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Episode Two: complete! Thoughts?
MistressKana
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I've finished episode two and there were some pretty awesome things to it and a few little things I wasn't partial to.
If you havent finished the game, I have a great idea for you: DONT READ THIS THREAD.
If you do, I can't be held responsible for what you see with your dumb ass eyes. Not everyone knows how to use that spoiler tab thingy.
If you havent finished the game, I have a great idea for you: DONT READ THIS THREAD.
If you do, I can't be held responsible for what you see with your dumb ass eyes. Not everyone knows how to use that spoiler tab thingy.
Anyway! Moving on. Espisode two had a lot of great stuff to it and was generally a vast improvement to the first. In my own opinion, I thought the script in the first one was funnier but, hey, whatever.
What I liked:
1. The text was way easier to read on the 360 version, I don't know about the others. My televisions really small, so this was important.
2. New items. White Christmas was BA.
3. That rich woman enemy with the fur wrap that bit your face just tickled my fancy.
4. Lots of Locations was pretty cool.
5. Cut scenes were, again, beautiful.
6. That monkey was the shit! I loved Gabe's desire to keep it like a stuffed animal.
I'm probably leaving a lot out of my like list but w/e. I'll add as I remember.
What I didn't like so much:
1. The end fight. The concept of fighting the giant Fruit fucker with a giant female baby doll is halarious and horrificly wrong in so many ways (Fruit fuckers a pedo!). But it would have been nice if that combat had been more fleshed out, like a regular battle with, perhaps, some more tricked out options. It felt kind of cheap to just press three buttons till you powered up and killed him in one shot.
2. They killed my mime! Wtf?! He was marrying me that night!! You fuckers! Now I have to seek eternal vengance and that's just so..so time consuming.
3. The fetch quests for that woman at the asylum. That was annoying as hell. I couldnt have just beat her head in with a hoe (futeristic or otherwise) and then just gone in? They have crazy people just wandering around so it seems like it could have been blamed on any one of them and even if it couldn't, they locked me up for crazy anyhow. Would have saved time.
4. That everytime you visited the asylum, you had to run all the way back through the entire waste land with nothing in it. You'd think they might have taken one or two of the empty panels out when they no longer served a purpose.
What I liked:
1. The text was way easier to read on the 360 version, I don't know about the others. My televisions really small, so this was important.
2. New items. White Christmas was BA.
3. That rich woman enemy with the fur wrap that bit your face just tickled my fancy.
4. Lots of Locations was pretty cool.
5. Cut scenes were, again, beautiful.
6. That monkey was the shit! I loved Gabe's desire to keep it like a stuffed animal.
I'm probably leaving a lot out of my like list but w/e. I'll add as I remember.
What I didn't like so much:
1. The end fight. The concept of fighting the giant Fruit fucker with a giant female baby doll is halarious and horrificly wrong in so many ways (Fruit fuckers a pedo!). But it would have been nice if that combat had been more fleshed out, like a regular battle with, perhaps, some more tricked out options. It felt kind of cheap to just press three buttons till you powered up and killed him in one shot.
2. They killed my mime! Wtf?! He was marrying me that night!! You fuckers! Now I have to seek eternal vengance and that's just so..so time consuming.
3. The fetch quests for that woman at the asylum. That was annoying as hell. I couldnt have just beat her head in with a hoe (futeristic or otherwise) and then just gone in? They have crazy people just wandering around so it seems like it could have been blamed on any one of them and even if it couldn't, they locked me up for crazy anyhow. Would have saved time.
4. That everytime you visited the asylum, you had to run all the way back through the entire waste land with nothing in it. You'd think they might have taken one or two of the empty panels out when they no longer served a purpose.
MistressKana on
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Now, Moving on...
1. Gabe's GOD DAMN mini game. I HATE that bastard! Haaaate it.
2. The endboss, was a bit...meh. THe puzzle to get Anne-Claire to beat the FF was kinda simple, even though the actual fight was bloody HILARIOUS. So I'm calling that a even bet.
3. Before the fight with the Furnace thing, there's a long cutscene, and if you lose the fight, you can't skip it.
Now! Onto the great stuff
More puzzles, Amazeing dialoge,
I love the part at the beginning where you can say "No" to Gabe and Tycho.
"I've got one of those rock gardens. I rake the SHIT out of that thing."
"You used to KILL people with a rake, remember?"
"Good times..."
More cutscenes, more areas, overall MORE in everything. Amazeing job!
BTW Kana, I never had the problem you had with the asylum. I always started in the courtyard. Maybe you missed a hidden poster or something?
FTC: HONK.
PAX Prime 2014 Resistance Tournament Winner
Also I've remebered something else that was awesome. That brain puzzle game you play after they drug you up to restore your sanity was so much fun, and that Catsby and Twisp were in there, you know, observing like it was a spectator sport just sealed the deal for me.
Favorite moment of the whole thing: epic one on one fight with Charles! After he nails you right at the start of the chase I expected a significant challenge so I spent a bunch of time right at the start I buffed myself and debuffed him and settled in for an extended brawl... and then do over half his massive hp total in one hit.
SISSY BOSS FIGHT!
Best. Fight. Ever. Interspersed with Tycho running around as the screen shakes from my presumed off-camera ownage.
Here's some of my nitpicking, nothing too bad:
-I might be imagining this, but it seemed like the pathing from moving around was a little rougher then the first game, maybe because the environments were more complex. My character seemed to be getting stuck on invisible barriers more than Ep 1, and Gabe/Tycho kept getting left behind as I moved around. Course this didn't affect gameplay any so it's pretty minor.
-My memory might be messed up, but it seems like what was the epic final boss music from Ep 1 became the regular boss music for this episode, which disappointed me a bit. Again, though, since it's a good track anyway I can't complain too hard.
-Speaking of epic fights, I'm going to echo some of the earlier comments that the last fight seemed way too abrupt, even with the fantastic concept of a mech-to-mech confrontation. The whole thing took me maybe 3 minutes, opening cutscene included. It was a great idea storywise but a letdown in gameplay. This is the only real problem I had; even letting us wail on the head for more then a few rounds would have made me feel better. As it was, it almost seemed a waste of all the power and minigame talent I'd been building up.
Also, if you could do the brain minigame at any point, with a timer or something for scoring that would be super awesome.
And this isn't a nitpick but after seeing the thing at the end I'm not sure if it's a very vague preview of Ep 3 or just a funny reference to the comic's Blood, which is probably exactly what was intended.
But overall, very good, definitely surpassed Ep 1, and I'm already counting the days until we can get our hands on Ep 3.
FTC: HONK.
PAX Prime 2014 Resistance Tournament Winner
Yeah. You can always just go to the map through the agency button, and travel anywhere.
3 minor issues:
1) A agree with Meiteron's comment that "the pathing from moving around was a little rougher then the first game".
2) There was much more foreshadowing in the first episode then the second. For example:
3) Minor issue. After playing ep1 again I realized that the camera in the fight scenes was much more appropriately placed in ep1. In ep2 it was viewing most battles from the side so it made it more difficult in some instances to select the enemy I'm attacking or the ally I'm healing. There was at least a couple times I healed Gabe instead of Tycho because one character moved in front of the other. It was very frustrating. Today I realized that you can also select an ally on the bottom of the screen. Still I prefer the over the top camera.
There was some things I enjoyed. I really liked how there were costume buffs in this one. (side note, can someone tell me where the third costume is? The costumes I have are:
Just so you've got a bit to go on:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/05/05/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/5/4/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/5/6/
If you weren't intruiged already, you should be now. If you still aren't, your soul may be missing.
and
But in anycase I trust PA and I have enough faith to know that episode three will be good, probably with some new, fun things to do, even if I'm a bit aprehensive about the closing clip containing
After reading what Golden Yak sent me, I put a lot more of this game into context. I am certainly more exited about ep3. The questions abound:
1) Where do Dr. Raven Darktalon Blood's allegiances lie?
2) Will he be a playable character (either in his current mild mannered form or in his ass kicking comicbook form)?
3) Will your team have to make a trip into Underhell?
4) Will you have to fight Dr. Raven Darktalon Blood?
5) Will Leviathan be a playable character/support character?
It'll be interesting, but I still wish they'd have done a better job playing up interest in the ep3 throughout the story. Perhaps making allusions to Underhell?
- The Charles chase and fight scene was equal parts hilarious and awesome. His "The Charleston" move in particular cracked me up. Also how the hotel manager just blurts out "You two are going to fight to the death". So funny.
- More support characters and no useless ones like the cat
- Wider range of enemies with amusing moves and sound effects
- "Rest type" story/puzzle areas like the Symposium area really appeal to me. I don't like every area to be about wading through hordes of enemies.
Dislikes:
I agree
As for insane mode collectibles:
-The music was interesting.
-The weapons were awesome.
-Sissy boss fight, grand.
-Special attacks, seemed more polished.
-The mini-game was neat.
-The story was better than last time.
-The searching seemed less...contrived.
Dislikes:
-Div was neat but slower that Mr. Tails and less powerful. Would've been nice to see him scale up in speed or power.
-The Twisp and Catsby mini-game isn't playable for the sake of playing it on it's own.
-The final boss fight seemed very lack luster, a puzzle but no substance.
All I can think of at the moment.
the hoe of tomorrow
dr. drei
Tycho's general hilarious writing
Gabe's awesome art in motion gg hothead
things I disliked:
killing all the good doctors (rip whimple, you're peeing in heaven now)
the boss fight was ridiculously easy
my computer lags just slightly so I have to block before my cue (I know that one is my fault)
A lot more "innocent" people also get whacked by you in episode 2, like all the folks who live in the apartment building you burn down (the ones who didn't try to kill you), and all the people on that train you launch into the orange.
Oddly enough, the massacre at the Symposium on the future of Man doesn't fit in with this. There has been, until this point, an implicit division between the "game" world and the "setting" world. That is, you can walk down a street and gun down a dozen hobos or young lovers and not bat an eyelash because that's part of the "Game". On the other hand, you can then go talk to a distraught mime doctor in need of help finding his wedding ring and consider that a worthy task. The writing even pokes fun at this, by playing with the mild cognitive dissonence between the story and the action.
The Symposium massacre, however, was a violation of that sacrosanct division. A dozen or so random people getting chopped up with lasers should hardly be worthy of note by now, but there was until this point the implicit understanding that those NPCs were the "real" people, while all the no-names that get diced to pieces in combat or as part of the "game" aren't quite as real. It gave us a reason beyond the loss of one's house to seek the destruction of the dark machine god, now to avenge those fallen scientists.
Still though, the game increasingly suggests that this is a world not worth saving, and that our heroes aren't in it for heroic reasons but more petty and short-sighted goals. I'm fine with that - it's fitting with both the Lovecraftian themes and the general feel of Penny Arcade, where men may die for possession of a wrist watch. The change in tone was no doubt the biggest difference to me.
Oh, and about what we see in the next episode?
Dr. Blood is naturally pretty interesting, and the question of whether he'll be friend or foe remains presently unanswered. The first episode laid the groundwork for the next episode's villain, however, so this makes me think that Dr. Blood will no doubt be involved somehow with the next dark god. It's a good way to tie the games together, and it'll be harder to do that now what with a great number of characters dead. I mean, without the Fruit Fucker Prime, your character's motivation is kind of out the window along with one of the main enemies of the series.
Speaking of your character, I kind of hope they get more development options towards the end. Not just more clothing or new weapons, but a few more chances to flesh them out a bit. It doesn't even need to be some sort of multiple choice, choose-your-own-adventure development (though that'd be sweet), just a few more things to help the character stand out as more than a middleman through which we might interact with the Penny Arcade universe. That little solo-adventure was a nice touch in the Asylum.
There's a few other bits of foreshadowing that I thought were significant:
Also, the narrator seems to have taken on a more sinister bent this time. One especially important thing he said went something like "Without help, you may be destroyed-- not by me, certainly, but by the others". That reference to "the others" and the fact that he says he can only help the player if they allow it makes me strongly suspect that the Narrator is one of the Four Gods. That's certainly significant foreshadowing, isn't it?
Eat fish.
Had that established.
From the beginning of Ep1
Anyone who has read any of Lovecraft's work with Nyarlothotep in them drew that conclusion.
You don't need to block him, you need to make him slow enough so that he can't attack you at all.
However, I'm sorry. The final boss battle was bullshit.
You spend the entire game learning how to do those god damn special attacks and then all of a sudden, bam, NOPE, you're sidelined and you have to learn a quick series of attacks on how to win in seriously one punch.
That was lame. I wish the build up to Annarchy saving the day was a helluva lot more difficult. Then she can come for the KO, but at least let me feel like I earned something by upgrading my weapons fully (which I didn't even get credit for, THANKS stupid machine at the World Fair).
Off to insane mode from difficult, but seriously, the final boss fight was stupid.
Between this and "Sissy fight" it's lame that the closest thing to a real boss fight is the megaFF's wang. I guess the hunter guy could also be considered a boss fight, but he was pretty much a standard eneny with a "confuse" attack.
One thing that struck me was the comment on the division between the 'game' and 'real' world being broken. When the Fruit Fucker Prime destroyed the Symposium of Man, it just didn't feel right and I couldn't figure out why until I read the comments on the first page, which hit the nail on the head. The death of the Mime from episode one, the urologist, all of the scientists I had gotten to know was total and utter nonsense. The urologist, who I am hoping turns out to hold the key to victory by giving you his Pocket Lint, death was particularly uncool. He had helped Gabe create his god-killing knuckles and then he gives you a few buffs, and he just gets killed for no god damn reason. That bugged me.
I also felt that the God of Gears was really hamfisted into the whole experience. The first game had Yog Sethis controlling mimes to take over the world while the God of Gears is running amok via the Necrowombicon and Dr. M. I just felt a helluva lot more connected with Yog Sethis than I did this guy, who just kind of showed up for no reason.
I guess I am just hoping a lot of this shit comes together, otherwise I'm just not sold on Episode 2.
Now, I am also hoping that this whole story arc comes together that there was a balance between the four Gods (similar to Eternal Darkness). Yog Sethis, God of Gears and the other two shmucks are in constant fighting, but somewhow, the balance got tipped that let Yog Sethis control the mimes. Of course, our intrepid heroes ended up ruining the balance all together by killing Yog Sethis and now the God of Gears, leaving two more to fight for the window sill.
Or something.
I would also like to see more information on Gabe's history like we learned about Tycho from this game. In particularly, how he came to punch the Devil.
2. Like was mentioned, lining up the enemies in fights vertically makes it pretty difficult to click the right one. Ended up hitting the wrong guy fairly often.
3. The end boss was a bit cheap...we've spent 2 games chasing that fucker down, and then it's a buff and a punch and it's out. Two giant mechs should've taken down half the city in an epic fight.
4. Everything is all tied up now. We know as players there's 2 more gods, but game-wise there's no threats left. Almost all of the interesting characters (Stripe, Whimple, Crazoir, Charles) are dead...I kinda expected guys named Drs. One, Two, Three and Four were expendable but I liked those guys. Will we see Stripe's fiance and Crazoir's daughter? Is Stripe's fiance Crazoir's daughter?
It continued to bring the PA writing, art, and sense of humor though, so that's a plus.