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Well, I'll definitely be watching this. I've heard a lot of good things about this game, but what I'd seen of the gameplay put me off trying it myself - I tend to think of myself as liking platformers, but I never cared much for what I'll call "pure platforming" like this (I tend to go in more for things like Mario and Megaman, or Metroidvanias... hmm, what is it with the letter M; regardless it wasn't until seeing this game and not feeling any urge to play it that I realised for me personally platforming alone probably isn't enough). I never could get into Super Meatboy and the like; that said, I'll give Celeste this, it's definitely got a much more appealing aesthetic, and the story and characters look like they have potential so far. The previous gameplay I'd seen of this was relatively unskilled and made it look far too hard, where you're running the risk here of making it look too easy. I wonder if that'll change my perspective on it. Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing more of this game now.
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Mar 29, 2018 18:24
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After watching your second video, I was intrigued enough to buy this game (against my better judgment, I think). That level really is incredibly fun, and I enjoyed it a lot; something about those dream blocks really does just feel good to play. And I love the way it's written, using a dream sequence as an excuse to have more surreal game mechanics like those blocks and being pursued by your own shadow before returning to normal gameplay. On the other hand, after that it's back to being a painful slog. (The contrast between that level and the next is really stark - the dream blocks are a mobility aid gimmick which gives you a sense of freedom, and then the next level's gimmicks are all forms of restrictive deathtrap.) I'm really enjoying the aesthetic and the writing of this game, I'm just not sure I actually like playing it much and I'm genuinely unsure if I'll be able to complete it. Which is a shame, because I really want to like it! This game is doing so many things right. It's worth having a bit of a digression to talk about Oshiro, I think - the characterisation is really well done here, and I think it brings out some dynamics a lot of people will be familiar with. Yes, he's pitiable and perhaps understandably so, we can see how he got to where he is and he clearly needs help, but he's also selfish and pushy: he wants Madeline to do something that will boost his own ego (the hotel stay, but also emotional labour), and he's really bad at hearing refusals. Madeline does take pity on him for a while, and keeps trying to let him down gently, but he doesn't listen and keeps trying to change her mind. Once that refusal is finally made sufficiently unequivocal (by the nastier "part of her", which gets fed up with both him and the rest of her for humouring him), he turns violent and attacks her. Obviously, this doesn't just have to be about hotel stays: this is a classic male entitlement narrative that shows up in a variety of contexts, and it's really fascinating to see a game depict it so openly.
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Apr 4, 2018 06:04
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This LP is really excellent, I'm still enjoying it. Even if watching you do this does make me feel very inadequate as a player. (I also don't think I'd have found some of the secrets if you hadn't shown them, in particular the first two crystal hearts...) Thanks in particular for showing the reversed music secret here, I'd vaguely heard something about that but had no idea what it actually was. In case anyone is interested in an update, I've now finished the main story of the game. I'm still missing two crystal hearts and four strawberries (one that I know the location of but can't figure out, the others I just can't find). I also need to go back and do full clears to get the stars, I didn't realise the game tracked that at first. I still can't decide whether I want to attempt the B-sides or not, I found the main game frustrating enough (I did get through the B-side for the first stage but that's the only one I've attempted so far) and I'm not sure I want to put myself through more of them. I think I have a lot of things to say about the story, too, I really like how they did it even if it didn't go quite where I was expecting (and even though the surrealist magical-realism aspects of the later parts of the game, such as we've started to see from the hotel level and now the Mirror Temple, invalidate a lot of what I had been praising the 'Old Site' dream sequence for at first). But I'll wait to discuss story elements more until you've gotten to them in the LP. There are a lot of moments where I do really enjoy this game, and more than I expected to. It's definitely grown on me a lot since my first impression, and I don't think I'm sorry I bought it. (At times I do catch myself wondering if I actually like it or if it's some kind of twisted justification-of-effort, Stockholm syndome-esque phenomenon where I'm convincing myself I must enjoy it if I'm putting in all this work...) One thing I'm definitely noticing, though, is that in some ways the controls are holding me back. I'm playing on Nintendo Switch and I've noticed the D-pad's position feels uncomfortable to me, so I end up using the analog stick, but that makes it really easy to put in the wrong input (I screw up a lot by doing diagonal dashes when I want horizontal and vice versa), and changing my dash direction too dramatically feels very awkward. This could easily also just be me being bad at games, but a lot of the time I really feel like I'm fighting the controller. Out of curiosity, Iggy, do you mind telling us what you're playing this on and what kind of control setup you use?
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Apr 10, 2018 18:02
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There are so many things I want to say about the writing and characterisation in this chapter, but I'm not sure I can actually express them. I've struggled with depression for most of my life and a lot of lines in this game sounded very similar to things I've heard from my therapist over the years. I don't think it's perfect, but at very least it's believable. I have to suspect that at least part of this game is autobiographical; I'd have a hard time believing that nobody involved in writing it has any personal experience with depression, because the depiction here really rings true. (Okay, I also did a double-take when Madeline says "Mostly I drink. And get angry at people on the internet." That was disturbingly close to home, and I suspect it is for a lot of people. Though at the same time I also think it's a bit jarring because of the game's art style, the way she's drawn makes her look early teens at best even though she's clearly written to be an adult. I can't decide whether I think that dissonance is intentional or not, it could be trying to make a point about how she sees herself but I'm not quite convinced.) As to whether the game itself has therapeutic value, I suppose that remains to be seen. In terms of actual level design, playing this one made me really anxious, because the first time through there's no way to know there aren't any strawberries in it. Between that and all the branching paths (which all eventually lead to the same place), I kept thinking I was missing something major and searching for secrets that just weren't there. Then of course I missed the actual secrets, I had to look up the crystal heart (which I still think is appallingly cryptic) and while I was sure there had to be something up that elevator shaft, I never managed to actually get up there.
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Apr 13, 2018 18:59
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I appreciate you mentioning the criticism that the game makes the resolution look too easy, because I did catch myself thinking that a few times myself, and had been planning to say something about it. I'm not completely sure where my views are on this yet, personally - I think it may depend somewhat on whether you incorporate the player's frustration and work at completing the game into Madeline's struggle as a character, or view them as separate things. But regardless, the resolution ended up ringing a little hollow to me in a way that the game's depiction of the struggle itself didn't. (Some of it might also come from leaning in a bit too hard on the metaphor: people can't actually reconcile with their inner detractor-voices with hugs, for obvious reasons.) I'm not sure, I think I'm still processing it. That said, don't take that to mean I dislike the game; it still handles this in a much more sensitive and interesting way than I've ever seen before. And there may well be people whose experience this is more consistent with. There is also, of course, the fact that at the summit there is literally just a flag, and after a moment Madeline starts climbing back down. It wasn't about the destination, it was about the journey and the destination doesn't matter. I don't think a lot of games are willing to say that so openly. Also, thanks for linking the interview.
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Apr 17, 2018 18:12
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ultrafilter posted:I think it works a lot better if you're playing the game than if you're just watching it. Your first playthrough is going to be considerably slower than what's being shown here, and that has the effect of making Madeline's development seem less rushed. Sorry if it wasn't clear from what I said, but I'm one of the people who was playing along with the thread and I was basing that opinion on having played it myself (and definitely struggled plenty, I think I had 4000 deaths or so when I got to this point). The resolution still felt at least somewhat facile to me despite that. I think the turnaround whiplash would undoubtedly be more pronounced for someone who is only watching cutscenes and skilled gameplay; the question I was trying to ask is how much of that emotional reaction on the player's part should be considered part of the characterisation. That said, to some degree this feels like a minor quibble, because the way the game is structured both in terms of level design, art style and music really does work well to convey the narrative it's trying to. There's an extent to which pacing it differently might have helped somewhat, but I'm not sure it would've been enough; I'm almost wondering if ending it without a concrete resolution (maybe leaving it uncertain whether Madeline reaches the summit or not, and just ending with her continuing to climb?) would've rung truer to people, but that doesn't work nearly as well in narrative terms to end the story... I'll stop talking for a bit, I feel like I'm taking up more than my fair share of the thread.
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Apr 18, 2018 06:51
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... Oh god, we've gotten to the point where even you can't make these look easy any more. Bloody hell, this game is not messing around. I've struggled through roughly the first half of Reflection's B-side and I think I might've reached the point where I have to get off this ride. Especially after having watched you do the rest of it and seeing how much more brutal it gets. These have been getting steadily more frustrating and less fun for me and I just can't do it any more. (Amusingly, the room where I stopped is one you said you thought looked more intimidating at first than it actually is, the last one before the Badeline-fog starts appearing. Then again, you say that a lot...) Looking forward to seeing the rest of the postgame with you, since I doubt I'll see it myself. Still, it's been quite a journey and I'm not sorry you convinced me to play the game. Speaking of the music and hearing other things in it... I kept thinking I was hearing bits and pieces of the Face Shrine music from Zelda: Link's Awakening in one of the songs. It was either in Mirror Temple or Reflection (both of which would be appropriate places to have it, I think), but which one it was isn't coming back to me now. And, of course, this could be entirely coincidence, I don't have the greatest ear for music and could easily be misinterpreting something.
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Apr 28, 2018 07:20
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Since we're sharing death counts... I think I had about 4000-5000 after finishing the main game (in which I'm including the Core, because I did that before attempting any of the B-sides). At my current point in the game (~halfway through 6B), I'm a bit over 8200. That said, I currently have no desire to proceed any further, and seeing what comes after only further reinforces that. I'm done and I don't regret it. Doing the Core before any of the B-sides was interesting, it definitely felt like a difficulty spike but it also felt like a different sort of difficulty to the B-sides, and I'm not entirely sure I agree with Iggy on placing it around equivalent to 4B (though that said I don't have the slightest clue where I'd place it either, so maybe if I think about it more I'll end up agreeing). The difficulty escalation through the B-sides is really something too, I have no idea how it keeps finding new places to go (and I dread to think what the C-sides are going to look like; for that matter, my brain is still a bit broken from trying to imagine the topology of a cassette with three sides).
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Apr 29, 2018 20:46
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 06:58 |
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This was a fantastic LP, and I really appreciate you having done it (not least because I wouldn't have played this game in that case). Even if I have a few minor quibbles here and there with the story and have personally reached my limit in terms of gameplay progression, I still think it's a wonderful game and deserves all the exposure it can get.
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May 1, 2018 19:52
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