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Official Lock's Quest Thread of Construction Combat

A

Amir0x

Banned
61sY6YxeQUL._SS500_.jpg


Release Date:

NA September 8, 2008
EU September 26, 2008
AUS September 25, 2008

_____________________________________________

Developer
_____________________________________________



These motherfuckers are pretty cool, eh. As you can see from the cover, they made the charming creation platformer "Drawn to Life." I really enjoyed it, because beyond its elementary platforming challenges was a really neat hook which elevated it.

I think Lock's Quest is likely to share that same spark.

_____________________________________________

Game
_____________________________________________

locks-quest-20080530034158052.jpg


Generally, levels are natural layouts which you can build walls, turrets and other defenses while you prepare for some battle. Then you can send Lock in to fuck shit up while hoping your stuff is sufficient for holding. This is where the strategy comes in. It's not massively complex, but it is flexible and it has a pretty nice multiplayer mode that also takes advantage of the concept well.

IGN REVIEW - 8.6

_____________________________________________

Impressions
_____________________________________________

--updated later
 
M

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
Picked it up today (along with VP DS). Will have impressions later. Nice thread!
 
M

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
The opening cinematic is classy as FUCK. Love the highly stylized art style. I'm actually a bit disappointed that the in-game visuals don't match.

Haha. The cat says "oink" instead of "meow." That was random.
 
M

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
Not a fan of the in-game character portrait art, really. They don't match the map sprites at all. I dig that the characters have a variety of different expressions, at least.
 
M

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
Looks like the construction segments are going to be fairly meaty. Lots of pieces and options available. Different kinds of walls, able to be rotated to fit almost any actual scenario. Constructing your own turrets, traps, and robotic helpers, then deploying them around the walls and structures you put down. Granting defense bonuses to your turrets by properly reinforcing them with adjacent walls.

Then, once combat begins, you've got to juggle your responsibilities properly. Lure or otherwise funnel enemies into range of your traps and turrets to have them drop faster, alternate between fighting them directly and keeping your walls and turrets properly repaired, making sure to fight enough and collect the source (what's used to fuel your construction and repairs) and scrap (used to create new trap/turret technologies) that they drop, but not so much as to neglect repairs. The repairs themselves can be sped up by accurately performing quick QTE sequences.

Pretty good stuff, so far.
 
M

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
abstract alien said:
Intro = fucking badass. I havent felt this way since wind waker. I can feel the "epic" leaking off of this game...
Click to expand...

Funny. I was going to say that the opening vid reminded me of an animated, monochrome take of the style used in the Phantom Hourglass opening cutscene.
 
E

eznark

Banned
for those that care, there is a pretty good interview with one of the 5th Cell guys in today's Nintendo Voice Chat. It starts with like 25 minutes left or something if you want to skip the pointless stuff.

Hoping I can grab this tomorrow.
 
B

Beavertown

Garbage
Haven't been able to find it yet.. hoping tomorrow.

It kinda reminds me of that goofy Kirk Cameron game on the 3DO.. The Horde, I think it was called. Pretty fun game.
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
Mejilan said:
Looks like the construction segments are going to be fairly meaty. Lots of pieces and options available. Different kinds of walls, able to be rotated to fit almost any actual scenario. Constructing your own turrets, traps, and robotic helpers, then deploying them around the walls and structures you put down. Granting defense bonuses to your turrets by properly reinforcing them with adjacent walls.

Then, once combat begins, you've got to juggle your responsibilities properly. Lure or otherwise funnel enemies into range of your traps and turrets to have them drop faster, alternate between fighting them directly and keeping your walls and turrets properly repaired, making sure to fight enough and collect the source (what's used to fuel your construction and repairs) and scrap (used to create new trap/turret technologies) that they drop, but not so much as to neglect repairs. The repairs themselves can be sped up by accurately performing quick QTE sequences.

Pretty good stuff, so far.
Click to expand...
Sounds pretty hectic. Nothing too overwhelming?
 
D

Death_Born

Banned
Haunted said:
Sounds pretty hectic. Nothing too overwhelming?
Click to expand...

Other than repairing the turrets and walls, your cannons do all the work. The only time you have to fight enemies is when they're breaching your walls or your cannons are overextended. There's even a gate so that you can make a tactical retreat if injured. You probably shouldn't fight enemies a lot because the other ones will blow up your defenses. Kind of like an engineer in TF2, you have to stay near your walls that are under attack.

At least, that's what it's like in the beginning...maybe there will be some kind of helper repair bot?
 
M

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
Haunted said:
Sounds pretty hectic. Nothing too overwhelming?
Click to expand...

I hear that the game gets pretty tough later on, but so far it's been very easy-going.
Also, the construction and battle phases of each map are split up, though some of them are timed.

Actual construction of defense, turrets, traps, helper bots, etc. occurs in one phase. Combat and repairs occur in another.

So far, nothing unmanageable.
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
Death_Born said:
Other than repairing the turrets and walls, your cannons do all the work. The only time you have to fight enemies is when they're breaching your walls or your cannons are overextended. There's even a gate so that you can make a tactical retreat if injured. You probably shouldn't fight enemies a lot because the other ones will blow up your defenses. Kind of like an engineer in TF2, you have to stay near your walls that are under attack.
Click to expand...
Mejilan said:
I hear that the game gets pretty tough later on, but so far it's been very easy-going.
Also, the construction and battle phases of each map are split up, though some of them are timed.

Actual construction of defense, turrets, traps, helper bots, etc. occurs in one phase. Combat and repairs occur in another.

So far, nothing unmanageable.
Click to expand...
Good, good. Not that I'd particularly mind - I survived the insane TWEWY multi-tasking controls, so I guess I'll manage some construction combat as well - just trying to get more of a feel for the game. Thanks, guys. :)
 
P

Phife Dawg

Member
Sounds good, I'm a little worried that the formula might get stale but if you have lots of building options I wouldn't mind a bit of repetition in the combat gameplay.
 
H

Hive

Banned
This looks so good, and it's great to see Amirox so enthused about this, too~

How about 5th Cell doing a Rampart-style DS game next??
 
J

Jackson

Member
You can change difficulty on the fly in the title screen options menu if you think the "normal" difficulty is too easy. Switch to hard, and get your butt kicked.

Bozon played 90% of hard, but didn't beat the last level on hard...:D

The first 2 maps are easy... after that, the difficulty ramps up. But normal is still "easy" for the hardcore I think.
 
F

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
I've found it kind of effective to leave a 1 square gap next to every wall-turret-wall that my guy can run through. I find the most enemies, and run through the gap and engage them while my cannons are firing on them. Even if there is a gap in the wall, the enemies will engage the wall and turret before advancing.

It seems very effective. I'm constantly fighting, then running to trouble spots to repair.

The pathfinding can be pretty bad though. I find it easier to tap where I want my guy to go as opposed to trying to guide him there with stylus-slide.
 
M

mattso

Member
got it today. just finished the first battle after the tutorial. I probably could have planned better, I was running all over the place to keep my stuff repaired.
 
J

jrricky

Banned
Picked this baby up today and Im really impressed. Production values galore. Music, Art, Animation, concept, gameplay are all top notch. The Intro is really great with how its presented.

Ive done all the first missions now and its been a blast. Now Im in a slump, cause i cant pass this stage which has a Siege mode. The red character is so damn hard to kill. :/ Ive tried 5 times now.
 
M

mattso

Member
jrricky said:
Picked this baby up today and Im really impressed. Production values galore. Music, Art, Animation, concept, gameplay are all top notch. The Intro is really great with how its presented.

Ive done all the first missions now and its been a blast. Now Im in a slump, cause i cant pass this stage which has a Siege mode. The red character is so damn hard to kill. :/ Ive tried 5 times now.
Click to expand...
I just did that. Buy a spearman and when the red guy comes out send him out. He should stop him from advancing and you can blast away.

I also had upgraded to 3 shots.

If you have enough source you can also buy the raining shots upgrade. That thing kicks ass.

After you beat it and do some other stuff before you leave if you play it again and win they give you 10,000 source. I did it again after that and got another 2,500 source, then decided it was time to move on.

So that's where I am now. Such a fun game.
 
J

jrricky

Banned
mattso said:
I just did that. Buy a spearman and when the red guy comes out send him out. He should stop him from advancing and you can blast away.

I also had upgraded to 3 shots.

If you have enough source you can also buy the raining shots upgrade. That thing kicks ass.

After you beat it and do some other stuff before you leave if you play it again and win they give you 10,000 source. I did it again after that and got another 2,500 source, then decided it was time to move on.

So that's where I am now. Such a fun game.
Click to expand...
Thanks. Here is my other 2 cents.........BUY THIS GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
D

Death_Born

Banned
I just finished the part where
Lock has to defend his cute sidekick from an army of robots, by himself, for 5 days in a frozen wasteland.
Lock is such a badass.
 
M

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
Good to see others taking a chance on the game.

If you're on the fence, and are using Drawn to Life as any kind of bar... don't.
They have absolutely no commonalities, IMHO. Having liked or disliked DtL won't have any kind of bearing on how you'll feel about this one. So if the impressions, previews, or reviews make it sound at all appealing, give it a shot. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
 
L

Llyranor

Member
I'm pretty interested. The fact that it's apparently a challenge is a big plus for me. I'll wait for a bit more impressions before I commit, though.
 
B

Beavertown

Garbage
Picked mine up today and played through the first half hour or so and am really digging it.

My only complaints really are the all touch controls, and the little sister plot thing, so I'm hoping it doesn't continue in that direction, like every jrpg known to man.

That said, it seems like one of the best games to come out of the DS and I can see myself spending a lot of time with it.
 
M

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
Actually, I thought the controls were damn fine.
Am I the only one who thought that Emi's map sprite was adorable, and her portrait art hideous?
 
J

jrricky

Banned
Mejilan said:
Actually, I thought the controls were damn fine.
Am I the only one who thought that Emi's map sprite was adorable, and her portrait art hideous?
Click to expand...
Well its not the first time Ive seen it happen. Fire Emblem anyone. So I dont really pay any attention to it.

I like the diversity of missions its givin. Im lovin it.:D
 
M

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
Well, FE's map sprites are very small, zoomed out, and lacking in detail. They're more like slightly animated chess pieces rather than full-blown representative sprites.

The clash in Lock's Quest is quite a bit worse, IMHO.
 
E

eznark

Banned
I went to Best Buy last night and they had received this...but not NHL09 for the PS3. I thought that was crazy.

Anyway. awesome game so far. I'm through the first mission and the concept is fantastic. When I heard the developers talking about "mini-games" I was worried, but they are excellently integrated into the action.

The only thing I don't like so far is the TERRIBLE character art during the cut scenes. The look completely pasted on and somehow just don't fit.

Other than that, awesome.
 
M

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
Yeah. I feel like I've been harping about the awful portrait art for a while now, but I'm really trying not to focus on it.

It's just rare when you encounter a game like this where the smaller, less detailed map sprites are significantly more aesthetically pleasing than the portrait art.

It's especially a bummer considering how stylistically awesome the opening animation is. Pity it wasn't used, to a certain extent, in-game somehow.
 
D

Dyno

Member
A wrench as a weapon. I love it still. There is no sarcasm in this post, just admiration for bashing someone in the face with a wrench. Carry on.
 
M

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
It's pretty efficient, at least. You can go from skull-bashing to turret-repairing with nary a hitch!

I laughed at the comment Lock made to a wounded Isaiah at one point about not being strong enough to even heft a wrench. :)
 
E

eznark

Banned
Mejilan said:
Yeah. I feel like I've been harping about the awful portrait art for a while now, but I'm really trying not to focus on it.

It's just rare when you encounter a game like this where the smaller, less detailed map sprites are significantly more aesthetically pleasing than the portrait art.

It's especially a bummer considering how stylistically awesome the opening animation is. Pity it wasn't used, to a certain extent, in-game somehow.
Click to expand...

Ah, I missed your earlier criticism. Agree 100%, although I don't think the opening stuff would work well for the overlays that they do. I don't know why but it just feels wrong. Too clean or something. Advanced Wars and Disgaea and others are able to do the same thing, just slap some portraits up there during dialog, but they always feel right. Somehow these don't.

Not that I particularly care mind you, just an observation.

If you didn't listen to that IGN interview, 5th Cell talked a little about a sequel, and indicated that multiplayer is something they would like to flesh out, if they did a sequel.
 
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