Brilliant game up til Level 9. I won't be finishing it.
Posted: Fri May 04, 2012 9:14 pm
I'm posting this because LoG was such a breath of fresh (dungeon) air in so many ways that I really hope the developers can avoid what felt like a slap in the face for their future projects.
I proudly paid for the game, started my first run on Hard, and enjoyed the hell out of myself for eight levels. But now I have no interest in trying to finish the game.
My issue isn't with the puzzles (which are, except for the one we're all thinking of, fantastic), or that the game requires patience or lateral thinking. My issue is that starting with Level 9, the designers decided that some basic rules they've skilfully and subtly taught the player through hours of excellent gameplay up until that point should just go out the window, because that will make it more "challenging."
Rule #1: Exploration is encouraged. Up until the ice lizards. Now exploration is punished, because these G-D snow raptors will spawn endlessly and surround you in a narrow hallway if you dare to backtrack for something you think you might have missed.
Rule #2: There is sometimes more than one way to approach a level. Up until the ice lizards. Now you'd better have done everything in the order we decided, or it's death by Clever Girls when you have to backtrack.
Rule #3: While there is challenging combat, this game is more about thinking than reflexes. Or, at least, it was. Because now you're drawing dinosaurs in to square rooms so you can do a ridiculous square dance for five minutes each, one-by-one. Maybe for half an hour, because they spawn endlessly, of course. Somehow. Dripping out of the walls, I guess.
Rule #4: You don't have to grind in this game. Well, until you do. See #3. When people talk about grinding, that's what they mean.
Rule #5: Build the kind of party you want! They all work. Focus on the kinds of weapons and items that suit your party. Oh, but if the party you wanted had no reason to be carrying four specific items through nine levels of dungeon, then you can't progress past this one puzzle. Sorry. Go back and look for crap on the floor of every previous dungeon for a couple of hours. (For the record, I had all the items with me when I encountered that puzzle, and solved it quickly - but still recognized it for how abusive it was, and the contrast with all the other thoughtfully crafted puzzles was shocking).
Rule #6: Solutions involve the things around you. Just expand your thinking. Unless we're talking about #5 above. Or unless you've made it to Level 10 but have no food, and you've been prevented from going back to look for some. That's where I am now, and there is absolutely no way of finishing the level. All my characters are deadly hungry, my mage is going to run out of energy potions, one fighter is doing like 5 damage per hit, and the other fighter is dead - which is of course going to happen when it now takes ten minutes of square dancing to whittle down one monster's hitpoints, and the only way to progress is unleash three or four of them in to a tiny room. I'm not going to go back to an earlier save-state in Level 9 to see if I can save a few hitpoints or a single potion this time.
I feel like the designers should have prepared me better for what might happen if I find myself in this state. Make it difficult for me to find more food, sure - put a challenge in the way - but, impossible? That's just vindictive, and done in poor faith.
I knowingly started a old-school game on Hard, I get that. And I loved it and built a pretty good party, and despite that ended up in an unwinnable state. I feel as though the game is saying, "Oh, you didn't make all the decisions we secretly wanted you to make, so sorry your hours of gameplay are for nothing. Better start over."
I won't, though. Such a brilliant game at the beginning, such an absuive exercise in pointless twitchy grinding at the end. A thoughtful game like this should be able to ratchet up the difficulty with something more than spamming enemies (that's modern FPS territory) and expecting me to be a mind-reader.
Best of luck with future endeavours, Almost Human. We need more games like LoG, but I feel like it would have been nice of LoG was also like LoG the whole way through. I'll keep recommending the game, but I'll also be telling people they shouldn't expect to necessarily get a full game out of it.
I proudly paid for the game, started my first run on Hard, and enjoyed the hell out of myself for eight levels. But now I have no interest in trying to finish the game.
My issue isn't with the puzzles (which are, except for the one we're all thinking of, fantastic), or that the game requires patience or lateral thinking. My issue is that starting with Level 9, the designers decided that some basic rules they've skilfully and subtly taught the player through hours of excellent gameplay up until that point should just go out the window, because that will make it more "challenging."
Rule #1: Exploration is encouraged. Up until the ice lizards. Now exploration is punished, because these G-D snow raptors will spawn endlessly and surround you in a narrow hallway if you dare to backtrack for something you think you might have missed.
Rule #2: There is sometimes more than one way to approach a level. Up until the ice lizards. Now you'd better have done everything in the order we decided, or it's death by Clever Girls when you have to backtrack.
Rule #3: While there is challenging combat, this game is more about thinking than reflexes. Or, at least, it was. Because now you're drawing dinosaurs in to square rooms so you can do a ridiculous square dance for five minutes each, one-by-one. Maybe for half an hour, because they spawn endlessly, of course. Somehow. Dripping out of the walls, I guess.
Rule #4: You don't have to grind in this game. Well, until you do. See #3. When people talk about grinding, that's what they mean.
Rule #5: Build the kind of party you want! They all work. Focus on the kinds of weapons and items that suit your party. Oh, but if the party you wanted had no reason to be carrying four specific items through nine levels of dungeon, then you can't progress past this one puzzle. Sorry. Go back and look for crap on the floor of every previous dungeon for a couple of hours. (For the record, I had all the items with me when I encountered that puzzle, and solved it quickly - but still recognized it for how abusive it was, and the contrast with all the other thoughtfully crafted puzzles was shocking).
Rule #6: Solutions involve the things around you. Just expand your thinking. Unless we're talking about #5 above. Or unless you've made it to Level 10 but have no food, and you've been prevented from going back to look for some. That's where I am now, and there is absolutely no way of finishing the level. All my characters are deadly hungry, my mage is going to run out of energy potions, one fighter is doing like 5 damage per hit, and the other fighter is dead - which is of course going to happen when it now takes ten minutes of square dancing to whittle down one monster's hitpoints, and the only way to progress is unleash three or four of them in to a tiny room. I'm not going to go back to an earlier save-state in Level 9 to see if I can save a few hitpoints or a single potion this time.
I feel like the designers should have prepared me better for what might happen if I find myself in this state. Make it difficult for me to find more food, sure - put a challenge in the way - but, impossible? That's just vindictive, and done in poor faith.
I knowingly started a old-school game on Hard, I get that. And I loved it and built a pretty good party, and despite that ended up in an unwinnable state. I feel as though the game is saying, "Oh, you didn't make all the decisions we secretly wanted you to make, so sorry your hours of gameplay are for nothing. Better start over."
I won't, though. Such a brilliant game at the beginning, such an absuive exercise in pointless twitchy grinding at the end. A thoughtful game like this should be able to ratchet up the difficulty with something more than spamming enemies (that's modern FPS territory) and expecting me to be a mind-reader.
Best of luck with future endeavours, Almost Human. We need more games like LoG, but I feel like it would have been nice of LoG was also like LoG the whole way through. I'll keep recommending the game, but I'll also be telling people they shouldn't expect to necessarily get a full game out of it.
