I love it but I don't want to play it again.
- Thread starter Worgen
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I think Telltale should take cues from Detroit: Being Human in the near future. That is an example of a game much like most of Telltale's games but that actually does it RIGHT.
In Detroit the player makes choices that DO significantly impact what occurs later, particularly leading up to the endgame. Little things, big things, world changing things. The problem with Telltales games is as ObsidianJones mentions nothing you do makes any real difference, everybody that might die at one point just dies or leaves a bit later anyway, likely just to get them out of the story so they don't screw it up later and you go to the same places and do the same things. Detroit does some of these but it's different enough based on the previous choices that you don't notice it. The railroading is BLATANT in Telltale games even the first time around.
On that note: Detroit: Being Human is one. It's one of the very VERY few games I have played that have truly, utterly left me satisfied. After managing the best possible pacifist ending I decided I was pretty well done with the game and I didn't want to go through another story to see all the other possible results. The story was done in my eyes, though if there was a direct sequel (fat chance knowing Cage and his games) I would dive into the world again without a thought.
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While I don't disagree, as it would have been nice to have a game with the telltale writing staff and the choices of a Quantic Dream game we do need to remember that's impossible since Telltale went bankrupt and no longer exists, sure there's still a company named Telltale that's making The Wolf Among Us 2 but it's not really the same people.
Also if we are realistic, given Telltale's terrible business model with extremely short development cycles it wasn't really realistic for them to do that.
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Exactly why I prefer games that are 4 or 5-12 hours at most, but have a ton of replay value. Long live reasonably short games.
Most of Naughty Dogs games do nothing for me now. Especially now learning about the abusive crunch. Plus, I dislike UC4 strongly. The story is bad fan fiction.
Factorio. I keep thinking I want to replay it and try out some different stuff I never used on my first playthrough, but every time I try and start a new game I get bored within an hour and give up.
I still want a Detroit spin-off game that is just Hank and Conner solving mysteries. That would be great!
I very much enjoy but find it very hard to replay most narrative-heavy RPGs. Much of the enjoyment is the story, but when it's done, there's little point going back. I know some people love replay value for min-maxing, trying out mages or thieves instead of fighters etc. but personally I just can't be bothered. The honourable exception might be Wizardry 8, which I've replayed at least twice.
I replay anything much less than I used to anyway, because I have so much less gaming time. I do occasionally pop back to an old game and replay it, but they're almost always strategy games these days.
I replay anything much less than I used to anyway, because I have so much less gaming time. I do occasionally pop back to an old game and replay it, but they're almost always strategy games these days.
This is kinda why it’s taken me several years to finish The Witcher games, but I think it’s more because the story is usually so offset by sprawling and horribly paced RPG stuff that it fails to keep me engaged. I think I beat 2 in under a year but it was relatively short and linear next to the first and especially the third.
I feel this way about Silent Hill 2. The stress and fear (particularly in Toluca Prison) were all part of the experience, and made it one of the most arresting horror experiences ever... but I don't want to go through that again.
I think it is a shame that shorter games have a stigma.
Lots of people put a weird, arbitrary, "I want 1 hour per $1" value onto a game's runtime, but I would rather have an incredible 6 hour game, vs a pretty good 20 hour one, let alone longer.
This is why the new AC games really don't appeal any longer. Origins and Odyssey could have impressed as more streamlined experiences, but as games that demand dozens, if not 100+ hours each, neither game's mechanics, worlds, or stories can sustain them, to keep them entertaining for anything close to the entire runtime. That is why I haven't bothered with Valhalla, because I have only heard the same criticisms (despite Ubisoft saying that they were going to do something about it).
Oh man, I don't know if you ever played Season 2, but S2 makes the first Season seem downright hopeful.
Season 2 is just pure, relentless, depression.
Its quite remarkable.
With pretty much every choice-based story system, this is almost always the catch.
But, I have come to terms with it.
The story that TellTale, or BioWare, or whoever else wants to tell, is the story that you are going to be told. Your choices aren't going to impact where the story ends up, but they are going to impact the characters who follow you along the way. Maybe, in the end, it is all a ruse - but the illusion is still damn fun along the way.
If there is any good news to this is the negative stigma sorta dying with the gaming public. It's mainly with smaller titles like Streets of Rage 4 and most indie games, but it's a start.
I never understood that. I know whenever someone gave me that justification, he or she could almost never back it up other than gaming website, YT personality, said so or just cuz. Learn to think for yourselves.
Yep. Exactly why I have not touched an AC game since II & Brotherhood. I met a guy who loves Valhalla, and I never got to the why, but even he admitted it should have been it's own game, instead of another game in the AC franchise.
I've never heard that precise metric, but I do think it's fair, especially if they are going to charge you the full $60-$70 ticket, for there to be a decent amount of game. Because if the game is only 2 hours, then my question is "ok but was this experience $60 worth of fun?" And frankly, most games are not that good. I could watch a movie for the same amount of time, for less price, and likely enjoy it. But if I had to pay 60 bucks for a film, and found it to be mediocre at best, I'd be annoyed. So at least with length, you can say it's entertained you for an amount of time that is more reasonable for the price.
Now, that being said, if a game is only 2-3 hours, and has it's price be less, like say 20-30 bucks, then I'm totally fine with that. It acknowledges the length doesn't warrant a "full price" ticket. A great example for me, is Ghostrunner. I think on release that game was...$25 US? Maybe $30, and I probably finished that in 4-6 hours, with repeat deaths adding up to most of that time. I've seen speedrunners beat it in like 40 minutes with zero deaths. And I found that price tag totally worth the experience. In fact, I've played it again multiple times within a month of buying it, which is something I just don't normally do. That was a fair cost/fun ratio in my book. If that game had been $60 bucks though, I don't think it would've been good enough of a game to warrant that price.
I would say AC: Odyssey was a funny game. I can recall multiple times playing it, that I just found myself laughing out loud. It REALLY doesn't take itself too seriously with a lot of the filler content. It's got a lot of slapstick, physical comedy, and comedic tragedy, that's pretty in keeping with old greek theater. I played my protagonist a Yessexual, and banged everyone (and everything) when given the chance (except one person, as it just really didn't fit with the narrative/moment, that he would want to shag). But agreeing to bump uglies with everyone in the greek isles that you run across, lead to a lot of hilarious stories and side quests. I also liked what they did with the quest location system, though I've heard they actually improved it with Valhalla. Basically, they would just give you general location descriptions, with no actual marker on the map. Like "East of the mountains on the island of crete, near the coast" and then you'd have to just actually figure it out by looking at the map. When you got close enough, it would pop up the typical icon, but until that point, it was mostly up to your ability to read the map, and navigate yourself. Which was pretty cool. The actual Assassin/Templar stuff was totally forgettable sadly.
I do recommend playing Black Flag, and Freedom's Cry. The stuff that makes those games cool has nothing really to do with the Creed stuff. They're basically Pirate 3D Simulator, and they're really good at it. Freedom's Cry was especially fun, as I REALLY enjoyed the theme of it. Ex-slave, freed from a slave ship (at the start of Black Flag), goes independent with his own ship, and goes around the islands, freeing other slaves. And it was REALLY fucking fun, thematically, to run down a slaver ship on the high seas, and have your crew storm the decks of the slaver ship for open combat. Especially as the game let you quickly traverse the riggings of your ship, letting you zipline up to the mast, scurry across the wood, leap onto the sail of the enemy ship, and then do an air assassination down onto the deck, killing a slaver or two before going to open sword play. That was some fun pirate shit, I won't lie.
2nd that. Black Flag and Freedom Cry acknowledged the Assassin/Templar thing but mostly you were just out to make a boatload of cash to pimp out your boat and your pirate island as Edward(who is a terrible yet strangely likeable character), while in Freedom Cry you were basically doing Pirate Django Unchained for 5 hours(it was a bit smaller scale which fit it nicely). Not to mention murdering slavers and overseers felt really cathartic, especially taking down overseers in full view of the slaves working the fields, who pretty much ignore you completely ("Did that asshole with the whip just get murdered and dragged into the field?" "I didn't see anything. I say we take lunch and keep taking lunch until someone notices the overseers are dead")
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No one ever remembers or talks about Rogue.
I think that is a shame.
Oh, I remember Rogue. I just didn't think it was all that great and kind of a waste of a good idea. Shay is an asshole(and not really that likable), the game functionally doesn't play much differently than any other AC game(and feels like a Black Flag DLC) despite Shay being a Templar, and it introduces some lore stuff that literally never comes up again. The plot is also fairly contrived, even by this series standards and while I'm not against showing the assassins as fucking dicks(because III and Revelations demonstrated that pretty well already), it feels like the Colonial Brotherhood in Rogue are REALLY Dickish just to make the Templars look better in comparison.
I wanted to like Rogue, I really did. I do appreciate how it connects AC Black Flag, AC BF: Freedom Cry and AC Unity together but sadly it doesn't stand on its own much.
Also, Haythem is fucking wasted as he shows up for such a small part of the game. Instead we get Col. Monroe and while I appreciate why he's there, seriously Haythem, one of the most interesting and popular Villains in the series, is in this. Let him actually get some fucking screen time.
At least it's not as big of a missed opportunity as Liberation was.
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I never played that one. I vaguely recall it being...I think it was like a PS Vita release or something? That was around the time I had lost interest in the series I'll admit, and I seem to recall people being mad with Rogue because it originally came out on a smaller console, not like a "full game" So it didn't get the advertisement and push that a full AC game deserved. Or that's what I recall about it, in the general chatter. I do own it, as I picked up a lot of them on a steam sale. I just never bothered playing it.
You might have Rogue and Liberation mixed up.
Liberation was the Assassin's Creed 3-lite game that was released on the Vita, and then later ported to consoles.
Rogue was the last Assassin's Creed game that was released on the Xbox 360 and PS3, and was released simultaneously with Unity - which completely overshadowed it. It was basically Assassin's Creed Black Flag 2 (or a big expansion), and tied together AC3, 4, Freedom Cry and Unity.
I remember quite liking it.
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Ah, yeah Liberation, that and Rogue were both very much under the radar "oh yeah I think I recall hearing that title" kind of AC games. I didn't play any AC games around that time, as I held off on Unity for around a year or more.