Gameplay?

[Gaz Blackheart]

I watched the trailers but as far as I can tell its all cinematic with a brief flash here and there of someone possibly controlling the character. I have no idea what the gameplay is like. "action adventure" is kinda vague. What would you compare it to?

[burlymatt]

So a few comparisons: Ratchet and Clank or any of those late 90s / early 2000s platformers.
One of the mechanics, wall-running, is reminiscent of the first 3D Prince of Persia in terms of control. Jak and Daxter too.

Lots of platforming, climbing things, new hazards and ways of traversing are introduced as the story progresses. There are chase sequences similar to Crash Bandicoot amongst others.

There are no hub worlds, so no talking to NPCs in that gaming sense. There is a lot of note collecting (for extra story but also I believe for achievements), collecting the floof upgrades (most of which are off the critical path) to upgrade your weaver powers in combat. Plus a few health upgrades which are even more off the critical path. I believe the chapter summary tells you what you can expect to find in any given chapter and there are options to go back and replay chapters. But if you miss stuff it's no biggie. It won't prevent you from progressing or completing the game.

You are very much in control of Hazel, the MC.

[Ansgar Odinson]

The best way I can say is it is an action platformer. The levels are linear with the story unfolding as you go. There are lots of little side paths with hidden stuff to find. here and there will be designated combat arenas, they are very telegraphed and you have to defeat the enemies that spawn there before moving on.

There are some puzzles, but those puzzles are pretty simple. More like, "how do I get up to that thing I can see".

[Gaz Blackheart]

Originally posted by burlymatt:

So a few comparisons: Ratchet and Clank or any of those late 90s / early 2000s platformers.
One of the mechanics, wall-running, is reminiscent of the first 3D Prince of Persia in terms of control. Jak and Daxter too.

Lots of platforming, climbing things, new hazards and ways of traversing are introduced as the story progresses. There are chase sequences similar to Crash Bandicoot amongst others.

There are no hub worlds, so no talking to NPCs in that gaming sense. There is a lot of note collecting (for extra story but also I believe for achievements), collecting the floof upgrades (most of which are off the critical path) to upgrade your weaver powers in combat. Plus a few health upgrades which are even more off the critical path. I believe the chapter summary tells you what you can expect to find in any given chapter and there are options to go back and replay chapters. But if you miss stuff it's no biggie. It won't prevent you from progressing or completing the game.

You are very much in control of Hazel, the MC.

thank you for the reply, that was pretty detailed and helped me get a better understanding of the type of thing to expect.

[Vanrath]

xD

[jack_of_tears]

Yeah, I played the first hour of the game and all it entailed was running from one cutscene to the next, with virtually no gameplay. I was so bored by the end of it that I didn't even bother saving my progress.

[Chubzdoomer]

Originally posted by jack_of_tears:

Yeah, I played the first hour of the game and all it entailed was running from one cutscene to the next, with virtually no gameplay. I was so bored by the end of it that I didn't even bother saving my progress.

You didn't play very much of it, then. There's a TON of platforming, and quite a few combat sections as well (including full blown boss battles). It's very much a straightforward story-driven game, though.

[jack_of_tears]

Originally posted by Chubzdoomer:

You didn't play very much of it, then.

Yeah, that's why I said "I played the first hour", perhaps you missed that part. If the 'Ton' of platforming is the very basic and blatantly time-wasting busywork I saw in that hour, no thank you.

If a game can't convince me to stay and keep playing in an hour, then it isn't worth my time.

[illustrious.jfunk]

I'm really torn on this game. The design and story and characters are all really cool an engaging. It succeeds in making me want to see what happens next. But honestly, the gameplay just seems like it's not sure what it wants to be for the most part.

Navigating the environments seems like it would be pretty cool as a fast-paced speed rush. Only you can't do that because you have to stop on each and every platform to look around in every nook and cranny and find the resource needed to level up your character and learn another drip of story from a scenery object. So the fun factor of flying through the maps with your cool traversal skills is neutered by the fact that you HAVE to go slow and hunt every corner of your screen for the hidden trinkets. These two aspects pull in opposite directions, counteracting rather than enhancing one another.

The combat sections are all EXACTLY the same, extremely repetitive, and very simplistic. And for me, there is something very off about the lock-on camera. It seems to be more of a "suggestion" as to which enemy I'd like to see rather than a lock. It's annoying.

After a while, I felt like all the actual interactive parts of the game just felt like a chore I had to get through in order to enjoy the next part of the story. This might have been better as a movie or a short series than a game.

Kudos to the devs for making an engaging story, characters, and art that do draw me in and make me want to see more. But the design of all the actual interactive action parts of the game are so lackluster that it just makes me want to go play something else instead.

It seems like this game is pretty short, so I may push through because watching youtube videos of just the cut scenes will miss a lot of the fleshing out of the story provided by the objects you find in the environment, but I really think this would have been better off skipping the "set piece" action sequences other than bosses, going full in on speed-running through the maps with enemies sprinkled into the map as additional obstacles (like a traditional platformer), and then making more mini cut scenes during the level to fill in the story parts that are currently fed via the trinkets left sitting around the environment (just a quick scene of her finding the note/letter/whatever as you get to that part of the map rather than having to manually slow-walk around and find it).

[Ansgar Odinson]

Originally posted by illustrious.jfunk:

I'm really torn on this game. The design and story and characters are all really cool an engaging. It succeeds in making me want to see what happens next. But honestly, the gameplay just seems like it's not sure what it wants to be for the most part.

Navigating the environments seems like it would be pretty cool as a fast-paced speed rush. Only you can't do that because you have to stop on each and every platform to look around in every nook and cranny and find the resource needed to level up your character and learn another drip of story from a scenery object. So the fun factor of flying through the maps with your cool traversal skills is neutered by the fact that you HAVE to go slow and hunt every corner of your screen for the hidden trinkets. These two aspects pull in opposite directions, counteracting rather than enhancing one another.

The combat sections are all EXACTLY the same, extremely repetitive, and very simplistic. And for me, there is something very off about the lock-on camera. It seems to be more of a "suggestion" as to which enemy I'd like to see rather than a lock. It's annoying.

After a while, I felt like all the actual interactive parts of the game just felt like a chore I had to get through in order to enjoy the next part of the story. This might have been better as a movie or a short series than a game.

Kudos to the devs for making an engaging story, characters, and art that do draw me in and make me want to see more. But the design of all the actual interactive action parts of the game are so lackluster that it just makes me want to go play something else instead.

It seems like this game is pretty short, so I may push through because watching youtube videos of just the cut scenes will miss a lot of the fleshing out of the story provided by the objects you find in the environment, but I really think this would have been better off skipping the "set piece" action sequences other than bosses, going full in on speed-running through the maps with enemies sprinkled into the map as additional obstacles (like a traditional platformer), and then making more mini cut scenes during the level to fill in the story parts that are currently fed via the trinkets left sitting around the environment (just a quick scene of her finding the note/letter/whatever as you get to that part of the map rather than having to manually slow-walk around and find it).

After you finish the game you can "chapter select" and start at the beginning and speed run all you want. All the collectibles you have wont even be on the map. So unless you are looking for the stuff you missed the first time, you could absolutely play it the "speed run" sorta way.

Personally I enjoy these old school 3D platformers where there is hidden stuff to look for, but I admit its a rather niche genre these days.

[illustrious.jfunk]

Originally posted by Ansgar Odinson:

After you finish the game you can "chapter select" and start at the beginning and speed run all you want. All the collectibles you have wont even be on the map. So unless you are looking for the stuff you missed the first time, you could absolutely play it the "speed run" sorta way.

Personally I enjoy these old school 3D platformers where there is hidden stuff to look for, but I admit its a rather niche genre these days.

But the problem is those parts aren't good. You don't even need to "search" for anything, it's all in plain sight. There's no hunting or exploration, it's just stopping long enough to turn 360 degrees, see that there are 2 other paths that aren't the "lit up" one, take the 60-90 seconds required to follow them before returning to where you started and following the path forward for 30 more seconds to the next "hub". What I mean was the design should have been different to make those sections compelling as an "action platformer". It wouldn't be any fun to "speed run" through these levels as they currently exist, because they're just empty and devoid of any challenge. But I can see where the mechanics are there that they COULD have made it a fun action platformer if they chose to go in that direction. Instead they just show you this little glimpse of what could have been a cool run & gun vibe if there were some enemies you had to swat along the way during longer non-stop action sequences. Instead it's "make two jumps and one wall run, then stop and walk slowly around for 2 minutes", rinse and repeat. There's just no substance of any kind to either the platforming or the combat. Both are so bare bones as to barely exist.

This plays like it was a great story somebody wrote, and then they tried to convert it into a "game" only they didn't hire anybody with real experience making good games to do it. So a handful of coders just did the best they could by taking an idea here and there from other games and trying to make them mechanically functional. They succeeded in the sense that it's functional, but the gameplay itself is just completely soulless. Unlike the story, characters, and art which are awesome, the gameplay has no real identity at all. It's just there, as though it were a box that needed to be checked off on a to-do list. It seems like a ton of talented folks worked on this, just none of them are talented at game mechanics.

[Ansgar Odinson]

Originally posted by illustrious.jfunk:

Originally posted by Ansgar Odinson:

After you finish the game you can "chapter select" and start at the beginning and speed run all you want. All the collectibles you have wont even be on the map. So unless you are looking for the stuff you missed the first time, you could absolutely play it the "speed run" sorta way.

Personally I enjoy these old school 3D platformers where there is hidden stuff to look for, but I admit its a rather niche genre these days.

But the problem is those parts aren't good. You don't even need to "search" for anything, it's all in plain sight. There's no hunting or exploration, it's just stopping long enough to turn 360 degrees, see that there are 2 other paths that aren't the "lit up" one, take the 60-90 seconds required to follow them before returning to where you started and following the path forward for 30 more seconds to the next "hub". What I mean was the design should have been different to make those sections compelling as an "action platformer". It wouldn't be any fun to "speed run" through these levels as they currently exist, because they're just empty and devoid of any challenge. But I can see where the mechanics are there that they COULD have made it a fun action platformer if they chose to go in that direction. Instead they just show you this little glimpse of what could have been a cool run & gun vibe if there were some enemies you had to swat along the way during longer non-stop action sequences. Instead it's "make two jumps and one wall run, then stop and walk slowly around for 2 minutes", rinse and repeat. There's just no substance of any kind to either the platforming or the combat. Both are so bare bones as to barely exist.

This plays like it was a great story somebody wrote, and then they tried to convert it into a "game" only they didn't hire anybody with real experience making good games to do it. So a handful of coders just did the best they could by taking an idea here and there from other games and trying to make them mechanically functional. They succeeded in the sense that it's functional, but the gameplay itself is just completely soulless. Unlike the story, characters, and art which are awesome, the gameplay has no real identity at all. It's just there, as though it were a box that needed to be checked off on a to-do list. It seems like a ton of talented folks worked on this, just none of them are talented at game mechanics.

Turn off the guiding strands. Then you dont know where the "right path" is. Also, I have searched every nook and still have a few floofs missing. So its not quite as simple as you would suggest. A lot of them are that obvious, but some of them are bit more hidden.

[illustrious.jfunk]

Originally posted by Ansgar Odinson:

Turn off the guiding strands. Then you dont know where the "right path" is. Also, I have searched every nook and still have a few floofs missing. So its not quite as simple as you would suggest. A lot of them are that obvious, but some of them are bit more hidden.

But turning off the strands won't make the mechanical experience any better. It will just make it so you don't know which of the ~3 paths available are the "right one" so you have to check them by trial and error. Either you guess correctly, or you waste time by having to backtrack once you've gone far enough to realize you didn't pick one of the side loops. There's no "exploration" here, it's not an open world. There are no alternate routes. There is just 1 path forward with 1-2 optional side loops/dead ends that give XP and/or lore as the reward for the 60 second diversion.

I don't have a problem with that inherently from a level design perspective, it's just that the platforming mechanics are incredibly rudimentary so there is no challenge or excitement from executing them, it's just a time sink. Hold forward and press A is all there is to traversing the levels. They should have developed the action/platforming mechanics a lot more, because right now they just serve no purpose other than to waste time between cut scenes.