I see a lot of words, but all I can read is: "...blah, blah, blah, this game sucks because I got stuck, and I never got stuck because I am brilliant, so it has to be this game's fault, blah, blah, blah..."
Seriously, you don't like the art style or the story, fair enough. But to say a puzzle game sucks because you were not able to solve the puzzles feels egocentric and childish...
You don't know the piece looks like a platform until after you get it. You don't know you're supposed to go get it because it's the second screen of the game. Even if it looks like a platform, you don't know that you can interact with it. You can't "observe" this phenomena either.
OP, I understand what you are saying and would like to suggest that you are possibly similar to me. Look, I understand that many people think of games as "challenges", as something to beat. To me, a game is a ride, a movie that keeps me somewhat occupied but has to tell a story. If it keeps me from that story through challenges, I quickly use cheats and walkthroughts to move the story along. This is fun to me, but certainly not to everyone. To a gamer of that kind, Braid seems very boring and annoying - most puzzle games do. That is kind of where I stand, and I think the OP does too.
I thought it was brilliant. Not up to the hype but very clever. Time warps are rarely done as well as in Braid.
If you couldn't finish the game it was because you couldn't solve the puzzles. If you couldn't solve the puzzles it was because you didn't try hard enough. To trash the game after failing to try hard enough reveals a certain peevishness in your character.
You couldn't be bothered to think, therefore the game sucked.
You don't know the piece looks like a platform until after you get it. You don't know you're supposed to go get it because it's the second screen of the game. Even if it looks like a platform, you don't know that you can interact with it. You can't "observe" this phenomena either.
"How am I gonna get up THERE? Meh, I've missed a couple pieces already, let's keep going."
"OK, I'm back again, how am I gonna do this? Hmmm.
There's a picture frame nearby, I bet I use it to get up there."
"Whups. Hmm. Maybe I need to jump IN the frame? Wait, can these pieces be climbed?"
"Derp. Okay..."
"WAIT! That piece looks like all the nearby platforms! Let's jump on THAT!"
So yeah. Took me a bit, but if I of all people can manage, it's a fair puzzle (Riven, for instance, the "best adventure game ever made", took me about six years to beat).
OP, I understand what you are saying and would like to suggest that you are possibly similar to me. Look, I understand that many people think of games as "challenges", as something to beat. To me, a game is a ride, a movie that keeps me somewhat occupied but has to tell a story. If it keeps me from that story through challenges, I quickly use cheats and walkthroughts to move the story along. This is fun to me, but certainly not to everyone. To a gamer of that kind, Braid seems very boring and annoying - most puzzle games do. That is kind of where I stand, and I think the OP does too.
No, I like puzzle games. I like hard games. I just did not like this particular puzzle game. There's a difference between a challenge and being dicked around with.
It's not quite the second coming that it was made out to be, but it is a very well done puzzle game with lovely aesthetics. I suspect that your intense dislike stems largely from impatience. Braid is a difficult game, one that your brain needs time to wrap around, so solutions don't come as quickly or easily as in other puzzle games.
It's perfectly ok for you to not have the patience to work out the puzzles; if you don't find that kind of thing satisfying, then Braid obviously won't be much fun for you. But that's not an indication of bad design, merely an indication of a bad fit. Not all games are meant for all players.
Watch this video at about the 3.15 mark and you'll see the ladder thing I was talking about. The guy in the video tries it once and it doesn't work, then he tries it again the exact same way and it does.
No, he does it the first time but doesn't climb the ladder fast enough so the glow runs out, then he tries it again and does it much quicker, thus the glow doesn't run out before he gets to the puzzle piece.
Sorry, but perhaps you're just not suited for puzzle games that are as difficult as Braid.
Braid was nothing but puzzles. They were well done puzzles, but I felt the game needed more variety. Doing temporal puzzles became tedious for me after only around 20 minutes.
I wouldn't say it sucked. It is a fairly innovative game. But, I don't think it is worth all the high praise it got. I notice this with a lot of arcade titles. Reviewers give them such high ratings because of there unique innovations, but there is simply not enough content in an arcade title. For example say an arcade game got a 9.5 rating and Portal 2 got a 9.5 rating. If you had to choose one of the two the obvious answer is Portal 2 as it is a full game, arcade titles aren't.
The picture platform is one of the simplest things in that game. It took me all of a minute to figure out that I could jump on the puzzle pieces to get to the ledge.
I had been gathering the pieces and I of course noticed the picture frame and the ledge, and wondered how to get to it. I figured that since the picture frame was next to the ledge that it had to be involved some how. So, I decided to think about it while I was putting the puzzle pieces together. While I was putting the puzzle together I noticed that The pieces would stay where I sat them on the board, so I exited the puzzle construct screen and noticed that they also stayed in the same place when I wasn't on that screen. Then I put 2 and 2 together, puzzle pieces can be lowered to the level of between the two platforms, I must be able to jump on the pieces.
It is simple reasoning. I wish more puzzle games were like Braid and other classic puzzle games where the game goes, here are controls, you figure out the rest. These days, puzzle games have 3 or more introductory levels that show not just controls but how to solve several different styles of puzzles and then also tells the player that the skills can be combined in certain ways to solve puzzles that take combined skills to solve some of the puzzles.
I hate it when puzzle games do that because doing so takes at least half the game away because it removes having to actually think hard on how to do something. Such puzzle game design is like telling the player, "Here are the tools you need to study, but when the test comes, we will let you use a couple or three pages of notes so that you can't utterly fail the test".
Well now, this is just factually incorrect in many places.
zelda2fanboy said:
1. The second level of the game is impossible to beat unless you beat all the other levels in that world first and then take advantage of an exploit the game never told you that you had, and never utilized in any capacity again. You're given no clue about this at all.
No, you only need one puzzle piece to complete this jump. This puzzle piece looks very much like the other platforms so it stands to reason that it would be utilized as such. All you need to do is experiment for a few minutes to figure this out. If you're too impatient to spend a few minutes on a puzzle then I daresay you shouldn't be playing puzzle games.
Well, this mechanic can be produce only one possible solution to a puzzle and using it again as part of a puzzle would mean that the second puzzle would be exactly the same as the first puzzle. Recycling puzzles is terrible design.
You are given this clue about the solution: the fact that the platform in the jigsaw puzzle looks almost exactly like every other platform in the level. If the platform in the jigsaw puzzle looks like a banana or something then you might've had a point.
zelda2fanboy said:
2. Eventually you come across VERY faintly glowing objects, enemies, and platforms. These are not affected by your time reversing. Also, sometimes you glow when standing on this platform. Sometimes you don't. This is also never explained.
How could you possibly have any difficulty telling the difference between the door on the left and the door on the right? Are you partially or wholly colorblind?
You glow on platforms that glow green with white-glowing top, as soon as you step on one of these platforms you should figure this out.
Each world in Braid starts off with a tutorial level in which you discover the new mechanic by solving a simple puzzle. These puzzles illustrate the new mechanics without insulting the player's intelligence. Do you really want to be spoon-fed everything?
zelda2fanboy said:
3. There's a world where you have to pull a lever and drop a ladder, reverse time, and ride the ladder back up. The thing is, the trick only works if you somehow manage to turn glowing green while riding up the ladder. They don't tell you this and there's absolutely no reason why time should stop in that particular spot. It just does.
Well that's just wrong. If you stand on a platform that glows green with a white-glowing top then you glow green. That is why you glow green. This effect lasts for about three seconds. The game doesn't shove this information in your face with an intrusive text pop-up, but it's not exactly rocket science. If you are too impatient or too dull to figure this out then I cannot help you.
zelda2fanboy said:
There's some more I've already forgotten, but for the most part, the game felt cheap. Lots of cheap deaths and dirty tricks. I did like World 3 (I think) where you have to work with a double of yourself. I didn't need any help with that. The rest of the game I gave up on and just went to youtube to get me through most of it. I know you'll accuse me of being lazy, dumb, casual, or wanting my hand held. That's not the case. I just hate when games make up cheap bullshit rules and don't tell you about them in advance. It would be like in some levels of Super Mario, the fire suit didn't kill piranha plants, or the only way to beat Castlevania 2 was by collecting a bunch of pointless hidden bullshit that requires a guide to find (oh wait, they did that).
As you are criticizing a game for not explaining simple mechanics to you directly and you look up solutions to a puzzle game on Youtube then you very clearly do want your hand-held.
Cheap, bullshit rules you say? By your definition of "cheap, bullshit rules" you must completely despise the first Super Mario Bros.. I mean the mushrooms in that game make you grow to double your size and you have to jump head-first into glowing question mark boxes to get said mushrooms. How ever could anyone figure that bullshit out on their own. Hell, the question mark boxes don't even always have mushrooms, sometimes they have coins in them. Way to change the rules in the middle of the game, Nintendo. That's not even the full of it, when you hit a question mark box while you're giant then sometimes a flower pops out and if you collect it then you change colors and get to shoot fireballs using a button that's NEVER BEEN USED BEFORE. How am I supposed to figure this shit out, Nintendo? How? HOOOOOW!?
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