What were your thoughts of the ending of the main campaign?

[Pirate Beard]

I just finished the main story before the DLC island, and while I had fun along the way, I thought the story just got progressively worse around the point where you get the recipe for the poison darts and Jin becomes a bio terrorist in cutscenes. I personally just didn't care for his character development towards the end

[Flying Fox]

Origineel geplaatst door Replicant Six:

When I first played this game I spared Jin's Uncle but this second time now on PC I killed him and I was not ready for Jin's emotional outburst, that ♥♥♥♥ tore right through my heart.

And the mistake I see a lot of players making is "Oh I played honorably but the game forced me to poison the castle/all other dishonorable things."

The entire point of the story is Jin is spiraling down this way, you're -supposed- to engage with the dishonorable. If this game actually allowed you to make real narrative choices I would agree having a "good" honorable mode would be cool but that's not the game we got.

I agree in principle that not every game needs to give the player choices when it comes to narrative. But I do feel it somewhat has to match up with the gameplay, where you absolutely can use a more frontal assault playstyle.

[Ingel Riday]

Origineel geplaatst door Flying Fox:

I don't think the story was bad, but agree that Jin is leaning a bit too much into being as dishonorable as possible (with the poison). The problem is that this was all in cutscenes, outside the player's control, while in general gameplay you can choose how you approach combat. That's what makes videogame storytelling unique, but the game didn't make use of it.

Another issue I have is that, from a gameplay perspective, there is no reason to be extra dishonorable. Sure, on lethal difficulty, stealth is going to be important to win fights. At least early in the game. But mass poisoning the enemy was completely unnecessary, as we know we could probably defeat the enemy on our own without it.

Ah, you're reminding me of an old Assassin's Creed / Far Cry issue. "I'm a God of death... until a cut-scene happens." :-P

Could player-controlled Jin defeat 250 Mongols by himself? Sure. With the right upgrades, charms, and skills... absolutely. But cut-scene Jin can't. The disconnect is that player-controlled Jin is far more powerful than cut-scene Jin. Cut-scene Jin understands that he'd be overwhelmed by the enemy numbers, and also doesn't want to cause a ruckus that causes Lord Shimura to take the bait and get his people blown up. Hence the forced stealth sequence and mass-poisoning.

Kind of the nature of the beast, I guess. Player-controlled Jin can shrug off poison with some resolve. Cut-scene Jin collapses into a helpless heap of bloody vomit and needs Yuna to rescue him. Guffaw.