When I walked to the back of the area, it took me back to the overworld. Only when I got off the chocobo and went into the area on foot did the party enter the dungeon. What kind of game design is that!?
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- Thread starter Nick Calandra
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Yeah, as much fun as I had with Hades 2, I don't feel particularly good about it in retrospective. I feel like in a couple of year I'll barely remember it, especially compared to hades 1. Really doesn't help that it finish on such a "that's it?" ending (actually all of the endings, from Chronos bizarre change of heart to the fate just being like "w/e girl we're on vacation).
Its really is just more of the same, with very little effort put into pushing the formula further, its strangely un ambitious compared to everything else they did before, where every game felt like a step up from previous one or at least an interesting experiment. My best guess is that they decided to cash out after the sucess of hades 1 in preparation for another riskier game they'd release next.
1997 game design? If you're looking for the peak of streamlined design, you may be disappointed. There's a bit of jank from time to time. Maybe follow Nerfed Falcon's advice and skip the Condor Canyon minigame.
man I am really struggling with this game. Not the story- I really don't care about that, honestly, I'm in it for the action and art.
But either it's way harder than Hades 1, I got really shitty and lazy at gaming, or I don't remember how hard the first one was.
I put on God Mode already and I simply cannot defeat the Sirens, let alone even get up to her most of the time.
Of course I look up online tips and it's like- use the Hex! Choose the moon lady and use her hex powers. Ok but it takes forever to fill up and does very little when used. And then there's a separate skill tree within the build-craft so I'm probably not using it right but even getting up to it is such a slog that I don't remember what I was supposed to be trying to do with it...
Fundamentally this type of game is "kill them before they kill you," dodge a lot and whatever. Fine, but I just feel like it's way more health-spongy and time-wasty than Hades 1.
Between that and its roguelite nature, I have taken to doing 1 or maybe 2 run a day which means I'll never beat it- I'm legit just hoping to see the third area boss some day.
I hated the combat when I was playing the Early Access version, but now I find it much easier than Hades 1. I even did the stupid difficulty modifiers this time around, which is something I rarely ever do.
My advice:
- Regular attacks and specials are generally useless. You will need to be spamming the omega moves the whole time.
- Range is everything. Perhaps the biggest adjustment from Hades 1. You're no longer simply dodging attacks, you are straight up running away from your enemies and letting them chase you (at least until you get overpowered enough to wipe them all with a single attack).
- I think this game is way more reliant on random percentage increases rather than just giving you more cool abilities that are immediately obvious as to what they're good for.
Through the first two chapters of Dispatch. Yeah, this is the stuff. It's like they took all of the good elements of Telltale Games, and mostly worked out the weaker stuff. I say mostly, because dispatching is still a bit wonky to me (no, I'm not bitter that my first round of real dispatches went 50-50 with 3 failures at a 60% success rate, why would you say that?), but the writing is top notch for me, the characters are quite interesting, and Aaron Paul is especially impressing me on a voice acting level.
You know... you might have hit on the crux of the matter right here.
I legit cannot remember a game where I didn't improve my performance and fun factor by running up to m-f'ers and smashing them in the face. All the Dark Souls, Mass Effect, Dishonored, heck even "lol stealth archer Skyrim," I only won when I focused on melee.
Dispatch is unfortunately souring on me fast after most of a second playthrough.
It really doesn't even take a full second playthrough for the cracks to show themselves. It is as I feared: the game is made with very specific decisions and choices in mind, and relies almost entirely on being able to nudge players towards those decisions. The minute you start to go outside the intended script and rocking the railcar (so to speak), the flaws just become painfully obvious. There is probably no better example of this than the decision to reveal Robert's identity as Mechaman to the Z-Team: the game obviously wants you to tell the truth, and it's definitely the most narratively satisfying choice. If you don't, the game just fidgets nervously around and tries to make up something on the fly. When Robert's identity gets revealed anyway in the housewarming party there's a small moment of everyone looking shocked, but there's literally nothing else that addresses it. No bespoke dialogue in the next shift segment, no adjusted character interactions or moments, just nothing. Considering Flambae literally tries to kill Robert if you decide to reveal his identity, this is some serious handwaving.
It just exposes the game in a crippling way: this is not a branching narrative. It's a railroad where you get to switch to a different track... for about 10 feet before it switches back to the same straight line. The permutations are ultimately incredibly minor, amounting to little more than different lines of dialogue here and there. The overall narrative path stays the same no matter what. You can literally let the game play itself and end up at the same results. Considering that the supposed branching narrative is the main selling point of the game, this is a critical flaw. I haven't played the Telltale Games myself, but to my understanding these are the exact criticisms their output largely faced and what ultimately led to their downfall. Whether it be budget constraints (I can't imagine having A-listers like Aaron Paul and Jeffrey Wright in the studio is cheap), or the game changing formats during development, but it really feels like the game's biting off way more than it can chew by posing itself as a branching narrative.
I really don't like putting a new IP by a first-time (well, sort of) studio down too much, but this is vital if Adhoc are to succeed further as a studio. Games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Disco Elysium have shown how choices can be made to really matter in a narrative-driven game. And those are RPGs with tons more content and mechanics (especially with BG3). Compared to those two Dispatch is an incredibly tightly controlled narrative environment. It doesn't have the several novels' worth of dialogue like Disco Elysium or BG3's dizzying scale, and as such doesn't really have an excuse, even if made by a small indie studio. They clearly have the talent, the foundation, and unquestionably the goodwill of the audience to make something truly fleshed out for their next project, whatever that may be. The gameplay model lends itself perfectly to tons of mechanics and systems: procedural generation, status effects, resource management, randomization, endless mode, the sky's the limit here! The presentation is top notch in all aspects. The worst thing they could do with all this promise and hype is start churning out the same shallow, railroaded pseudo-games that doomed Telltale.
Ultimately it boils down to this: Dispatch is a great narrative, but middling at best as an interactive narrative.
It just exposes the game in a crippling way: this is not a branching narrative. It's a railroad where you get to switch to a different track... for about 10 feet before it switches back to the same straight line. The permutations are ultimately incredibly minor, amounting to little more than different lines of dialogue here and there. The overall narrative path stays the same no matter what. You can literally let the game play itself and end up at the same results. Considering that the supposed branching narrative is the main selling point of the game, this is a critical flaw. I haven't played the Telltale Games myself, but to my understanding these are the exact criticisms their output largely faced and what ultimately led to their downfall. Whether it be budget constraints (I can't imagine having A-listers like Aaron Paul and Jeffrey Wright in the studio is cheap), or the game changing formats during development, but it really feels like the game's biting off way more than it can chew by posing itself as a branching narrative.
I really don't like putting a new IP by a first-time (well, sort of) studio down too much, but this is vital if Adhoc are to succeed further as a studio. Games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Disco Elysium have shown how choices can be made to really matter in a narrative-driven game. And those are RPGs with tons more content and mechanics (especially with BG3). Compared to those two Dispatch is an incredibly tightly controlled narrative environment. It doesn't have the several novels' worth of dialogue like Disco Elysium or BG3's dizzying scale, and as such doesn't really have an excuse, even if made by a small indie studio. They clearly have the talent, the foundation, and unquestionably the goodwill of the audience to make something truly fleshed out for their next project, whatever that may be. The gameplay model lends itself perfectly to tons of mechanics and systems: procedural generation, status effects, resource management, randomization, endless mode, the sky's the limit here! The presentation is top notch in all aspects. The worst thing they could do with all this promise and hype is start churning out the same shallow, railroaded pseudo-games that doomed Telltale.
Ultimately it boils down to this: Dispatch is a great narrative, but middling at best as an interactive narrative.
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Three chapters into Dispatch. I can now confirm that I feel the need to actively slow down how much I'm playing it to not feel like I'm rushing through, which is usually a sign of a great game, and I also suck at it as much as it is possible to suck at a game like Dispatch that's pretty much minimal gameplay.
Even though Hades 2's combat is "deeper" than 1, I think it's just inherently less fun. There was something special about spamming the dash every millisecond,. Made the game very rhythmic. By end game, the only think standing between you and victory was how fast you could mash buttons.
So if they ever make a third game, I think they need to get back to the dash-centric design. The sprint mechanic is fine, but it should not be the main focus.
Oh lord please not a third game.
Part of what made Supergiant so great is how they applied their artistic sensibility to different gameplay styles.
I know everybody loves Hades and considers Pyre a "oh yeah remember that weird basketball game?" but actually playing the weird basketball game was most fun of all their games for me. I really hope they move one to something new.
Ultimately BG3/disco elysium doesn't really allow the player to break out of the narrative that much, instead they have big player moment in arc, where player decision really affect the end of the arc, but then once you move to the next one, every path reset to the same point or end the game prematurely.
Like, your decision with Aylin seems really important in the moment, but ultimately has almost no long term impact.
Ultimately what those game do really well is make alternate player choice feel great because they're really well written, and don't rely on tropes to keep the player engage.
I'm not necessarily talking about big changes in the overall narrative. BG3 has smaller choices throughout the game that affect your standing with characters, like many other party-driven RPGs. That standing in turn may affect other smaller choices across the game, giving them a small impact, but an impact nonetheless. Dispatch has no such small choices either. You have one choice to make for certain characters that have precisely one moment of impact: whether you cut Sonar or Coop, Punch-Up and Malevola's reaction to said cut, and whether you choose to reveal Robert as Mechaman for Flambae. The rest of the changes smaller choices impart are so minor they're effectively meaningless, amounting to occasionally changing like a single line of dialogue. Even the bigger stuff involving Invisigal has very little permutations: whether you romance her or treat her like shit, there's always the scene in the locker room after deciding whether to cut her, and she'll always show up at the finale to help bring down Shroud. The context may make it come across differently (her sincerely helping or merely taking down Shroud out of opportunism), but you're ultimately just watching the exact same thing play out.
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Beat Guardians of the Galaxy and yeah, its pretty good. Way longer then I was expecting. I was thinking it was going to be a short single player game, but it took like 18 hours. Combat feels decent, its got some roughness to it and the controls can be a bit awkward but it works and is kinda fun. Characters are very nicely realized, the Guardians start out sniping at each other but by the end they get along much better and it feels like a pretty natural progression. There are certainly some contrived plot points but it kinda makes sense in a comic book inspired story. So yeah, pretty good.
Playing Stray. It's cute and all. Most of the time you just go. I guess the cat is the selling point. I love animals but I don't get when the business model is "There's a cute cat/dog in it!". There was a horror movie with a dog recently that made a big deal out of shooting everything from the dog's perspective and I couldn't be more nonplussed by people treating it like an event.
Satisfactory got console release. And welp, say goodbye to life, sleep and dwindling social life I guess. This performs insanely well, many times I expected shit to go wrong or glitchy as the sprawling spaghettified contraptions looped over and through themselves, yet so far every time the game just nonchalantly shrugs at my simple feeble machinations. Currently I've got what can only be described as a Tim Burton's funhouse of horrors total mess of factory systems strewn across the environment - aided by liberal use of colour customisation options and zero organisational skills - but it's my mess! Was expecting something to go wrong when it said I could record a path for vehicles for them to automate themselves, yet even after recording it over a new path I built across a waterfall and lake it still so far has worked flawlessly, with the only issue being it ran out of fuel cos I forgot to sort that shit out at the pickup/drop-off stations. It's impressive polish, optimization as well as way more console and controller friendly than the rest of the genre tends to be. Only issue left now is sleep.