It's official, Dan consistently comes up with the best series ideas for the site, it's incredible. With the way the game is chunked up, playing it (for the first time) along with the video is super fun, and I totally feel Abby's pain in some of these parts, The Bald Bull can be a chore. I definitely could've used some of that nose tork.
I'm consistently blown away by how many people consider Wolfenstein 2 to be difficult. Granted, I'm playing on PC which probably makes things significantly easier, but with 2 fully-upgraded Sturmgewehrs, I was melting people even on the hardest (non-permadeath) difficulty. The only thing I found that made the game difficult was really bad conveyance both of what is doing damage and how much damage is being/has been done. After all the work that was put into the pacing of The New Order - both in terms of gameplay variety from level to level and the progression of crazier and crazier boss fights - it was pretty disappointing to finish The New Colossus in just under 7 hours having fought a whopping one bossfight (the rest of the "bosses" are the same recycled enemy that can be run-past) and having near zero memorable set-pieces that weren't done better either by other games or the game's own predecessor.
As for the story, I found it to be such a radical departure from the preceding entry that I couldn't take much of it seriously. They went from a game that was quietly horrifying and serious with some understated levity for flavour - which lent it a certain grounded cohesiveness - to a game that swings wildly from super-serious to over-the-top stupid in a way that felt extremely disjointed, ham-fisted, and kinda made it hard to stay invested in the characters. Like, there are parts where the game is really trying to sell you on things that it totally throws out in the second half, and there are things that are introduced that totally go nowhere - likely because they're being set up for the sequel - that made it feel kinda weirdly rushed and tonally inconsistent in a bad way. What's worse is after replaying The New Order, I realized that the team seemingly forgot that a lot of the things BJ confronts about his rose-tinted recollection of the american way in TNC are things he already confronted in the previous game, at least in the Wyatt timeline. If they were remotely paying attention, they would have at the very least written some lines during certain key moments that actually reflect the conversations he had, as opposed to parroting the same sentiments he did in the last game as though none of it ever happened.
Though I've been pretty negative on the game as a whole, there are parts of that game that I totally loved and character moments that both fucked me up and had me genuinely bust up in ways games truly never have before, but when you undermine seemingly everything that made the game's predecessor so great, I find it hard to be anything but disappointed, because this was an opportunity that feels completely squandered.
This game looks great when you watch it being played, and I'll agree that the visuals and sound design are great, but having played this for about two hours, some design choices are questionable.
For instance, something not discussed in this video (unless I missed it?) is that it's got a similar mechanic to Hollow Knight in that when you die, you're forced to fight your corpse - the problem in this game is that your corpse has all your upgrades, and you're left with only the pea-shooter and 99 health. This alone, though frustrating, is not enough to warrant complaint in my opinion. What is, is the fact that you can leave a beefed-up corpse in areas with infinitely respawning enemies that fly at you at high speeds from off-screen which can turn a tough corpse fight into a complete shit-show. If that wasn't bad enough, if you die again, you're forced to fight THAT corpse too, and the corpses are no pushovers.
This hasn't been enough to completely put me off the game because so far every other aspect is pretty cool, but the design described above has me really scratching my head.
Some other notes:
I've noticed that there is no way to regenerate health except by grinding, which is as likely to get you killed/very low health as it is to get you any notable gains. Though this game shares a lot of similarities with Metroid, regenerating health on saves is not one of them.
The other thing I've noticed is there's no way to rebind controller inputs, and the way the controls is set up is a bit odd, in that you can hold R to lock yourself in place and aim around, but if you want to do that while airborne, you need to have held R while stationary on the ground FIRST before jumping. If you decide you need to aim on an angle after having jumped, it won't stop your forward momentum, making it kinda awkward in some instances.
Additionally, rolling is bound to Down + A as well as just B, but if you're holding a direction while pressing B, it's a crapshoot if you'll actually roll. If this were remedied it would make the roll a great mid-fight utility, but as it stands now it's relegated to just being used to move through tight corridors as it's not consistent enough to be used for anything else.
Finally, it should be noted that this game is a metroidvania in aesthetic only (and in the fact that you're restricted Metroid Fusion-style in where you can go). It retains none of the greater gameplay loops present in the material it uses as inspiration, and as a result the experience is a little flat. I've enjoyed jumpin' and shootin', and I've certainly enjoyed the visual and sound design, but if you're looking for deeper exploration than "throw a grenade, receive an upgrade", you may want to look elsewhere.
indigodays's comments