I know how many problems they had with development, but latest videos actually look great. It's not the most cutting edge look, but it's got charm and authenticity, and that counts a lot more in my opinion.
It doesn't look bad, but it's not Bloodlines. If anything, it looks like a shock-esque VTM, some sort of hub based Dishonored.
I have no hopes of it being a first person rpg in the first place. It'd be fantastic, but it's really not expected. Different studio, different approaches, plus it's not that first person rpgs are selling. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided did poorly. Prey had some elements of it, and also didn't do well.
No, the reason that Prey did poorly is dogshit marketing and naming. Also, because it was a immersive sim, and they do fairly bad generally. Which by the way, this looks to be more of that than an RPG, so ... doesn't follow the logic of being worried with sales.
The reality is they gave this to morons with an agenda, and when they realized how shit the game was going to be, they then pushed it on to the chinese room to try and salvage the situation. And because of that, we're going to get some half-assed shit that has nothing to do with the original cult classic, outside of it being part of the same universe.
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Quick impressions after 15 hours: combat is okayish, but suffers from a lack of enemy variety (it's 99% a handful of variations of ghouls). Traversal mechanics are fine, allowing you to either jog around on the streets like in the original, or use alleyways and rooftops to quickly get from A to B (using vampiric abilities while in sight of mortals breaks the masquerade, obviously). You also have a lot of mobility in combat with dodges, jumps, slides and - depending on clan and build - various vampiric abilities like teleport, bullet time etc. Which is needed, because the combat is harder than I expected. Not that it's terribly difficult, but even on Normal you will die if you just button mash as soon as you start facing more and/or powerful enemies. And Hard is, well, hard. Overall, an improvement over Bloodlines when it comes to traversal and combat. Though that isn't saying much, as combat was always the weak point of the original. Still, Bloodlines 2 is alright in this regard. Unfortunately they bungle it by throwing way too many enemies at you so you have to grind your way to your objective, artifically inflating the game length.
Conversely, the writing is the weakest part of this game, as expected. Your choice of clan matters very little compared to Bloodlines and rarely pops up in dialogue (and I think once in total so far as a dialogue choice). You can at various points elaborate a little on the Nomad's history, tailoring it, but it seems like complete fluff as I have yet to seen any of it come up a single time after establishing it. Dialogue is filled with Telltale-like indications of the effects. "X liked that, X was aroused by that, X was irritated by that" and so on and just like in Telltale games I'm left to wonder how much (or if at all) it affects anything. The bigger problem is that the game fails to establish interesting characters (perhaps aside from not-Christina Hendricks), and I struggle to get invested into the plot. Most egregious of all here is, very much as expected, Fabien and his incessant chatter, constantly demystifying everything that happens and making sure to destroy any attempt at atmosphere and immersion with his never-ceasing "banter". There's also lengthy flashback sequences when you play as Fabien before he ended up in the Nomad's head. Somewhat paradoxically, this is the part I get the closest to engaged in because it focuses purely on story and dialogue, and Fabien's Malkavian powers allows him to do everything from make people think he's someone he's not (with the caveat that you don't know who they think you are either, so you have to try to play along), to talk with inanimate objects like a telephone (cue Ralph Fiennes) and gain insights by prodding your subconscious. Unfortunately, this is also very railroady. Side quests are mostly pointless filler content given out by the various clan contacts (whom you can also unlock clan powers with and, for some reason, flirt with). Don't bother with this shit.
The world itself is very dead and static. It's basically designed exactly like it was in Bloodlines, and feel reminiscent of it, but with prettier graphics and worse atmosphere. And it's 2025 now, not 2004. Static open worlds are pretty fucking out of date (ask Avowed). At least the Atrium level and boss fight was a thumbs up, or would've been if Fabien could SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Anyway, we'll see if it can salvage itself towards the later stages. Not expecting it to.
TLDR: Not as shit as I had expected it to be, but pretty bad all the same.
That's kind of what I expected. Ok-ish combat with weak writing and characters, and a lack of the atmosphere that made the original.
So I don't know what he expected, cause I can't see how you can make it worse than that. It's basically ok-ish combat, which the original had for the time, and much worse in every other department, outside of obviously, graphical fidelity, which would be weird to be worse 21 years later.
Pretty much the anticipated outcome, sadly. It's what happens when you give a valuable and iconic Role-Playing franchise to people who are not up to the task. Twice.
I wouldn't put too much faith in the report of Codextroons. This particular one is later complaining that npc are all standing the same place. Just like in practically every other jpg, Fallout, BG 1-2-3...
I wouldn't put too much faith in the report of Codextroons. This particular one is later complaining that npc are all standing the same place. Just like in practically every other jpg, Fallout, BG 1-2-3...
That's a fair criticism. Especially with a game you want to be an immersive sim-like. Most of the games you mention are old and/or top-down/isometric view, which ain't really the same thing.
It's not like it's the worst thing ever, but it just adds up to all the other, bigger issues.
But it shouldn't be a suprise this game isn't all that great. It's a AA game that is in development hell for ages. And there is nothing spectacular about the footage they have shown. It's a sequel to a failed game made by a dev that has only done adventure games before and nothing of this scope and to finish it Paradox is backing it.
I wouldn't put too much faith in the report of Codextroons. This particular one is later complaining that npc are all standing the same place. Just like in practically every other jpg, Fallout, BG 1-2-3...
That's a fair criticism. Especially with a game you want to be an immersive sim-like. Most of the games you mention are old and/or top-down/isometric view, which ain't really the same thing.
It's not like it's the worst thing ever, but it just adds up to all the other, bigger issues.
Which immersive sim has npc's with pathfinding? Prey? Bioshock? Bloodlines? Deus Ex? System Shock? Even amongst regular rpgs, you only have Gothic series, and Bethesda games after Morrowind.
Which immersive sim has npc's with pathfinding? Prey? Bioshock? Bloodlines? Deus Ex? System Shock? Even amongst regular rpgs, you only have Gothic series, and Bethesda games after Morrowind.
You realize the newest game on that list was released over 8 years ago and was a flop despite being good.
Sorry if I expect improvements from newer games. I suppose I should expect we should go back. And fuck, you're actually almost making me want to go back and play them just to see if I can prove you wrong, since fuck if I can remember everything from that far back.
Point is that npc pathfinding is meaningless. It's a nice bonus, but it won't create a more believable or better world. There are other ways that establish that better. Quality dialogue, coherent story and environmental design. Cyberpunk managed to tell a good story, it did try to populate its fantastically detailed city with npc's with purpose. Main npc's were all scripted and on rails, but it's hard to deny that there wasn't an attempt at Rockstars detail. Yet, it still utterly failed at establishing a living city. Everything felt empty and purposeless. Regular players just complained at npc's not being able to drive, or police spawning, but the main reason for emptiness was lack of content. They simply didn't have the time to populate the city to a level of Witcher 3 with content. Everything went solely into main story. Whereas you have Bg3 and Disco Elysium, that have entirely static npcs. All quest givers and story npc's are nailed to their spots for the whole game, and the worlds are living and thriving in both cases. There's fantastic freedom of choice in Bg3. Practically every npc can be killed, and the story will still progress. Morality of party members can be explored and effected. And then there's a tangible masterpiece of writing in Disco Elysium. It manages to paint a thriving and living city with words alone.
I didn't say that they succeeded. At times, random npcs actually look like they have purpose. Bars, certain streets, initial V's apartment. A lot of effort went into that. One wonders if it would be better if that effort went into making better sidequests.
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