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[meanspartan]

Just finished it on hard after redboxing it yesterday.

My god that game is frustrating in its inconsistency. I LOVED the feel of the shooting and the weighty guns, and the story managed to pull me in. Fighting Lycans was very dumb though, I quickly learned to just spam the X button even while firing and they could never hit me. QTE final boss battles also = LOL.

That ending pissed me off. First of all, at his trial, why the FUCK couldn't he say something? If he even just told everyone Alistar was a Lycan, I bet some of the Knights would have at least been suspicious enough to investigate and give Galahad the chance to be proven right given his centuries of loyalty. He could have also told Isi or Lafayette but nope, he didn't BECAUSE REASONS!!!

lol. A great story undone by a nonsensical ending that has all the characters taking actions they wouldn't otherwise take. I bet this is one of those situations where they had an ending in mind ahead of time and refused to change it. I do hope this gets a sequel, it was fun enough for me to be worth the rental and I like the universe. But I do hope they make it longer and trim out a lot of the QTE.

The game can still be linear, they should ask Naughty Dog for advice. The Last of Us is an excellent model for what this game should have been more like. Cinematic but still loaded with excellent gameplay and not overdone cutscenes. But def don't change the feel of the guns. Some of my favorite 3rd person shooter gunplay since Max Payne 3. I love how meaty they feel.

P.S.

Is it just me or did this totally steal the ending of the Dark Knight? Galahad is basically Batman at the end looking over the city. He is the hero they deserve, but not the one they need right now. So they will hunt him, because he can take it.

 

[nelsonroyale]

This is my favorite scene from the whole game.

This section looked incredible...

 

[meanspartan]

Okay, makes sense .

Spoiler

Vampires seem to be pretty underground in The Order's world, though. Like, I don't think regular people even know they (still?) exist. I mean, I would think that if vampires were actually more well-known and had more of an open presence, as the half-breeds do, then organisations such as The Order would not have such a fixation on half-breeds but would have a more general mission of defending humanity against all abominations, including vampires. It certainly is an interesting idea to think that human actions drobe both races into such a desperate position that they now have to join forces. I'm sure a lot of very interesting stuff could be done with that in future games.

Ok, I need this cleared up.

Are half breeds half vampire? Or are they werewolves? I'm confused as to what "half breeds" aka Lycans are exactly.

I didn't even realize vampires were a thing in this universe until the sleeping thing they found in the crate was called that. So we have Lycans, Vampires, Half Breeds, are they all the same thing?

And can someone ELI5 why the east india company would want to be shipping vampires around the world? I get it is run by Hastings who is a vampire/Lycan/JacktheRipper/Weakplotdevice, but why does he give a shit about others of his kind? He seems like a selfish prick who is doing just fine, he doesn't seem like hed give a shit about others.

 

[viveks86]

Actually, that's not what ludo-narrative dissonance means at all, but I take your meaning (as the term has been widely misapplied in this fashion). But the game is actually making a point.

Not really. Listen to the

Spoiler

final judgment scene

. They actually say that Galahad

Spoiler

"incapacitated" the guards, when he straight up murders them

. It's where a cutscene and gameplay are at odds with each other a.k.a ludonarrative dissonance.

The game only makes a point to the extent of saying that Galahad and Percival have an internal dilemma. Lafayette never cared (as indicated in his opening dialog with Galahad). It never explores that dilemma in any meaningful way. If anything, it shows the exact opposite with all the indiscriminate slaughtering that NullPointer described. The "dilemma" comes across as superfluous when the gameplay doesn't reflect any of it.

Add to that you have the problem of this powerful group of long lived individuals and its easy to see how they lost respect for the life of mere mortals. Ironically this gives members of the Order something they have in common with Vampires like Lord Hastings who see ordinary humans as nothing.

I've seen this argument before, but it doesn't hold water in my opinion. At no point in the game's narrative or lore do they suggest that the knights don't value the life of mortals. Being desensitized to violence/death and not valuing human life are 2 very different things. It's something we have come up with to explain a gap in understanding that the game never explored.

None of these are major plot holes or flaws per se. But good storytelling should not require people to fill in the blanks on the very theme that the game is based on. When the game doesn't establish these things well, you get a nagging "why the fuck am I killing these people?" feeling while playing the game.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Not really. Listen to the

Spoiler

final judgment scene

. They actually say that Galahad

Spoiler

"incapacitated" the guards, when he straight up murders them

. It's where a cutscene and gameplay are at odds with each other a.k.a ludonarrative dissonance.

Hastings is covering up the extent of the killings in order to keep the size of his private army hidden. He has no need to hang additional murders on Galahad to get him convicted, but its in his interest to keep the extent of his military holdings secret.

And ludo-narrative dissonance is more involved than things "being at odds" with each-other. As originally coined Clint Hoking was talking about games that provided gameplay benefits that were at odds with the theme of the story being told. The classic example is choosing to harvest Little Sisters in Bioshock.

The game only makes a point to the extent of saying that Galahad and Percival have an internal dilemma. Lafayette never cared (as indicated in his opening dialog with Galahad). It never explores that dilemma in any meaningful way. If anything, it shows the exact opposite with all the indiscriminate slaughtering that NullPointer described. The "dilemma" comes across as superfluous when the gameplay doesn't reflect any of it.

Lafayette's discomfort with the current state of the Order was plain to me, and reinforced by his final meeting with Greyson after he escapes.

None of these are major plot holes or flaws per se. But good storytelling should not require people to fill in the blanks on the very theme that the game is based on. When the game doesn't establish these things well, you get a nagging "why the fuck am I killing these people?" feeling while playing the game.

I could not disagree more strongly. The best stories are those that encourage the audience to examine what is happening in a critical manner. In fact some of the most powerful game stories are those that demand the player reflect on that exact question: Shadow of the Colossus, Spec Ops: The Line. Questioning why you need to kill all these people in The Order is the intended and desired reaction.

 

[viveks86]

Spoiler

Hastings is covering up the extent of the killings in order to keep the size of his private army hidden. He has no need to hang additional murders on Galahad to get him convicted, but its in his interest to keep the extent of his military holdings secret.

Spoiler

You mean hastings hid all the bodies before the order came storming in to capture Galahad? As if the story doesn't get ridiculous enough as it is, we are now extrapolating way too much just for the sake of filling in gaps.

I could not disagree more strongly. The best stories are those that encourage the audience to examine what is happening in a critical manner. In fact some of the most powerful game stories are those that demand the player reflect on that exact question: Shadow of the Colossus, Spec Ops: The Line. Questioning why you need to kill all these people in The Order is the intended and desired reaction.

I don't think these examples are remotely the same because the answer to these questions are neither deep nor satisfying, but I can see this being a never-ending debate, one that I had just a week ago. So I'll bow out.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Spoiler

You mean hastings hid all the bodies before the order came storming in to capture Galahad? As if the story doesn't get ridiculous enough as it is, we are now extrapolating way too much just for the sake of filling in gaps.

Galahad was captured as soon as they arrived. The whole mission was a trap. Hasting had every opportunity, and reason, to do exactly that.

 

[Z3M0G]

Just finished the game. Some questions:

- what was the conspiracy exactly?

- what was Sir Percival suspicious of in the beginning?

- what was the relationship between the rebels and the lycans?

- what is the "Armory" option in the pause menu for?

 

[KC Denton]

Just finished the game. Some questions:

- what was the conspiracy exactly?

- what was Sir Percival suspicious of in the beginning?

- what was the relationship between the rebels and the lycans?

- what is the "Armory" option in the pause menu for?

-The conspiracy is that colonialism was used to spread vampires and at least one of the Order was in on this. Also apparently having half breeds in the Order is some kind of horrible thing even though the stated goal of the Order was to "preserve the balance between humans and half breeds." The fact that Lucan was actively serving Hastings in his plot seemed to be less important than the fact that Lucan was a lycan, considering how Galahad never brings up Lucan's role in the conspiracy to anybody who wasn't already involved.

-Either I can't remember or that never went anywhere.

-Seems like they were opposed to each other, with the rebels primarily targeting the United India Company/Hastings.

-Armory is used to equip DLC armor.

 

[Earthanoid]

I just finished the game after getting bored and taking a break from it for a couple of weeks. The game is really inconsistent. Terrible, terrible pacing and the worst stealth sequences ever, but the shooting and production values were great. The weapons were actually pretty cool, if they didn't insist on making you watch people walk down hallways or across the street all the time it wouldn't have been so bad.

There's a lot of potential here though, they do set up the world nicely and the actual gameplay mechanics are good. It is really giving me Uncharted vibes, where the gameplay is solid but the pacing is off

Spoiler

... plus both have a terrible QTE final boss, lol

. But it almost feels like this is supposed to be a prequel to the real game, they are just setting things up for the real story. Like bringing in the old man and giving no hint as to why he's there or who he is, clearly it's just a set up for their next game if they make it. I could go on but I'd just be repeating other stuff in this thread but I'll mention one last thing about the story: Galahad's reactions to things really didn't make sense.

Spoiler

Like at the end when Lucan is half dead and the dad comes in and tells Galahad to finish the job, but Galahad says to not make him do it. Seriously, you just killed 50 guards to get to him, purposely come back to fight him after saving Tesla, then stabbed the guy 50 times... but you don't want to kill him?

Makes no sense, if they do the Order 1887 they have to think through the dialogue more.

And holy crap the visuals are amazing. I know it's all hallways and small rooms, but the attention to detail and textures are incredible. The leather looks like leather, the cloth looks like cloth, they really did an awesome job there. Plus the load times are so short, other devs need to take notes. Bloodborne is next in my queue and I think the load times are going to drive me nuts....

 

[FantasticMrFoxdie]

Just finished the game and needed to vent more.

Yikes. The gameplay was so bad.

-Sloppy controls. Can't switch shoulders for aiming
-shitty stealth section. who thought it was a good idea to have time sensitive stealth kills
-

A damn shame because I enjoyed everything else besides the writing and gameplay

 

[flipswitch]

Funny I should see this topic on the main page, as today I started this game again after many months of completing it. First thing's first. The graphics of this game, it was like the first time playing for me. This is the closest game to realtime cg. What made it more cg like was the image quality. Virtually no shimmering or aliasing to be seen.

I spent 30mins of my time doing absolutely nothing but gawking at the world.

For instance when he picks up an object or photo with the over-the shoulder camera. The glove that he wears looks absolutely stunning. How is that possible I thought to myself? It's beyond anything seen in video games.

Think I posted in the wrong thread as this is the spoiler thread.

I'm going back to complete it again .

 

[OsirisBlack]

Just finished the game and needed to vent more.

Yikes. The gameplay was so bad.

-Sloppy controls. Can't switch shoulders for aiming
-shitty stealth section. who thought it was a good idea to have time sensitive stealth kills
-

A damn shame because I enjoyed everything else besides the writing and gameplay

is something wrong with your touchpad?