I personally had a bit of a problem with it because I heard so many people lavishing praise on it, but when I played it I thought it was boring and trite.
I am allergic to people telling me that I should like something, especially if the words “artistic” and “meaningful” are thrown around. My problem with Limbo is less the game itself, and more the reaction to the game.
This is a long-winded way of saying “If nobody had talked about Limbo, I would have just forgotten it and moved on.” I assume it’s an alright game but I hate being told that things are amazingly good only to find out that they aren’t transcendental, just run of the mill.
Also, as far as I’m concerned, the aesthetic was stolen wholesale from Knytt and Within a Dark Forest, soooo that doesn’t help.
I disagree that Limbo “did not waste my time”. I was bored by hours of box and elevator puzzles.
I dunno, in some ways Limbo’s strengths and weaknesses are the exact same as Ico’s, an SB darling (at least before it was overshadowed by SotC and largely forgetten). I think Ico is a good game, even though I also remember a lot of boredom and frustration from unintuitive pseudo-physics puzzles, just like in Limbo.
One big difference is that Ico is bookended at both start and end with inspiring setpiece sequences, whereas Limbo only has the spider setpiece and, as I recall, ends limply after yet another box puzzle. Another difference is that in the boring sections, Ico still has hangoutitude, whereas Limbo’s grim atmosphere doesn’t really synergize with its pacing.
(I guess we’ll go over this territory again when Last Guardian comes out, so it’s a timely discussion. There’s every reason to expect that Last Guardian will have once again the exact same pros and cons. “That one platforming section was bullshit, but I cried after the guardian died”, is a sentence I expect to hear almost verbatim.)
Depends! I can’t predict my own reaction, but all I’m saying is that the IGN reviewer will cry and this will be reflected in one of the bars being at 10, even as the overall game gets an 8.
In all honesty though I’m not sure whether I really expect that the guardian will die. That’s so, so predictable, it’s ground that’s been covered by the previous games, and I have a bit too much respect for Ueda as a storyteller to think he’ll just go ahead and do the predictable thing.
I’m definitely predicting that the ending will be sad. But it will probably be sad with a twist. Like, off the top of my head, the boy and guardian will body-swap and then the boy will die. Or the guardian will murder the boy’s love interest in a protective rage, and then the boy will abandon him. You know.
I predict The Last Guardian will definitely have a bittersweet ending, regardless or whether any character dies or not. Ico: Yorda must leave and shut herself away forever, goodbye. Shadow of the Colossus: Your waifu is resurrected but now you’re the devil’s spawn with a baby dick and your horse has a bum leg and you’re both shut away from the outside world forever, goodbye. The Last Guardian: You and your new friend go on an adventure then things happen and now one of you is either dead, locked away or transformed into something else and you’re both separated by circumstance forever, goodbye.
Ueda stories always end on some tragic goodbye note.
idk man. I never had that issue with ico or limbo. I never found any of the puzzles counterintuitive. to be fair I don’t remember much of the game at all in specifics, but it never felt overly contrived. the pacing felt just right to me! it was not very difficult, but I enjoyed that it was kind of a “lighter” experience.
maybe I should fire it up again and see how I feel about it now.
Eh, I really don’t care for Platinum’s games so I’m just hoping that it isn’t a combat-centric game as I’m not sure all the Nier weirdness in the world could make me want to slog through another one of those by that team.
vanilla Nier was already 95% combat, 2% fishing minigame, 1% boar drifting, 1% choose your own adventure puzzle. It would be nice if the combat was good. That’s my thinking.
I can only respond on a personal level, but while the combat in a generic Platinum game is more involved I’ve never found it to be all that enjoyable. If it ends up being, taking your math, 95% generic Platinum game/5% Nier game then I’d probably not enjoy my time with it all that much.
Yeah actually I’m going to go on record as saying Platinum games aren’t so much good as they are simply competent and Nier benefitted from having extremely basic Zeldaesque combat rather than yet another DMC-lite combo system.