect flower virus samples to study. Or if you absolutely insist on putting the base in the cave near the flowers (Why? The virus seems perfectly stable in an ordinary syringe), then you'd dig or construct a convenient entrance to the surface, right? Well not this evil corporation. For access to their secret base, the bad guys decided it would be more convenient to use an ancient underground temple complete with monsters, death traps, and doors that can only be opened by two people working in concert. There's all kinds of stone pillars and staircases that move around (how exactly?), and even a series of mirror puzzles used to power some kind of prehistoric African elevator (???). How the Hell did they set up their super-futuristic base in such a remote spot? How did they even get the materials through all these traps? The whole thing doesn't make any sense. One minute I'm walking around what looks like an Aztec ruin (in Africa?), and the next I'm standing in a room full of computers and cryopods.
- I would love to take a look at the Umbrella Corporation books. These guys must be worse with money than the entire US banking system put together. What exactly is their business plan here?
Step One: Build a REALLY fancy, hi-tech facility in a REALLY remote location.
Step Two: Mutate a bunch of people and creatures into various kinds of monsters (on purpose).
Step Three: Cackle with glee as the whole thing turns into a giant clusterfuck.
Step Four: ???
Step Five: Profit
You can find documents that mention nebulous "military contracts" while playing through the game, as if the military has a lot of use for a virus that turns people into mindless, unstoppable monsters. Let's just say that if I was on the Umbrella Corp. Board of Directors, I'd be selling my stock as fast as I could.
- Excella...this character makes no sense to me. I'm rich, I'm beautiful, I'm powerful, and I can pretty much have anything in the world. So what do I do? Give all my money to a mutated lunatic, purposely infect myself with a highly unpredictable mutation virus, and then follow him through a series of dank African caves to do his bidding until he betrays me. Hey Excella, you do realize you could retire to a tropical island and pay a dozen guys better looking than our villain to worship you like a goddess for a fraction of the cost of this idiotic plan, right?
- As for the main bad guy's scheme, this whole "I'm going to destroy the world and rule over what's left of it" plan has been done a million times, and it's ALWAYS stupid. Never once does he give a reasonable justification for his actions. At one point he claims that people constantly battle against each other, so their time is done (I'm paraphrasing here). So turning them all into hyper-violent zombies is better...how exactly? Gosh, I'm sure he can hardly wait to be the unquestioned lord and master of the decaying ruins of human civilization. Again, he's already got money and power, plus mutant abilities that put him pretty far beyond prosecution for most any crime. Why wreck the place up? How does he know some of the new mutants won't be even stronger than he is, and not particularly amenable to his rule?
- One final note to Capcom: LAVA IS HOT. Crash-landing in a volcano means instant death, not sweet boss fight. And anything I can hurt with bullets will be right-fucked if it's submerged in molten rock (actually biological material would float on lava since it's less dense...if it didn't incinerate instantly, that is).
However, I did get a laugh watching Chris Redfield punch a giant boulder into position. I guess that's why he needed those giant muscles.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
