What happened, Frictional Games? (SPOILERS maybe)

[Orpheus]

My playthrough is already nearing the end, and the only thing I'm thinking about right now is how did it come to this?

- The game seems even more linear than SOMA and there are almost no places you can actually explore (other than Fort). You are just moving forward;
- Many encounters with enemies seem to be scripted, and the fact that you can't die simply takes away any sense of risk;
- Too much exposition. The beginning of the game was a real nightmare. In The Dark Descent, you slowly revealed Daniel's backstory, but this game just dumps everything on you in the first couple of hours;
- Tasi talks too much. Her excessive chatter is more annoying than sympathetic. And also these "cinematic" moments when the heroine constantly falls somewhere... This is just ridiculous in Amnesia game. Tasi is not Lara Croft;
- Jumpscares. It's funny, considering that Thomas Grip himself spoke negatively about them in his interviews...
- The hunting ground moment seems like a wasted opportunity to really show off a good encounter with a memorable foe (gūl Leon). You are trying to traverse a maze with traps in total darkness, where a distraught and hungry crew member prowls. Sounds great, right? But this whole moment does not last long and seems to be scripted. And the grounds themselves are no larger than an ordinary hall. Do you remember the Choir from The Dark Descent? A large room within Brennenburg Castle with thick fog and Brutes?

[RevolverBigBosselote]

Honestly not being able to die is kind of a dumb point. From a story perspective you can't really "die" but functionally its basically identical to The Dark Descent. It sets you back a couple rooms and despawns the monster that killed you. All thats changed is context, the gameplay is the same. Honestly running away and passing out in a cutscene makes more sense and is more immersive than the game rewinding time and then deleting the monster that killed you for no reason. It also has an important story reason.

Yeah, Tasi talking is annoying. She's fine in cutscenes, and she's thankfully not a Sassy strong independent woman constantly throwing out one liners while being chased by monsters, but I definitely had many moments in game where I was like SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

The writers of DD and SOMA left some time ago.

[HummelAlt]

Автор сообщения: RevolverBigBosselote

Honestly not being able to die is kind of a dumb point. From a story perspective you can't really "die" but functionally its basically identical to The Dark Descent. It sets you back a couple rooms and despawns the monster that killed you.

Oh cmon. It only makes sense this way because the game tells you that it makes sense. If I create a game where shooting marshmallows is normal still doesnt make it a senseful thing, its still just means to an end to play into my agenda of creating a doofus game.

The real problem here is no failure state = no fear = why even bother making a horror game in the first place.

[Ka-mai19]

I do agree with the no death and de-spawn monster mechanic. When I was caught I really wanted the game to let me have another go at sneaking past the monster, but it took that opportunity away.

I wish it had a difficulty setting for this kind of stuff to allow players to have as much or as little challenge as they wanted.

[EEddiii323]

all monsters encounters in the dark descent and soma are also scripted

[lithops]

It's probably outsorced though. I am lready somehow stuck in textures and have to load from another save point. Also,there is something wrong with collisions,protagonst shadow looks very weird too.

[Ferk]

Автор сообщения: RevolverBigBosselote

Honestly not being able to die is kind of a dumb point. From a story perspective you can't really "die" but functionally its basically identical to The Dark Descent. It sets you back a couple rooms and de-spawns the monster that killed you. All that's changed is context, the gameplay is the same. Honestly running away and passing out in a cutscene makes more sense and is more immersive than the game rewinding time and then deleting the monster that killed you for no reason. It also has an important story reason.

There's no time rewinding... what happens is that Tasi becomes crazy mad, in sort of an insane rage and crawls around the area like a harvester. Almost like the Queen is helping her. What you see are just some flashbacks of the path she takes. Sometimes you actually advance or completely pass the obstacle when doing it, placing you ahead, not behind.

It did happen to me in the maze (aka. Hunting Grounds). I didn't solve the maze, instead I got caught, Tasi went crazy and when I woke up I was actually at the other size of the maze as if I had solved it. I also saw on Youtube someone also got past the area of the sleeping harvesters by getting caught.

I think it's a better idea to skip the part rather than repeating it, that way the repetition won't spoil it and you can still give it a try by reloading if you actually want to go through it without getting caught. Like they say at the start of the game, the point of playing is the experience, if you got caught you already kinda had a frustrating enough experience for that section and you are kinda allowed to go forward. I expected the number of times this happens would have some repercussions at some point, but I'm not sure if that's the case. Although at least it does seem to have some effect on the character's skin.

[gRRRz]

It doesn't despawn monsters each times; only for some scripted events. a the end you just respawn in a safe place and it's back. What I'm really not a fan of is the struggle mechanic. you randomly press keys; it's abnoxious and if you're stuck in a corner you end up dying anyway.

[THE VERY REVEREND MISTER BONK]

Автор сообщения: lithops

It's probably outsorced though. I am lready somehow stuck in textures and have to load from another save point. Also,there is something wrong with collisions,protagonst shadow looks very weird too.

Might as well be outsourced. Different team.

[IC]

I really liked the game, but I agree with your last two points. And there are considerably less encounters in this game.So this won't have as much replayability as TDD and SOMA.

That said, they did say they were trying to do something different. There is nothing wrong with that, it is simply a different game.

PS: less encounters is not necessarily a problem, since I love how they build the atmosphere and leave things for the imagination, but a replay will be much less scary.

[nutcrackr]

All your points are valid. The fort is the only good bit in the game.

[Norwee]

So the cool thing about Amnesia was that it had a lot of hub areas.
4 in total.
- Entrance Hall
- Back Hall
- Cistern Entrance
- Nave

From what i'm hearing this game only really has one location where you can choose your own paths. The fort? Am i right?

[El Fuerte]

Автор сообщения: lithops

It's probably outsorced though.

Its not.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/999220/discussions/0/4227150602815589546/

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2269460786
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2268128347

[cris]

Автор сообщения: nutcrackr

All your points are valid. The fort is the only good bit in the game.

The fort is genuinely the only part that scared the ♥♥♥♥ out of me. I think the rest of the game should've been like that, at least in terms of atmosphere. The creepy, droning, high-pitched music that even got louder and more scary as you got closer to seeing the monster and spiked when you did see it is very cool, along with the noises of footsteps and things falling, and the poor lighting all did a great job of giving it an oppressive look and feel. The fort is what I was expecting from a game with the Amnesia title.

That said, I still liked the game. It just wasn't as scary as I had hoped, and that's disappointing.

[Schizm]

This is just the direction Frictional is going with there games, they care about story and narrative first and game play and horror last.

They make walking simulators now and its disappointing because The Dark Decent even though it was flawed in a lot of areas showed real growth of Frictional as devs from the Penumbra series. But instead of improving the aspects of what made TDD work as a horror game they instead have slowly been abandoning them and again exclusively focusing on the narrative and I'm sorry but controversial hot take here If I just wanted a good story I'd watch a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ film, tv show or I'd read a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ book.