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My main problem with the leviathans in BZ - at least the ones in the crystal caves - is that it's very hard to avoid them attacking you. Taking my seatruck through those caves, it got chewed on so many times and it was so hard to avoid that it very quickly became annoying rather than scary, and that's terrible for the horror. I don't think the leviathans there was any less dangerous than the ghost leviathans in the lost river, but those are incredibly tense and scary because you sit quietly and wait for them to pass, letting your imagination tell you what will happen if they actually notice you.
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Mar 27, 2022 18:05
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| # ? May 23, 2024 16:28 |
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Subnautica is absolutely a horror game for anyone scared of deep water. Which is a lot of people! Was really fun having a friend of mine liveblog their experiences and being particularly terrified of a good chunk of the monsters. I mean hell, you could compare it to Silent Hill. Horror games much like horror movies don't have to be all blood and guts and/or jumpscares, especially with how cheap those get. Atmosphere is key, and that you get used to it also works for the 'game' part as you gradually progress and get used to how things work, only to (in theory) find new places that work differently.
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Mar 28, 2022 11:20
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I think the intent of Subnautica's design wasn't horror or agoraphobia. Or even isolation, really. I wish someone would take up the torch of deep water survival and really lean into the scary elements. I know Subnautica was lighting in a bottle and any attempt to emulate it probably wouldn't work as well, but someone should try anyway
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Mar 28, 2022 16:50
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Manager Hoyden posted:I think the intent of Subnautica's design wasn't horror or agoraphobia. Or even isolation, really. We’re all keeping an eye on this one: https://youtu.be/vqy5noRNVJo https://www.ign.com/articles/polish-studio-far-from-home-next-gen-survival-forever-skies?amp=1 It takes place in the sky but might hopefully offer a similar experience to Subnautica. We’ll see.
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Mar 28, 2022 16:58
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Hey it has some new gameplay footage to share: https://youtu.be/9EtYTeTGkdw Oh poo poo that looks great. Especially at the end when he descends into the toxic clouds and it cuts away. Cartoon Man fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Mar 28, 2022 |
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Mar 28, 2022 17:00
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Problem is skies are less scary than deep water.
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Mar 28, 2022 17:07
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I actually didn't get into Subnautica specifically for the fear element, but more because I genuinely as a kid was really interested in marine biology, and that's stuck with me. I even had a whole weird phase as a kid where there was just a year when I was scared of the water because I kept thinking of the fish that could be in there and lurking beneath and I just wouldn't know where or how close, and that was both scary and fascinating. When I saw a lot of other underwater games that were about just chilling underwater like Endless Ocean or Abzu, it kinda felt untrue to me with what the tone of what I thought about ocean life (like even if you are safely a human and not on the menu for any creatures around you, a lot of fish are going to be constantly scared of predators who are after you). Maybe I'll try checking those out, but Subnautica really demonstrates a lot of what I feel is key about understanding creatures in the deep. And of course, Subnautica also got me hooked into trying similar exploration-focused games without real combat options, so I'm looking for similar things anyways now. Maybe Forever Skies will manage to tap into my other deep-seated fear of falling from heights like how Subnautica made me reckon with the abyss. Tenebrais posted:My main problem with the leviathans in BZ - at least the ones in the crystal caves - is that it's very hard to avoid them attacking you. Taking my seatruck through those caves, it got chewed on so many times and it was so hard to avoid that it very quickly became annoying rather than scary, and that's terrible for the horror. I don't think the leviathans there was any less dangerous than the ghost leviathans in the lost river, but those are incredibly tense and scary because you sit quietly and wait for them to pass, letting your imagination tell you what will happen if they actually notice you. Yeah, I had that issue too. Either the caves are just physically much more narrow than the river in the first game, or there just isn't any frame of reference to understand when you're at a distance from the leviathans. I actually ended up using an exploit to get past them, where if you have a seatruck with at least one module, if you get up from your chair while in the seatruck, the leviathan won't notice the unpiloted seatruck, so you can just wait for it to pass (and literally pass through the seatruck and clip through). It was very tense waiting, but figuring out an exploit like that does ruin some immersion and sometimes makes things less scary. It didn't fall as flat as the snow worms, but it wasn't good.
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Mar 28, 2022 17:50
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If the Crystal Caves were bigger/wider so the player could actually see the shadow leviathans at a distance greater than "oh poo poo it's attacking!" it would be so much better. There is pretty much no way to avoid them.
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Mar 28, 2022 20:50
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Laughing Zealot posted:If the Crystal Caves were bigger/wider so the player could actually see the shadow leviathans at a distance greater than "oh poo poo it's attacking!" it would be so much better. There is pretty much no way to avoid them. Yeah, I'd appreciate this. I'd also love if they did 51 points of damage to your vehicle if they see it and catch it, and were known for always attacking their prey twice in a row, giving you little time to escape after the first attack. That way, you could avoid them, and while being caught didn't necessarily mean immediate death, you would have to work pretty hard to survive the entire encounter, kind of like how it is when they attack you outside of your gear and do 75 damage.  I'd also prefer the shadow leviathans to work how the T-rex in Jurassic Park (erroneously) worked, so that if you stood still and turned your lights off, you'd likely be safe. The reaper has echolocation, so the shadow should have something equally as unique. Edit: one more thing about BZ: why the hell don't you take, or even offer to take Margeurit home at the end? Christ, she takes one escort gig 12ish years ago, and is now doomed to live out the rest of her days on 4546b? That loving sucks. Better than dying, but still, goddamn. Rupert Buttermilk fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Mar 29, 2022 |
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Mar 29, 2022 07:07
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Manager Hoyden posted:I think the intent of Subnautica's design wasn't horror or agoraphobia. Or even isolation, really. Narcosis sounds like what you're describing, although it's a fairly linear first-person survival with no building elements. There's a full playthrough with no commentary on YouTube if you feel like checking it out.
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Mar 29, 2022 08:56
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:
Why would she leave, she's having the time of her life?
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Mar 29, 2022 09:44
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:Edit: one more thing about BZ: why the hell don't you take, or even offer to take Margeurit home at the end? Christ, she takes one escort gig 12ish years ago, and is now doomed to live out the rest of her days on 4546b? That loving sucks. Better than dying, but still, goddamn. She's pretty settled, and all she really wants is to be left alone. Going by her personnel records, there's not much waiting for her back on Earth even before you get into dystopia stuff. Plus you're not even going to Earth.
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Mar 30, 2022 01:19
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Inferior Third Season posted:The original clearly taps into horror elements. It's not a coincidence that the first place you're likely to encounter a leviathan is in murky water. I had a similar experience with Subnautica. It came free with my PS5 and I was like "oh that's the game where you swim around an alien coral reef and scan fish, right? sounds chill." Then I played it for a while and found out it really has these moments where you're floating on the edge of an endless abyss with very large, angry things swimming just beyond your view. Great game to go in blind, I didn't even realize it was going to have a whole storyline and lore. Getting near the end of BZ now and surprised that they really dialed back the sense of wonder from the first game. Environments are more cluttered, item fragments are plentiful and mostly near the starting area, fewer areas with an endless murky abyss or any real sense of danger. And a lot less mystery this time around, even the plot with the sister kind of seems like an afterthought.
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Mar 30, 2022 01:43
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I think i know why i finished subnautica but not BZ. I stopped playing BZ when that lady gave me a fetch quest. I just loled about it now that i actually typed it out. Oh well.
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Mar 30, 2022 04:27
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Regarding the horror aspect. I legit still avoid staying in the water around the floating island because the black void below creeps me out. Even when I'm perfectly aware of what is down there. Also why I avoid the world's edge like the plague.
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Mar 30, 2022 10:52
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Leviathans still scare the gently caress out of me. There is little that peaks me into an OH gently caress like that in any game.
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Mar 30, 2022 11:41
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Laughing Zealot posted:Regarding the horror aspect. I legit still avoid staying in the water around the floating island because the black void below creeps me out. Even when I'm perfectly aware of what is down there. Also why I avoid the world's edge like the plague. I mean, it might not help that go straight down from the floating island and you land smack bang in Ghost Leviathan territory.
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Mar 30, 2022 16:05
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Meskhenet posted:I think i know why i finished subnautica but not BZ. Subnautica is just all fetch quests. It’s just fetch quests but in deeper and deeper water.
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Mar 30, 2022 17:35
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Tom Tucker posted:Subnautica is just all fetch quests. It’s just fetch quests but in deeper and deeper water. Quite literally fetch quests all the way down
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Mar 30, 2022 17:44
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Tenebrais posted:My main problem with the leviathans in BZ - at least the ones in the crystal caves - is that it's very hard to avoid them attacking you. Taking my seatruck through those caves, it got chewed on so many times and it was so hard to avoid that it very quickly became annoying rather than scary, and that's terrible for the horror. I don't think the leviathans there was any less dangerous than the ghost leviathans in the lost river, but those are incredibly tense and scary because you sit quietly and wait for them to pass, letting your imagination tell you what will happen if they actually notice you. This was 100% my experience. I made beelines for them because after you shocked them, they left you alone for awhile.
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Mar 30, 2022 17:46
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(Playing Below Zero): ugh this npc just gave me a fetch quest this game sucks I’m going back to the original. Subnautica: go collect these five plant clippings from all over the map. Ugh finally so much better I hated that lame fetch quest in BZ.
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Mar 31, 2022 01:53
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Tom Tucker posted:(Playing Below Zero): ugh this npc just gave me a fetch quest this game sucks I’m going back to the original. Subnautica's is a final test to see if you've been studying the plantlife on the planet as you explored and put everything you've learned and assembled into getting them. BZ's is just slamming the brakes on the story to get it done rather than another item on your personal to-do list.
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Mar 31, 2022 03:07
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Subnautica's is a final test to see if you've been studying the plantlife on the planet as you explored and put everything you've learned and assembled into getting them.
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Mar 31, 2022 03:44
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DoubleT2172 posted:Spoiler: I didn't. And had to use a guide. RIP Owned.
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Mar 31, 2022 04:55
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When I got the final quest in Subnautica, it just so happened that I had been collecting various plants already and had all the samples I needed.
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Mar 31, 2022 04:56
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Tom Tucker posted:(Playing Below Zero): ugh this npc just gave me a fetch quest this game sucks I’m going back to the original. Subnautica: I've been playing this light survival, free roaming, exploration game for the past 20hrs and have had a great time organically uncovering the narrative. What's this? The last 5minutes of the game is fetch quest? drat. Below Zero: The sassy side kick tells you the whole story and sends you on a fetch quest in the first 5minutes of play time. Why would people prefer the first one over the second? These two things are definitely the same.
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Mar 31, 2022 05:27
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SlothfulCobra posted:When I got the final quest in Subnautica, it just so happened that I had been collecting various plants already and had all the samples I needed. "Have at least one of everything that I never use or get rid of" philosophy finally pays off!
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Mar 31, 2022 05:28
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The problem with the original fetch quest is that you have just spent a while going through a annoying zone, where you are constantly having to stop and hide/repair, and where you can easily get lost. And then when you finally get to what you think is the ending of the game, you have to remember where a bunch of plants are.
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Mar 31, 2022 06:33
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SlothfulCobra posted:When I got the final quest in Subnautica, it just so happened that I had been collecting various plants already and had all the samples I needed. I actually had one plant sample and forgot about it so I had to look it up and go down to get another one.
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Mar 31, 2022 07:35
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Pander posted:"Have at least one of everything that I never use or get rid of" philosophy finally pays off! I wasn't even being that obsessive about collecting one of everything with the plants, those were just the ones I thought looked good to furnish my alien containment module. And then I kept some bulb bushes because you could eat them, and I had just randomly picked up a fungal sample from the mushroom forest when trying to figure out if there was anything I could do with the mushroom trees, and it was easier to keep around because it was much smaller than other plant samples. I did have some weird idea that I should grow a bunch of extra sea crowns because their databank entry said they were endangered.
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Mar 31, 2022 21:06
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I absolutly left two sea crowns in every single growbed I'd scattered across the game to feed my network of bioreactor+scanner room pocket bases.
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Apr 1, 2022 01:35
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ate poo poo on live tv posted:Subnautica: I've been playing this light survival, free roaming, exploration game for the past 20hrs and have had a great time organically uncovering the narrative. What's this? The last 5minutes of the game is fetch quest? drat. Subnautica: Wow the Grand Reef is pretty, this Trench is cool, whoa I can grab stuff off these giant swimming dudes! I enjoy all the amazing locations and visuals in this game! Below zero: Wow the Twisty Bridges is pretty, the Vent gardens are cool, whoa I can grab stuff from inside these giant jellyfish. Im glad they added more cool locations and visuals to the game.
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Apr 1, 2022 18:09
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Dyz posted:Subnautica: Wow the Grand Reef is pretty, this Trench is cool, whoa I can grab stuff off these giant swimming dudes! I enjoy all the amazing locations and visuals in this game! This is how I feel about the games. I really really REALLY want to do a hardcore run on Switch, but  the crashes would kill me before my own negligence would.
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Apr 1, 2022 18:17
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Oasx posted:And then when you finally get to what you think is the ending of the game, you have to remember where a bunch of plants are. To be fair, the warp gates inside the facility will take you to the locations where the ingredients can be found. I believe there's also a sea crown inside the aquarium where you're given the quest. You still need to do some poking around in the different biomes, but at least you're given a shortcut to the general locations.
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Apr 1, 2022 19:06
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Dozens of hours in both games and I just now realized it's possible to toggle the hud off by pressing f6 
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Apr 1, 2022 20:21
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:This is how I feel about the games. I picked up the switch version for $20, and going from full screen 4k on my 3080 to the 720 on the handheld with like 24fps is hard. I'm gonna play it still when on the go, mostly for ambiance and chill, but I can't fathom trying to pull switch prawn Batman skills like I could on the PC.
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Apr 1, 2022 22:20
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Laughing Zealot posted:Dozens of hours in both games and I just now realized it's possible to toggle the hud off by pressing f6 what what  Holy poo poo! Thank you!
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Apr 1, 2022 23:21
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Keep pressing it and you can pick which UI elements you want to see.
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Apr 1, 2022 23:27
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Fall Dog posted:To be fair, the warp gates inside the facility will take you to the locations where the ingredients can be found. I believe there's also a sea crown inside the aquarium where you're given the quest. You also have access to a pedestal that just MAKES Ion Cubes, so you've no reason not to open every warp gate you can.
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Apr 5, 2022 11:33
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| # ? May 23, 2024 16:28 |
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One thing I very much appreciated about BZ is the earlier access to ion cubes. In the original, I felt like by the time I found that pedestal, I was almost done the game and didn't need to bother making better batteries.
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Apr 5, 2022 11:47
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