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Quick Look: Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan

Austin travels the lands unlocking his inner strength and his inner DBZ.

Sit back and enjoy as the Giant Bomb team takes an unedited look at the latest video games.

May. 15 2016

Cast: Vinny, Austin

Posted by: Vinny

132 Comments

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Dirtyplatinum

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@amyggen: I dont enjoy the all white male cast stuff as much as the next guy, hopefully. I enjoy diversity, and in more then race. I enjoy female characters, aliens, talking animals. I dont care. As long as its a well written character Ill enjoy them. I dont have a "I am a white male so every game needs to have a white male lead!" mentality. However, a lot of people dont have that kind of way of thinking about it. And a lot of times it has to do with old values and outdated ways of thinking about things. Its hard to change something that is so ingrained into them as a person.

I just feel we should hold pretty much everyone to the same criticism. And it seems like Giant Bomb did just that. They commented about its choppy animation at times, its backwards approach to women in a certain quest, and its other flaws. And that is fantastic. It seems almost like we are agreeing here just not saying it the same way TBH. At least thats how it seems to me.

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Dixavd

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Edited By Dixavd

Forewarning - this comment section has a lot f discussion about diversity in gaming. There are interesting things here (and the lovely developers even popped up to talk about how they focused on story over mechanics) but just know that you might need a little willpower before heading in (regardless of your initial stance). <3

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AMyggen

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@dirtyplatinum: Oh yeah, I`m not saying a piece of art shouldn`t be criticised like any other just because I like that it`s something other than the default on the surface. I don`t think many people have that mentality, and if they do it`s not something I pay much attention to or care about.

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Dirtyplatinum

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@amyggen: Fair enough. Thank you for keeping it civil.

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AMyggen

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Jblonsk

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Edited By Jblonsk

Cool game. Thanks for the quick look.

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Dixavd

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FYI, the guy that Vinny is talking about at 17:35 is Dr. Wright from the SNES version of SimCity.

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fenryo

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One more comment and we get to 100 ??

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fenryo

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By the way we are in the Wallstreet journal today http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-africas-kiroo-games-is-shaking-up-the-gaming-industry-1463411574#

I can die in peace now.

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The_Tribunal

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Edited By The_Tribunal
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The_Tribunal

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Evil_Bunny_Hat

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@austin_walker: You were making all great points until you got to the part about the Witcher. People (and even you by using Witcher 3 as a jumping off point to talk about this) were trying to make an example out of something that didn't deserve it. It was wrong and even culturally insensitive to imply they needed to make their thing more American. To look at a some Polish fiction and see there is no black people and go "come on we can do better than this" is mad screwed up. Just because a culture is white doesn't mean they are American or the same as the rest of the white western world. People saw a AAA game filled with white people and said why isn't this thing more like America. That "we can do better" or "have you taken x into consideration" would be great points of criticism it if was a game set in Chicago, but when you are using that as points of criticism for cultures outside of the US you are basically saying "you should have viewed the world less as your culture does and thought more about how my culture would have perceived it."

I'm Polish in background so I take this personally and can tell you Polish stories and style are very very rarely seen in media. People saying but we see that same stuff all the time have no idea what in the world they are talking about. The Witcher series is one of the most unique franchises in gaming because of its Polish nature. So how about people think twice before lumping Polish people in with w/e other white people you may feel like.

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Cagliostro88

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It's cool to see game development spreading to new countries (and not under the ubisoft umbrella to develop assets for AC :D)

It's so strange to see the protagonist named Enzo, a common italian name, in the middle of cameroonian-based fantasy. I imagine it's just coincidence

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Evil_Bunny_Hat

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I love seeing other points of view of the world from other cultures. It's one of the most fascinating things with the worldly nature of media. This game seems super interesting to me, because as far as I know I've never played a game that was made by Africans with a genuine African point of view. I'm honestly probably going to buy it at some point because of that. With that said with the whole Polish thing, I feel like people are trying to erase certain cultures just because they happen to share the same skin color as another culture. White people have been very guilty of this with the assuming South Americans are just South Americans and Africa is also some unified thing. It's wrong from all perspectives when people lump people by skin color,and it does make me very sad when I genuinely love seeing perspectives from around the world.

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paddyboyle92

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@theht:

I don't think that point (b) is silly at all.

Across all media, people are okay to take all the "cool" and "interesting" things from other cultures (namely brown-skinned cultures) and use them as part of their creations but are not happy to or think it necessary to represent the people from said culture even when there is an opportunity to do so that makes sense.

That's why it's a problem.

My dig at "claiming all of the mythology is Polish or Slavic" was aimed at the ignorant people who comment in forums in an attempt to defend the argument that having no PoC in the Witcher games makes sense by stating that the game would be "historically inaccurate" if there were, or that the game is "based on Polish and Slavic folklore" which is why there are no PoC.

This argument is common and gets on my nerves because they obviously don't know what they're talking about.

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TheHT

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@paddyboyle92: That's just it, it simply isn't necessary to represent the actual people from a culture when utilizing or being inspired by their fairy tales. Nevermind that jinn were adopted into Islamic folklore, i.e. an entire religion that isn't exclusive to one skin colour. The nature of storytelling has always allowed for and embraced adoption and inspiration of elements from other lands. Ultimately, it's all human mythology.

Anytime someone wants to tell a fantastical tale filled with mythological beasts and gods, they shouldn't need to put in what would effectively amount to exotic beast-wranglers, nor have to delve into the particular history of said "exotics." If you can explain why that should be a prerequisite for any stories using mythologies in any way, I'd be open to seeing it. And should it be any culture that's touched the mythology, or just the oldest?

The historical accuracy argument is weak from the get-go, because it's fuckin fantasy. But it's worth pointing out that someone saying a work is distinctly Polish or Slavic isn't the same as them saying that every part of it is "purely" Polish or Slavic.

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Evil_Bunny_Hat

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There's some real americentrism going on in this thread right now.

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Evil_Bunny_Hat

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This thread is actually a really good example of a rather good discourse about a subject that two sides are discussing their points of view. Then a guy comes in throws some insults and and says something along the lines of "because people have a different opinion than me the world is a shameful place," and it's all down hill from there.

People get so wrapped up in themselves and their thought process and situations they can't even fathom the idea that someone may be different. Ironic isn't it.

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Onemanarmyy

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Edited By Onemanarmyy

@phuturist: I would be a bit more forgiving to this game myself, since it's a huge achievement for a Cameroon studio to actually publish a neat game about their own culture but you do have a point.

If people have a serious issue with Witcher 3 for being all-white, you should feel the same issue with this game. Aurion does offer diversity within games on a whole, since there aren't many games focused on black Africans, but it doesn't have much diversity withinthe particular game itself.

Personally, i think both games are totally free to tell the story as they want to and include the characters as they see fit. Having an African game filled with black people won't drag me out of my immersion, just like white people don't drag me out of the Witcher's world. Of course, Aurion has other flaws that more directly influence the enjoyment that can be pointed out to improve the game. Like the floaty combat.

That said, pretty neat how Aurion has a lot of common mechanics in it, but give their own spin on those mechanics. Like the map and the overworld are pretty unique in how they function.

edit: just saw that Aurion has white folk in it too. Good on you Aurion!

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Phuturist

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@onemanarmyy: Yeah I was about to mention the white folk in Aurion, making this game a bad example for what I was trying to do. Also I don't think it's better that they are in there, I'm more confused by it, but perhaps there is an explanation or that's just what they wanted. Eh. Thanks for your reply anyway!

Also that overworld looks goofy in a kind of cute endearing way. But I'm not sure how that overworld feels after dark story beats of like rape.

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elflaconeri

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Wow, I've been sorta keeping tabs on this for a long time, never expected to see it on GB though. Thanks Austin and Vinny!

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DHIATENSOR

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Every time I read about this game I end up with a mad desire for some legendary curry udon. Can't put my finger on it.

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YummyTreeSap

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Well these comments took a turn, and quick.

Yep! Really good username you've got though!

(I've definitely tried securing tuffghost on various failed social media sites).

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shadowwolf9

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@snorkel_the_dolphin: where did he ever say that? He doesn't like it getting a pass where The Witcher didn't. I agree with him.

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Jellybones

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@yummytreesap: Thanks! I've been using it wherever possible since that album came out.

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Edited By craymen_edge

It's a shame some people felt the need to derail the comments, but this looks OK, and it's a refreshingly different setting.

I could see myself enjoying this game during a quieter period, when I could dedicate a few consecutive days to it.