cobra dinn is not a real country

[Tuxedo]

Spooky Halloween post:

From this game’s bestiary, I obviously knew about mermaids and krakens, but had never seen those terrifying giant spider-crab things seen in « Soldiers of the sea » So I was wondering whether I was missing some famous naval monster lore or they were invented by Lucas Pope ?

It turns out that I was all wrong, those things are not monsters, they’re real
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_spider_crab
Oh no

[falsedan]

@Tuxedo

The beginning is not great either because it’s hard to do anything meaningful the first time you see a scene, as the game disables options like being able to hear pre-death dialogue another time, gives you limited time to walk around, and immediately yanks you to the next scene when it’s over.

That’s the Switch port? That was fixed in an early PC patch, you had as much time as you liked to wander in Memento mode

[Tuxedo]

Yeah, it’s the Switch port. The first time you see a death, you can walk around but time is limited, once time runs out the notebook fills up up, everything goes black except for the cadaver of the next victim, etc
When you go back you get unlimited time

[wourme]

I got to the end of this game tonight. It’s very clever. I didn’t look anything up, but I did guess a few times when I had characters narrowed down to just a few possibilities.

For example, I didn’t know how to distinguish between the Chinese topmen. But I looked that up just now and it’s apparently based on their pants and shoes when they are in their bunks.

I hope this game is influential, as I’d love to see more things like it.

[HOBO]

I finished this tonight. I thought it was gorgeous and rather well done. I’d say it was compelling but…I dunno, it went on much longer than I would have liked, right? By the time I’d figured out half the fates I really wanted to wrap things up cuz I’d mostly figured out what was up and did not care about the specifics. I did not care about any of these people or these mysteries. They did not have personalities or concerns. They were just puzzle pieces. I really cared about putting together those puzzle pieces though. I cared about winning the game.

I guess it’s a real feat to make a game that’s mechanically enjoyable and compelling but there’s also a story here and I think the fact that none of it resonated with me on any level has left me feeling somewhat dissatisfied. This is 8+ hours of watching dozens of people I do not care about die and I did not find any of it chilling or thought provoking because there was just so much and also cuz of the whole supernatural angle, which may have made for some gorgeous setpieces but I think half a ship getting spiked to death by mermaids really undercuts the bleakness of all these lives being reduced to just names and prices in some insurance adjuster’s ledger.

And I’m not against the supernatural elements, but it’s so much of the game, and there’s nothing all that thrilling about reassembling a series of plot beats involving some deep sea MacGuffin. It’s not a bad story, it’s not embarrassing, but it had all the impact of reading a wikipedia plot summary, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that I had the same problem with the Chinese dudes’ feet, wourme! You aren’t alone! I peeped at those mothers the first time I caught them napping but none of them had that one dude’s distinctive cuffs so I figured it was a dead end. After a certain point just let me click on a menu and teleport to a Memory so I don’t have to hoof it all around the damn ship double checking to make sure I didn’t mix up a stabbing with a spearing, jeez louise.

Anyway I don’t remember what games came out in 2018 but this probably woulda been top of my pops. I recommend it.

[stylo]

finished this today. have a lot of nitpicks which dont take away from the fact it’s a very solid game overall. game could have done with maybe 4-6 fewer crew members and/or 3-5 more unique scenes.

very taken by the opening and attention to detail but the narrative really failed to deliver anything satisfying at the end. it’s just like… one supernatural entity is a tale, two is a conflict, three is just random. how many spooky beasties are we supposed to believe the british encounter on a daily basis? and the shell thing, la di da, who cares? and for all that they weren’t even trying to say anything with it, there’s no like actual themes there, it’s just my least favorite genre of video game plot - “wouldn’t it be crazy if X happened?”

there were only a couple of clues i thought were way too difficult. the chinese topmen one i only got at the very end, and similarly distinguishing between booth/shirley is the only one i had to basically guess at - i looked up a video but for the life of me don’t remember what the clue was supposed to be. it annoys me that some of the characters basically don’t have an actual character so you only get them at the end by process of elimination. this is especially true in distinguishing the non-western countrymen - nothing properly distinguishes the indians or chinese from each other by personality, or even vaguely gestured at personality traits or visual markers of such (with one exception wei lee who clearly has a distinct personality, people he hangs out with etc). it’s a problem with race the game has, imo. The Russians have this problem but to a lesser degree as one of them can easily be distinguished in a way which speaks to his character.

i think one of the underrated aspects of the game is its attention to detail with the first person expressiveness. fantastic sound design, love the little animation when you move near an interactable door/railing/etc and your character reaches their hand towards it. kind of genius to make the player’s gender randomly selected upon game start (i believe), you don’t see that often bc of white male tears. not that it really matters in a game like this but ykwim.

also to the game’s credit that it will accept differing ‘correct’ conclusions for certain characters (eaten vs drowned, crushed vs torn apart, etc) and actually change the ending based on your conclusions

[L]

Isn’t it meant to be assumed that all of the demihumans, krakens, et cetera are working in concert as part of some implied civilisation, with the task of retrieving the shells? Granted, it doesn’t, as you say, amount to anything of substance, but it’s not exactly overcomplicated.

To me the only truly big miss is not having the post-credits extra scenes upend the premise of the story in a big way – maybe some keener insight into the aforementioned merfolk warriors, or revealing that some character was not at all what they seemed. I’m not even sure why they were shown, really.

Another thing that would’ve been “cool” is to get a weensy bit funny with the watch as a magic device - for instance, having a single dinosaur bone somewhere and using it to get flashed back to a scene from the Cretaceous, for no information or benefit.