1st was better, 2nd is boring, ruined by Ubisoft syndrome

[v00d00m4n]

When 1st game came out i was surprised how well it worked and how non boring it was despite it was done by ex Ubisoft devs who did nothing but repetitive grindfest fetchquest typical Assassin Far Rainbow Ghost Watch Creed Cry Six Recon Dogs games that felt the same and got boring and repetitive after 5-10 hours of identical missions with poorly done basic bare minimum mechanics utilized mostly in tower\avantpost capture and fetch quests with huge open world where you have nothing interesting to do. Quantity of everything over quality, copy and paste over 100 from one game to another, make them all feel like same game with different skin. This is what is called by term Ubisoft syndrome.


1st Savage planet had some of Ubisoft DNA but it was balanced by so many other things that even some fetch quests did not feel boring. 1st game knew when to stop repeating same thing and offer something new, it has a lot of unique situations, good pacing of new traversal tools upgrade, that opened previously locked routes and gameplay features, it rewarded exploration, it had sense of grandeur mystery of ancient alien civilisation, that kept you interested to move forward, it has a lot of different flora and fauna with unique behavior that was not just used in action, but also in differnt smart puzzles that was also often physics based, and not repetitive, and there was also sense of vertical challenging progression, your vertical movement was limited and and you have to be smart and fast to get somewhere and it was fun. Also world was open, and while it was compact it felt very grand and there was no lazy mission zones and invisible walls. Humor was dark and crazy, but it knew where to stop and not repeat same jokes again too fast to not make them unfunny. And i amost forgot to say that game had its own gameplay loop ecosystem where everything was connected and worked like well oiled machine.

Game was very good metroidvania which felt like funny version of Metroid Prime.

i was expecting more of this from sequel and... most of this is gone! Its not even metroidvania anymore, instead it feels like yet another Ubisoft typical open world Assassin Star Creed Outlaws Recon Avatar which got boring from very beginning 1st 30 minutes, then got fun for couple of hours until it got even more boring fast, because it showed you everything it has to offer, and it doesnt offer as much as 1st game. Ultimate dissapointment comes when you gets to second planet, that despite having different biom, has a lot of same creatures, and zero of new mechanics. Traversal has zero challenge it actually so poorly done you can easily jump up to out of mission zone bounds everywhere and get to many places without required tools.

Level design looks like corridors and open areas with engine generated random enviroments that was decorated without effort

Sense of traversal challenge is gone, you can go anywhere easily, barely need any tools, there is barely any secret interconnected routes that was in 1st game. Level of interactivity of locations is bare minimum.

i have not seen any puzzle yet, all i have seen just fetch quests with go there get your stuff, with forced mini area battles every time, and sometimes there was tree that you have to feed by throwing cute things at it and you dont have to aim precisely. And then it repeats again and again and you can see the pattern of this boring and short gameloop.

There is no point and motivation for exploration after you have seen this pattern.

1st planet has small area and it already gets borring fast, you expect that maybe on second things will change, but once you get there you realize its all the same gameplay loop you got bored of but now area is 2x or maybe 3-4 times bigger and looks like boring desert and even most of animals are same here. So it goes for quantity instead of quality.

Even story got worse and lost any intrigue to keep you motivated to continue (i dont even want to talk how it tries to push comedy and hyperbolisation so much, it starts to feel like a self parody, and not the funny one), so here happens what usually happens with most of Ubisoft games for last 15 years - you quit the game and cant find motivation to finish it.

From hype you comes to frustration in few hours. This did not happen with 1st game. Actually i feel like 2nd game left so unpleasant taste, that i need to replay 1st game (which i cant continue thanks to still not enabled steam cloud, fix it please, somebody!) from start to wash out this taste.

Now i just want to know , how did this happen, did main game designer of 1st game was replaced by someone who got just fired from Ubisoft and worked on recent assassin grind, or budget was low, time was short, engine was slow, inspiration was low, publisher was in control?

How we came from almost perfect metroidvania to cheap version of boring typical ubisoft open world game where everything barely works and creative ideas are gone?

Update:

I forgot to mention that move from Unreal 4 to 5 didn't do any good to game, its cartoonish style looked great I. UE4 and it performed great, more realistic and real time gfx effects of UE5 doesn't suit this cartoonish style, and doesn't make game looks any better than 1st one on UE4, but it kills performance so badly due of poor optimization of nanites and lumens that should have been disabled for good. Also due if poor performance game barely runs on Steam Deck and mostly runs very blurry and noisy, especially in split screen, which makes game super ugly, while 1st game performance is pretty good and image clarity also is much better so in the end graphics of 1st game looks subjectively better.

I also think that move to new engine made devs start from scratch instead of moving all existing assets and codebase of previous game to new game and starting from it, which is probably one of reasons of heavy departure from 1st game, as very bare minimum of its mechanics was replicated in 2nd , and it was done poorly, and it all feels in general like if game was released in half baked early access state where half of mechanics was not yet implemented and remaining half was not fine tuned, and everything was barely glued together with boring story nobody cares about, so it all feels like non important spin off instead of true sequel we expected.

I hope devs would read it, make a notes, return to UE4 codebase to not miss a single gameplay element again and would make true Savage Planet 2 that continues 1st one in terms of gameplay, story, and overall fun of metroidvania with rewarding exploration of mystery. And current failed experiment would be written off as some spin off and some twisted nightmare of corporate CEO.

[Dr. Peppermill]

Everyone can have an opinion and for me the sequel is better.

[v00d00m4n]

Originally posted by Dr. Peppermill:

Everyone can have an opinion and for me the sequel is better.

Can you explain what exactly is better for you? Do you prefer dumbed down broken mechanics and lack of puzzles and presence of repetitive fetch tasks and limited amount of everything over something that was way better?

[Dr. Peppermill]

Originally posted by v00d00m4n:

Originally posted by Dr. Peppermill:

Everyone can have an opinion and for me the sequel is better.

Can you explain what exactly is better for you? Do you prefer dumbed down broken mechanics and lack of puzzles and presence of repetitive fetch tasks and limited amount of everything over something that was way better?

I don't feel any need to explain my taste or preferences. I finished the game and moved to another so I suggest you do the same.

[v00d00m4n]

Originally posted by Dr. Peppermill:

Originally posted by v00d00m4n:

Can you explain what exactly is better for you? Do you prefer dumbed down broken mechanics and lack of puzzles and presence of repetitive fetch tasks and limited amount of everything over something that was way better?

I don't feel any need to explain my taste or preferences. I finished the game and moved to another so I suggest you do the same.

There is no validity in opinion that is not explained and not supported by logic and facts.

[Nacre]

Originally posted by v00d00m4n:

There is no validity in opinion that is not explained and not supported by logic and facts.

dont be a fedora tipping sperg, opinions are by their nature seldom supported by either of those.

That said I agree, 1>2, I was really hoping those little mushroom idiots would show up on other worlds, provide different effects when you breathe them in, but no, just half a dozen different flavors of pufferbirds, except you cant slap them anymore and they have fur instead of feathers now.

The entire corporate buyout plotline was tedious and obnoxious, I dont care about the new ceo ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I barely cared about the old ceo ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, but I was hoping kindred guy would at least be a bit more frenemy than just some geezer that needed me to do some chores for him

theres no teratomo to lament over as a fellow stranger in a strange land, theres no babushka to joyously slap the everloving ♥♥♥♥ out of before its fragments scatter, no cragclaw to test your skill at both moving and aiming at the same time

theres some corpo v corpo drama going on the background, that Im sure the developers felt is the most important thing in the world but I just cant be assed to care if spacefuture riot games takes down spacefuture disney. everything to do with slappy just felt lazy. writers couldnt think of a way for any of the gameplay to make sense, so they pulled a deus ex and blamed it all on the robot. why do I have to unlock stuff? why I do I go to different worlds? why are things the way they are? robot did it.

that on top of the gameplay being worse on just about every front, but forced third person when first person worked perfectly fine in the first game.

[Nacre]

Originally posted by Dr. Peppermill:

I finished the game and moved to another.

lmfao so that was a complete lie, you reply to every thread for this game, and its always just worthless ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. anyone says one thing they dont like, you chime in with a worthless "well I liked it" as if you or your opinion means ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Are you getting paid to shill for this game or are you running an internet defense campaign for free like a sweaty reddit moderator

[Lord Vathos]

In addition to OPs post, I refer back to my review -

https://steamcommunity.com/id/Lord_Vathos/recommended/2787320?snr=1_5_9__402

They ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up with this game, clearly changed target audience. There was also development team and publisher changes since the first game which it could be attributed to. But they should have definitely have made a better attempt to stick close to the first game. I'd hold hope for future instalments to be better but this was pretty disappointing.

[Dr. Peppermill]

Originally posted by Nacre:

Originally posted by Dr. Peppermill:

I finished the game and moved to another.

lmfao so that was a complete lie, you reply to every thread for this game, and its always just worthless ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. anyone says one thing they dont like, you chime in with a worthless "well I liked it" as if you or your opinion means ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Are you getting paid to shill for this game or are you running an internet defense campaign for free like a sweaty reddit moderator

You can see what I play on my profile, which is something you hide from yours for some reason. LOL I just love when semi-anonymous trolls tell me I “shill” when at least 30% of my reviews are negative.

[Paradroid78]

I started re-playing the first after finishing Revenge, and yeah I agree that in some ways it's better. You actually need to upgrade your gear to make progress, and the enemies are tougher. The environment in general is more hostile, making for more challenging play. It also holds you by the hand a lot less. And whatever happened to grapple seeds?

And I don't think it's actually bigger than the second game, but because everything's interconnected, it can feel that way. Each of the planets in Revenge is like its own isolated sandbox, and they each feel pretty small compared to the more open world of the original. The environments in the original also have a lot more verticality, and it makes you wait until you can start exploiting that. Getting the 3x and 4x jump feels like a big deal, because they open up previously inaccessible parts of the map. In Revenge, they're not that special, because the 2x jump you get early on already lets you get to most places.

But the original does have some frustrating mechanics that the sequel improves on. Pretty much anything to do with how the gun handles is better, for example, and I want that upgrade that eliminates fall damage. Third person view makes the platforming a lot more fun too, IMO. And things like electricity and the remote control ability for the drone are pretty cool. I'd love to have Journey to the Savage Planet with some of the more streamlined mechanics of Revenge of the Savage Planet.

Edit: Should mention, no performance issues for me. Who cares about the engine? That's an implementation detail. It's the game that's build on it that's important.

[Nacre]

Originally posted by Dr. Peppermill:

You can see what I play on my profile, which is something you hide from yours for some reason.

Stop being mad that you cant stalk my profile. What you "play" isnt relevant. You're obsessing over this game and religiously checking the discussions, when you pretend you've "moved on"

you need to get help. You have a fixation on defending this game that's mid at best, and become unreasonably upset whenever someone doesnt like a single aspect of it.

Take this discussion itself. OP didn't like the sequel. Stated many reasons. You HAD to chime in, NEEDED to inform him that YOU liked the sequel. For what? Who does that benefit? OP still doesnt like the sequel, especially when you refuse to name even a single reason why he should. So either you're a self centered obnoxious moron, and other fans of the sequel are probably just like you, or you're being paid to patrol steam discussions.

The sequel is still trash.