I totally dig how they decided to end the story and reveal Kat’s backstory as the Queen and all the Hekseville characters popping back up and the insane plot of the Hekseville chapter in general
They even manage to do something clever with the styles if you ignore the fact that said clever bit is a giant 3D block sliding puzzle
also chunks of the endgame story don’t mean much without some familiarity with the events of the first game and the whole the world is someone’s dream thing never gets addressed
the end of that last boss fight though… that’s quality storytelling
also have I complained about the online stuff, mainly the slow build up of Dusty Tokens, even with the boost in tokens you get after finishing the story
yeah, cool game, I got 15 tokens for doing a treasure hunt. only need 4000 more until I unlock everything!
while I’m at it, the camera in this game is the most fun I’ve had with a camera, mostly because the amount of stuff you can do with photos and mechanics combine with the jank and make magic
i ended up getting overwatch the same week so didn’t get far into it, but im really looking forward to spending more time with it over the summer at a more casual pace.
does anyone know what the system data does? I think it might just be camera snapshots I didn’t want anyway (since I was able to load my save fine after that); I managed to corrupt mine while learning the hard way that the PS4 really does not like having less than 12GB free
the more I play this the more it seems like a last guardian level budget disaster. the sheer amount of art direction that went into a game destined to be as niche as this is unbelievable. the mission design is still ridiculous levels of padded (like, seriously, I have a hard time believing this team directed another game since 2003) and the climactic fights are all awkward as hell. but it’s really hard to overlook everything that went into this.
simultaneously much better and worse than I’d hoped
I’ll have you know Team Gravity Rush made two games in the time it took Ueda to make one
also the sheer amount of extra studios (and the outsourcing implied) listed in the credits (including the likes of Media Vision, Racjin and Khara) implies that it wasn’t as expensive to make as you think it was
playing it more over remote play while doing other stuff, since it can be kind of lackadaisical and not given to sustained couch sessions
using the motion controls more
in possession of the full moveset
toggled to hard difficulty
there’s still a solid chunk of quests that go on forever and have really questionable designs and I wish they had just been cut because this game doesn’t really lack for content and due to its extreme likeableness it’s hard to walk away from anything once you start it
near the end of the Hekseville chapter, you get Panther Mode, which is a not-Devil Trigger thing that powers Kat up and restores her life and is also terrible because the team is confident in the combat they have put in the game for some reason
that’s okay though, it didn’t stop me from kicking through the air and chucking debris at stuff
I was thinking I might put this off until I had more time too, but I’ve actually picked it up again because I’ve been playing Dishonored 2 and it’s super grim and depressing and I needed some blue skies in my life.
yeah I’ve been playing this a little more so I don’t wrap up nier too fast and I’ve decided what it most reminds me of: mario sunshine.
this is a good way of establishing that yes, it is definitely better than games from 15 years ago, if only because the production is infinitely more interesting than mario sunshine’s – “mario takes a vacation” vs. sky brazil and bande dessinee comic panels and writing that occasionally makes me smile – and only nintendo successfully made games of that scope back then.
like mario sunshine, it also has a way-too-high number of recurring mission structures that don’t quite work (like a quarter or a third?), and of those that do work, the game is still remarkably clumsy, especially for something that seems to be pitched at kids whom you’d think would never be able to play well (if adults are in fact the target audience, the main draw is that it looks so bright and complete); in fact, one of the only rewards for playing the game more than well enough to make progress is that you can maybe actually get it to look and feel good in motion. which sometimes it really does!
the last game that I wrote so much about because I couldn’t put it down despite disliking so much of it was dragon age inquisition. this game is also way less cynical, and less obsessed with imprinting a power fantasy on the player, than that game, which is why I might yet finish this one.
hey, I went ahead and played that. that was a nice couple of hours that ties up a loose end from the story of the first game. also, the story of the DLC is nigh useless if you don’t the relevant part from the first game it is based on. probably a bit stronger than the main game in terms of realizing storytelling through design and linking the two up.
interestingly, the lead designer for the DLC is also the localization head for the game, which might tie into that.
Um, Sony is taking down online features in January. I never got to it and put off finishing GR1 on either Vita or PS4 forever but I guess this is a good an excuse as any for me to take my copy out of the shrinkwrap :s
