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Great flash, no substance, disturbing morals.
argh- 06/06/2016 06:30 PM
- 5003 views
This review is adapted from posts on review blog Dragon Quill. A scene-by-scene review of the game can be found here. This review is largely based on the final thoughts, which also contains a proposed plot rewrite.
Be forewarned that this review contains vague spoilers for some plot events. More explicit spoilers for the ending will be hidden beneath a cut.
Pictured: the plot, in a nutshell.
I wanted to like this game.
I Miss the Sunrise sounds excellent, on the surface. The story is set so far in the future that society has become nearly unrecognizable. Everyone is immortal, free of material concerns, and, essentially, perfect. But that's suddenly disrupted by an event no one could predict, and now everyone must work together and come to terms with a paradigm shift as they grapple with death, destruction, and the bleakness of the universe. I am all about that stuff.
Unfortunately, the game just can't follow through on its high-minded premise. The characters are all shallow, painfully rote archetypes, and the plot is a string of cliche, hateful nonsense awkwardly strung together to approximate the shape of a story.
There are warning signs of this right from the get-go. I Miss the Sunrise is the prequel to The Reconstruction, a game acclaimed for its fun and engaging battle system. IMTS' battle system is superficially similar, but as you play you'll quickly see that it's nothing but a hollow shell of its predecessor.
There are a few reasons why, but the biggest one is on display right here. That right there is your skill menu -- your only skill menu. Notice something? There are only attack skills (and a passive stat boost). Yes, really: instead of the rich diversity of character skills seen in most RPGs, your options are only ever damage, more damage, or damage of a different type. There aren’t even any AoE attacks, everything’s single-target. This is easily the worst design decision in the entire game; it pretty much vaporizes any possibility of tactical depth. The number of mechanics you can influence and play with are severely limited, and there is absolutely zero synergy between characters. Characters in general become pretty interchangeable, differing only through minor stat differences and personal weapon (which is usually completely identical to a cookie-cutter weapon you can make yourself). Battles are reduced to painfully dull slugfests that all boil down to “hit elemental weakness, hit elemental weakness again” ad nauseum, maybe retreating for a little while if someone gets injured.
The secondary reason is that the battle system is insultingly easy, thanks to enemies being made of tissue paper. You might notice that in this screenshot, the selected character has exactly 1000 hit points across the board. That's not a coincidence: every battler has the exact same health pool, with defense marking the only difference in durability. Theoretically, I think this is an interesting idea that creatively examines preconceptions about the genre – when you think about it, it is rather redundant to have variable health and defense. One is almost always better depending on how the battle formulas are constructed (usually defense), so maybe it is a good idea to try cutting one out after all. Unfortunately, at least in this case, the math doesn't check out. Enemies can be oneshotted so easily there's actually an achievement for killing three in one turn, and even bosses can typically be hit for over 100 damage per hit. Allies can attack multiple times per turn (usually 3) while enemies cannot, which just compounds this. (Enemies can attack multiple times at the highest difficulty level, but the game very obviously wasn't balanced for this, as it just results in your characters getting reduced to tissue paper too.) Every battle ends in the blink of an eye -- which is probably a good thing, given the shallowness of the system.
The rest of the gameplay is a definite improvement over The Reconstruction, though. You're actually allowed to explore areas in normal walkaround fashion, and they are gorgeous. The Reconstruction was mostly RTP assets, which worked well for a fantasy setting, but wouldn't have worked here. I Miss the Sunrise's assets are almost 100% custom, which shows remarkable dedication to the game.
I just wish that dedication could have extended to the substance, and not just the polish.
The plot is, quite frankly, a train wreck. It's pretty fitting that the game is divided into "episodes", because episodic structure is exactly what the plot reminds me of. The story is constantly introducing new things -- new characters, new Shocking Twists, new Dramatic Reveals, new entire organizations, even -- but never slows down to resolve the stuff it's already introduced. It just skips merrily from one cliche plotline to another, nothing following logically from anything else. Each episode could probably be sold as entirely separate unrelated vignettes, I think, they're so disparate in content and tone.
What even was the plot to this game? I'll try to make an outline:
Episodes 0 and 1: Post-apocalyptic, let's all work together and rebuild stuff!
Episode 2: Cyberpunk corporate subterfuge.
Episode 3: MAD SCIENCE!!!
Episode 4: You're the Chosen One! Oh and also war is Hell, I guess.
Episode 5: ALL IS FUTILE. YOU AND EVERYONE YOU LOVE WILL ONE DAY DIE. ONLY BY CLINGING TO YOUR FRIENDS AND LOVED ONES MAY YOU ATTAIN BRIEF RESPITE FROM THIS CRUEL AND UNCARING WORLD. THERE IS NO GOD, ONLY THE VOID.
Do you know what those things have to do with one another? Because I don't. Episode 4's plot is the only one that gets anything approaching a satisfying resolution; everything else just gets unceremoniously dropped to make way for the new shiny thing. There's some thematic consistency between 4 and 5 and I can sort of see how they could work off of each other to create a meaningful narrative if they weren't both so rushed, but that's it. The narrative and metanarrative sides of the story are both an incomprehensible jumble.
I really get the impression the game lost track of what story it was trying to tell. Show of hands, who forgot the Shine was a thing? I wouldn’t blame you, because the game seems to forget sometimes too. Despite being the inciting event, it never has any long-lasting consequence. After Episode 1, the story doesn’t feel post-apocalyptic at all – Typelog is totally fine due to plot fiat, and EROS doesn’t seem affected at all. The apocalypse is ultimately irrelevant to the greater plot, which is just your standard space opera intrigue between factions that seem to be at their full strength. That type of plot just isn't possible in a devastated post-apocalyptic world, but by gum the game wanted to fill out its Sci-Fi Bingo card and it's not going to let anything stop it.
Consider: In Episode 1 everyone constantly fusses over how the network is shredded and no one can communicate, but by Episode 4 the only concern is that Typelog will spy on their perfectly intact network. Supposedly the Shine radically changed peoples’ behavior and precipitated the conflict, but we never saw what society was like before, so this has no meaning. Show, don't tell. If you remove the Shine, nothing has to change -- a stable society can fall to petty conflict just as easily. And if you can remove your inciting event without needing to change the plot, you need to rework your plot.
And to make matters worse, nothing ever gets resolved. This story is not a self-contained narrative. The Reconstruction, for all its plotlessness, at least was able to resolve its main threads with only a few open-ended sequel hooks. We get no such benefit here; the narrative is all questions and no answers. Why and how did the Lessers form a horde? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME. What is The Black One and what’s his relation to Tezkhra? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME. What’s latent energy? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME. Could the Progenitor’s plan actually work and what are the metaphysics behind it if so? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME. Who were the other researchers and are they still important? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME. What is the tatzylvurm and what does it have to do with all of this? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME. What was that conversation with Tez in the ending? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME (though at least one that’s already been released). And that’s just the mysteries the game didn’t forget about. Who augmented The Black One’s leg? Why was he hanging out in the comm station to begin with? What happened to Purity Point? Who was collecting the Lessers from Typelog? Who was “that lacertian”? It is a mystery.
The one question that really gets answered is “What caused the Shine?” but in doing so it raises a dozen others. And that’s just manipulative. You can’t make a story that’s nothing but sequel hooks and market it as a self-contained narrative; that’s selling an incomplete product. I have no idea what point the story is really trying to make because I don’t know the final verdict on anything. As things stand, there is no plot arc, just people walking in a circle.
To say nothing of the characters. Not a single person did anything that matched up with their supposed motivations. What kind of idiot scientist uses themselves as the first test subject in an experimental procedure? How did Willis go from irresponsible evil mad scientist to suddenly a very responsible citizen concerned about his superiors' irresponsible evil mad science in the space of an episode? Why does Thomas care so much about keeping Ros alive if he just wants her out of the picture? Why did it take so long for Thomas and Lazarus to do anything? Why does the Progenitor murder tons of people for no reason when supposedly he wants to save everyone and should consider every life precious? To make matters worse most people get their motivations changed at the drop of a hat to suit the demands of the plot, sometimes with glaring inconsistencies just from one scene to the next, so things are impossible to follow anyway. How come The Black One insists there's no point in killing Tezkhra in Episode 3 then goes right back to headhunting in Episode 5? I understand nothing.
Sorenson is by far the worst example. I never understood who he was or what he was trying to do. The game seems to want me to believe he's a reasonable authority figure fighting tirelessly to make the world a better place, but what does he ever do, really? He fumes that “they’re not listening” when his ineptitude finally blows up in his face, but he never asserts his own views or even engages in meaningful dialogue with any of his superiors. He mindlessly obeys every order and mission, never asking for any details or stopping to wonder if this organization’s goals actually align with his own. He does nothing but play lapdog to the big fish. If we got to participate in some of his own projects in-between the other missions and saw what he was using all the oh-so-important funding for, we’d have a better idea of his own goals and the tangible good he was doing. Or if he had pushed back against his supervisors and done investigation on his own – the crew does something similar at a few points, but he just gets pissy about them disobeying orders. And then all of a sudden after being super nice to Ros the whole game he hates her in Episode 4 and refuses to let her help him even though he knows how useful she is because...? He is nothing but an incompetent, obfuscating buffoon and the Inquiry Project would be better off if he stepped down and let Ros or Marie run everything.
The PCs aren't much better. After every mission you get to have optional conversations with them about their personal issues and opinions on the plot. What a great idea with so much potential! ...is what I want to say, but it doesn't work out. Compartmentalizing character subplots in this way robs them of the space to say anything meaningful, and making them completely optional and divorced from the main plot requires everything to have a status quo ending, which is just unsatisfying and terrible storytelling. Especially for big stuff like Deirdre’s plot that implies a whole big, complex mystery behind it, they need the space a proper plot deserves. (Devoting main plot time to character development would also spice up some of the slower sections, I dare say.)
Oh, but speaking of characters:
You would be forgiven for assuming a far future science fiction story where everyone is sterilized and sexism appears to be a thing of the past would, for once, not have a character archetype who exists to tell us how hilarious sexual harassment is. You would be wrong! Yes, I know this character is a cameo from another story. Yes, I know he gets better in the endgame. Yes, it's a stock archetype. Yes, I know the developer probably didn't consciously think to himself "how can I make women feel uncomfortable for playing my game?" I still hate it. This is a character archetype that needs to be taken out back and shot. It is not funny and never has been.
...Anyway.
The one part of the game that has any coherent thematic message to it is the ending, but what a horrible message it is.
I had hoped, going in, that I would be able to say that I Miss the Sunrise was, overall, a clear improvement over The Reconstruction. But at the end of it all… I can’t be so sure. For every step forward, it seems to have taken a step back. There is definitely more content, characters get more attention, the unique assets make everything a lot more professional… but at the same time, everything feels so sterile. The Reconstruction had low lows, but it also had high highs – Dehl, Havan, Skint, a legitimately shocking and exciting endgame. I Miss the Sunrise just flattened everything out into bland, forgettable mediocrity. We had a plot this time (or more accurately, four separate plots hastily stitched together), but it made no sense. The massive cast got more screentime, but the game didn’t seem to know what to do with it, and we didn’t get any characters that went above and beyond like Dehl or Havan. And as disappointing as the battle system was, the missions were even more disappointing. I remember almost every quest from The Reconstruction, because every one felt unique and almost every one did something special and interesting with the mechanics. There were real puzzles, you had to split up your party to accomplish things, there was flavor text and NPCs we could interact with to learn more about the world. Here, there were multiple times I went “Huh? I don’t remember this at all!” And can you blame me? So many of the missions are just… hope you like staring into the void of space while fighting repetitive, practically identical enemies, forever! There’s no soul to it anymore.
I Miss the Sunrise is all flash and no substance. I mean, it’s good flash – the attention to detail is amazing, the Typelog superhub and EROS research station are breathtakingly beautiful, and the soundtrack moved me to tears. And if this was just some B-movie, designed for quick, mindless entertainment and nothing else, that might be fine. But I don’t think I’m being unreasonable to judge this game as something more. It clearly wants to play in the big leagues, to say something profound, to hold up to critical scrutiny. And if it does, then flash can’t make up for lack of substance.
It's so hard for me to understand what was going through the developer's head. The morals and final message just seem so awful. What was it even trying to say? That death is inevitable? Yeah well no duh death is inevitable, it's not enough just to point out the obvious. What makes art profound is what it does with the points it brings up. Yeah, this is an important topic, but the only answer the author seems to offer is "No hope, get the rope." That just isn't satisfying to me. I want to believe there's more to life than that, that we can do more than just throwing in the towel. I want to live.
I want to live. And that means I can't support a narrative that tells me I should want to die.
Be forewarned that this review contains vague spoilers for some plot events. More explicit spoilers for the ending will be hidden beneath a cut.
Pictured: the plot, in a nutshell.
I wanted to like this game.
I Miss the Sunrise sounds excellent, on the surface. The story is set so far in the future that society has become nearly unrecognizable. Everyone is immortal, free of material concerns, and, essentially, perfect. But that's suddenly disrupted by an event no one could predict, and now everyone must work together and come to terms with a paradigm shift as they grapple with death, destruction, and the bleakness of the universe. I am all about that stuff.
Unfortunately, the game just can't follow through on its high-minded premise. The characters are all shallow, painfully rote archetypes, and the plot is a string of cliche, hateful nonsense awkwardly strung together to approximate the shape of a story.
There are warning signs of this right from the get-go. I Miss the Sunrise is the prequel to The Reconstruction, a game acclaimed for its fun and engaging battle system. IMTS' battle system is superficially similar, but as you play you'll quickly see that it's nothing but a hollow shell of its predecessor.
There are a few reasons why, but the biggest one is on display right here. That right there is your skill menu -- your only skill menu. Notice something? There are only attack skills (and a passive stat boost). Yes, really: instead of the rich diversity of character skills seen in most RPGs, your options are only ever damage, more damage, or damage of a different type. There aren’t even any AoE attacks, everything’s single-target. This is easily the worst design decision in the entire game; it pretty much vaporizes any possibility of tactical depth. The number of mechanics you can influence and play with are severely limited, and there is absolutely zero synergy between characters. Characters in general become pretty interchangeable, differing only through minor stat differences and personal weapon (which is usually completely identical to a cookie-cutter weapon you can make yourself). Battles are reduced to painfully dull slugfests that all boil down to “hit elemental weakness, hit elemental weakness again” ad nauseum, maybe retreating for a little while if someone gets injured.
The secondary reason is that the battle system is insultingly easy, thanks to enemies being made of tissue paper. You might notice that in this screenshot, the selected character has exactly 1000 hit points across the board. That's not a coincidence: every battler has the exact same health pool, with defense marking the only difference in durability. Theoretically, I think this is an interesting idea that creatively examines preconceptions about the genre – when you think about it, it is rather redundant to have variable health and defense. One is almost always better depending on how the battle formulas are constructed (usually defense), so maybe it is a good idea to try cutting one out after all. Unfortunately, at least in this case, the math doesn't check out. Enemies can be oneshotted so easily there's actually an achievement for killing three in one turn, and even bosses can typically be hit for over 100 damage per hit. Allies can attack multiple times per turn (usually 3) while enemies cannot, which just compounds this. (Enemies can attack multiple times at the highest difficulty level, but the game very obviously wasn't balanced for this, as it just results in your characters getting reduced to tissue paper too.) Every battle ends in the blink of an eye -- which is probably a good thing, given the shallowness of the system.
The rest of the gameplay is a definite improvement over The Reconstruction, though. You're actually allowed to explore areas in normal walkaround fashion, and they are gorgeous. The Reconstruction was mostly RTP assets, which worked well for a fantasy setting, but wouldn't have worked here. I Miss the Sunrise's assets are almost 100% custom, which shows remarkable dedication to the game.
I just wish that dedication could have extended to the substance, and not just the polish.
The plot is, quite frankly, a train wreck. It's pretty fitting that the game is divided into "episodes", because episodic structure is exactly what the plot reminds me of. The story is constantly introducing new things -- new characters, new Shocking Twists, new Dramatic Reveals, new entire organizations, even -- but never slows down to resolve the stuff it's already introduced. It just skips merrily from one cliche plotline to another, nothing following logically from anything else. Each episode could probably be sold as entirely separate unrelated vignettes, I think, they're so disparate in content and tone.
What even was the plot to this game? I'll try to make an outline:
Episodes 0 and 1: Post-apocalyptic, let's all work together and rebuild stuff!
Episode 2: Cyberpunk corporate subterfuge.
Episode 3: MAD SCIENCE!!!
Episode 4: You're the Chosen One! Oh and also war is Hell, I guess.
Episode 5: ALL IS FUTILE. YOU AND EVERYONE YOU LOVE WILL ONE DAY DIE. ONLY BY CLINGING TO YOUR FRIENDS AND LOVED ONES MAY YOU ATTAIN BRIEF RESPITE FROM THIS CRUEL AND UNCARING WORLD. THERE IS NO GOD, ONLY THE VOID.
Do you know what those things have to do with one another? Because I don't. Episode 4's plot is the only one that gets anything approaching a satisfying resolution; everything else just gets unceremoniously dropped to make way for the new shiny thing. There's some thematic consistency between 4 and 5 and I can sort of see how they could work off of each other to create a meaningful narrative if they weren't both so rushed, but that's it. The narrative and metanarrative sides of the story are both an incomprehensible jumble.
I really get the impression the game lost track of what story it was trying to tell. Show of hands, who forgot the Shine was a thing? I wouldn’t blame you, because the game seems to forget sometimes too. Despite being the inciting event, it never has any long-lasting consequence. After Episode 1, the story doesn’t feel post-apocalyptic at all – Typelog is totally fine due to plot fiat, and EROS doesn’t seem affected at all. The apocalypse is ultimately irrelevant to the greater plot, which is just your standard space opera intrigue between factions that seem to be at their full strength. That type of plot just isn't possible in a devastated post-apocalyptic world, but by gum the game wanted to fill out its Sci-Fi Bingo card and it's not going to let anything stop it.
Consider: In Episode 1 everyone constantly fusses over how the network is shredded and no one can communicate, but by Episode 4 the only concern is that Typelog will spy on their perfectly intact network. Supposedly the Shine radically changed peoples’ behavior and precipitated the conflict, but we never saw what society was like before, so this has no meaning. Show, don't tell. If you remove the Shine, nothing has to change -- a stable society can fall to petty conflict just as easily. And if you can remove your inciting event without needing to change the plot, you need to rework your plot.
And to make matters worse, nothing ever gets resolved. This story is not a self-contained narrative. The Reconstruction, for all its plotlessness, at least was able to resolve its main threads with only a few open-ended sequel hooks. We get no such benefit here; the narrative is all questions and no answers. Why and how did the Lessers form a horde? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME. What is The Black One and what’s his relation to Tezkhra? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME. What’s latent energy? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME. Could the Progenitor’s plan actually work and what are the metaphysics behind it if so? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME. Who were the other researchers and are they still important? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME. What is the tatzylvurm and what does it have to do with all of this? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME. What was that conversation with Tez in the ending? ERROR YOUR ANSWER IS IN ANOTHER GAME (though at least one that’s already been released). And that’s just the mysteries the game didn’t forget about. Who augmented The Black One’s leg? Why was he hanging out in the comm station to begin with? What happened to Purity Point? Who was collecting the Lessers from Typelog? Who was “that lacertian”? It is a mystery.
The one question that really gets answered is “What caused the Shine?” but in doing so it raises a dozen others. And that’s just manipulative. You can’t make a story that’s nothing but sequel hooks and market it as a self-contained narrative; that’s selling an incomplete product. I have no idea what point the story is really trying to make because I don’t know the final verdict on anything. As things stand, there is no plot arc, just people walking in a circle.
To say nothing of the characters. Not a single person did anything that matched up with their supposed motivations. What kind of idiot scientist uses themselves as the first test subject in an experimental procedure? How did Willis go from irresponsible evil mad scientist to suddenly a very responsible citizen concerned about his superiors' irresponsible evil mad science in the space of an episode? Why does Thomas care so much about keeping Ros alive if he just wants her out of the picture? Why did it take so long for Thomas and Lazarus to do anything? Why does the Progenitor murder tons of people for no reason when supposedly he wants to save everyone and should consider every life precious? To make matters worse most people get their motivations changed at the drop of a hat to suit the demands of the plot, sometimes with glaring inconsistencies just from one scene to the next, so things are impossible to follow anyway. How come The Black One insists there's no point in killing Tezkhra in Episode 3 then goes right back to headhunting in Episode 5? I understand nothing.
Sorenson is by far the worst example. I never understood who he was or what he was trying to do. The game seems to want me to believe he's a reasonable authority figure fighting tirelessly to make the world a better place, but what does he ever do, really? He fumes that “they’re not listening” when his ineptitude finally blows up in his face, but he never asserts his own views or even engages in meaningful dialogue with any of his superiors. He mindlessly obeys every order and mission, never asking for any details or stopping to wonder if this organization’s goals actually align with his own. He does nothing but play lapdog to the big fish. If we got to participate in some of his own projects in-between the other missions and saw what he was using all the oh-so-important funding for, we’d have a better idea of his own goals and the tangible good he was doing. Or if he had pushed back against his supervisors and done investigation on his own – the crew does something similar at a few points, but he just gets pissy about them disobeying orders. And then all of a sudden after being super nice to Ros the whole game he hates her in Episode 4 and refuses to let her help him even though he knows how useful she is because...? He is nothing but an incompetent, obfuscating buffoon and the Inquiry Project would be better off if he stepped down and let Ros or Marie run everything.
The PCs aren't much better. After every mission you get to have optional conversations with them about their personal issues and opinions on the plot. What a great idea with so much potential! ...is what I want to say, but it doesn't work out. Compartmentalizing character subplots in this way robs them of the space to say anything meaningful, and making them completely optional and divorced from the main plot requires everything to have a status quo ending, which is just unsatisfying and terrible storytelling. Especially for big stuff like Deirdre’s plot that implies a whole big, complex mystery behind it, they need the space a proper plot deserves. (Devoting main plot time to character development would also spice up some of the slower sections, I dare say.)
Oh, but speaking of characters:
You would be forgiven for assuming a far future science fiction story where everyone is sterilized and sexism appears to be a thing of the past would, for once, not have a character archetype who exists to tell us how hilarious sexual harassment is. You would be wrong! Yes, I know this character is a cameo from another story. Yes, I know he gets better in the endgame. Yes, it's a stock archetype. Yes, I know the developer probably didn't consciously think to himself "how can I make women feel uncomfortable for playing my game?" I still hate it. This is a character archetype that needs to be taken out back and shot. It is not funny and never has been.
...Anyway.
The one part of the game that has any coherent thematic message to it is the ending, but what a horrible message it is.
In the final episode, we learn that not only do the immortality inducers stop working after a while (meaning people will still die of old age after all), the Big Crunch is right around the corner and the universe is about to end. The latter reveal kind of makes the former irrelevant, but okay. The game pulls a brand-new character out of thin air who's figured this out and has devised a nonsensical plan to save everyone (which is implied to actually theoretically work; I can't tell because the game is really cagey about its metaphysics).
And this is... bad, somehow. You're given the chance to go along with his plan, but if you do all the other characters vilify you the whole way down and the final scene tells you you're just doing it because you don't care and want to watch it all burn and also you're just power-hungry or something. I don't know. The correct, canonical sequence of events is to you kill the evil nerd, break his machines, and pat yourself on the back for how you saved the universe.
...Except you didn't. The Big Crunch is still totally going to happen. Killing him and trashing his machines isn’t going to make that problem go away.
This is something that bothers me more every time I see it. Every story always hates extremists, despises them. They’re always proven wrong somehow, almost always in two binary subsets: either they’re revealed to actually have some ulterior motives and were lying about caring about the problem, or the universe will conspire to prove that actually their plan is unnecessary or won’t work for reasons they didn’t know at the time, at which point they will continue clinging to it anyway because haha nerds are so dumb! (In this instance, it's both.) Regardless of the setup, they’re the bad guys, so all we have to do is stop their bad plan and everything is solved forever. But extremists don’t exist in a vacuum. If the problems they’re bringing up are legitimate, then stamping out one malignant symptom isn’t going to solve anything. Ten more extremists will pop up in their place, or, in the case of an existential threat like this one, the world will explode while everyone is busy patting themselves on the back.
When dealing with an extremist, you can’t just reject their solution, you have to provide a better one. Because there is a problem, and problems need fixing. The Progenitor’s solution sounds like an insanely risky one, but I don’t see anyone else coming up with any better ideas. That means that what they’re really advocating for is that we roll over and let the universe kill us; the universal equivalent of murder-suicide. How am I supposed to condone that? (Also it's horrifically anti-intellectual and anti-science, but what else is new.)
And just as one last twist of the knife, this is what you get if you dare to think the universe can be saved:
Yes, the people who have faith in others and think there's a solution to our problems are pessimists, because we are in opposite land today.
So if there is no salvation, how are we to cope with this?
Suicide.
No, seriously.
After the final mission, five characters throw their lives away in a pointless heroic sacrifice that is only necessary because of a diabolus ex machina, and which only works because of plot fiat. Except four of the characters are optional and the sacrifice works just as well with one person instead of five, so their deaths are completely meaningless. But you're not going to live forever, so why put an ounce of effort into self-preservation? Just kill yourself already, nothing matters! Afterwards, the rest of the cast throws in the towel and chooses to waste the rest of their lives away doing nothing, which is still a kind of suicide.
I've tried to make sense of this scene for a long time. One of the characters who joins the suicide party seems to be the developer's mouthpiece, and he provides some insight: “Enjoy your universe, and your lives… however short or long they may be. Just… enjoy them…”
And... okay, let's try to unpack this. This seems to be saying that we need to stop stressing over the fear of death and just enjoy it while it lasts, which is a common philosophical creed. I’d even say it makes a pretty decent point; no sense fretting over the inevitable. But I think it misses a greater point, especially in this context.
It’s very easy for a twenty- or thirtysomething dude with his whole life ahead of him to say this, but it’s not very helpful advice to anyone else. What does this platitude offer to an old man on his deathbed, who can’t enjoy life because his body has betrayed him and he knows the end is just around the corner? Or maybe that person can accept their own death – but if they know a terrible disaster is going to cut short the lives of their loved ones, what then? How are they supposed to enjoy life? Where are their comforting platitudes? We see both of these hypothetical people represented in the Progenitor, and the narrative has no answer for them – except, perhaps, that they’re wrong for caring and should just give up.
But the message gets mangled even further, because in this universe, death isn’t a certainty. They’re already performed miracles of science – just because the current model is imperfect doesn’t mean true immortality is impossible! And apparently, even the destruction of the universe itself can be averted – The Black One’s objection isn’t that the Progenitor’s plan wouldn’t work period, just that The Blue One would mess it up. The Progenitor was right: they truly can live forever, if they only try. And they have decided not to try. This is not some grand self-actualization of the characters coming to terms with and conquering their demons. This is not a deep philosophical breakthrough. This is not a noble sacrifice. The characters are choosing to die, because the author has decreed that choosing to die is Good and choosing to live is Evil.
Even within the immediacy of this scene alone, the platitude is contradicted – as seen in the screenshot, people have just said they can’t enjoy their lives if they know they aren’t going to live forever. Because of that, I can’t see any true, consistent meaning in this. I can’t see this as the meaningful, honorable sacrifice it’s supposed to be. I see this as five people snapping under the strain of a terrifying revelation and finding different, mutually exclusive ways to rationalize their suicides. This is nihilism taken to a horrifying and incomprehensible extreme.
I believe everyone’s lives have value. Everyone has something they can contribute, something they can do to make society a better place. Even the most dour interpretations of nihilism would have trouble refuting that point absolutely, I think – even if nothing else, I’m pretty sure nihilists place value on their own lives, since self-preservation is pretty hardwired into us. Sometimes, sacrificing your life really is necessary – but that should only ever be a last resort performed only after all other avenues are exhausted. These characters could have saved themselves if they had just tried harder – fly away from the device, hang back to let the MODs do as much damage as possible, hit-and-run tactics… something, anything! But they don’t try. The moment they see an opportunity to throw their lives away they take it, because they don’t believe their lives have value to themselves or others. They care about the others more than themselves, it’s true – but still, it’s a selfish thing they’re doing. Selfish, and pointlessly self-destructive.
And this is... bad, somehow. You're given the chance to go along with his plan, but if you do all the other characters vilify you the whole way down and the final scene tells you you're just doing it because you don't care and want to watch it all burn and also you're just power-hungry or something. I don't know. The correct, canonical sequence of events is to you kill the evil nerd, break his machines, and pat yourself on the back for how you saved the universe.
...Except you didn't. The Big Crunch is still totally going to happen. Killing him and trashing his machines isn’t going to make that problem go away.
This is something that bothers me more every time I see it. Every story always hates extremists, despises them. They’re always proven wrong somehow, almost always in two binary subsets: either they’re revealed to actually have some ulterior motives and were lying about caring about the problem, or the universe will conspire to prove that actually their plan is unnecessary or won’t work for reasons they didn’t know at the time, at which point they will continue clinging to it anyway because haha nerds are so dumb! (In this instance, it's both.) Regardless of the setup, they’re the bad guys, so all we have to do is stop their bad plan and everything is solved forever. But extremists don’t exist in a vacuum. If the problems they’re bringing up are legitimate, then stamping out one malignant symptom isn’t going to solve anything. Ten more extremists will pop up in their place, or, in the case of an existential threat like this one, the world will explode while everyone is busy patting themselves on the back.
When dealing with an extremist, you can’t just reject their solution, you have to provide a better one. Because there is a problem, and problems need fixing. The Progenitor’s solution sounds like an insanely risky one, but I don’t see anyone else coming up with any better ideas. That means that what they’re really advocating for is that we roll over and let the universe kill us; the universal equivalent of murder-suicide. How am I supposed to condone that? (Also it's horrifically anti-intellectual and anti-science, but what else is new.)
And just as one last twist of the knife, this is what you get if you dare to think the universe can be saved:
Yes, the people who have faith in others and think there's a solution to our problems are pessimists, because we are in opposite land today.
So if there is no salvation, how are we to cope with this?
Suicide.
No, seriously.
After the final mission, five characters throw their lives away in a pointless heroic sacrifice that is only necessary because of a diabolus ex machina, and which only works because of plot fiat. Except four of the characters are optional and the sacrifice works just as well with one person instead of five, so their deaths are completely meaningless. But you're not going to live forever, so why put an ounce of effort into self-preservation? Just kill yourself already, nothing matters! Afterwards, the rest of the cast throws in the towel and chooses to waste the rest of their lives away doing nothing, which is still a kind of suicide.
I've tried to make sense of this scene for a long time. One of the characters who joins the suicide party seems to be the developer's mouthpiece, and he provides some insight: “Enjoy your universe, and your lives… however short or long they may be. Just… enjoy them…”
And... okay, let's try to unpack this. This seems to be saying that we need to stop stressing over the fear of death and just enjoy it while it lasts, which is a common philosophical creed. I’d even say it makes a pretty decent point; no sense fretting over the inevitable. But I think it misses a greater point, especially in this context.
It’s very easy for a twenty- or thirtysomething dude with his whole life ahead of him to say this, but it’s not very helpful advice to anyone else. What does this platitude offer to an old man on his deathbed, who can’t enjoy life because his body has betrayed him and he knows the end is just around the corner? Or maybe that person can accept their own death – but if they know a terrible disaster is going to cut short the lives of their loved ones, what then? How are they supposed to enjoy life? Where are their comforting platitudes? We see both of these hypothetical people represented in the Progenitor, and the narrative has no answer for them – except, perhaps, that they’re wrong for caring and should just give up.
But the message gets mangled even further, because in this universe, death isn’t a certainty. They’re already performed miracles of science – just because the current model is imperfect doesn’t mean true immortality is impossible! And apparently, even the destruction of the universe itself can be averted – The Black One’s objection isn’t that the Progenitor’s plan wouldn’t work period, just that The Blue One would mess it up. The Progenitor was right: they truly can live forever, if they only try. And they have decided not to try. This is not some grand self-actualization of the characters coming to terms with and conquering their demons. This is not a deep philosophical breakthrough. This is not a noble sacrifice. The characters are choosing to die, because the author has decreed that choosing to die is Good and choosing to live is Evil.
Even within the immediacy of this scene alone, the platitude is contradicted – as seen in the screenshot, people have just said they can’t enjoy their lives if they know they aren’t going to live forever. Because of that, I can’t see any true, consistent meaning in this. I can’t see this as the meaningful, honorable sacrifice it’s supposed to be. I see this as five people snapping under the strain of a terrifying revelation and finding different, mutually exclusive ways to rationalize their suicides. This is nihilism taken to a horrifying and incomprehensible extreme.
I believe everyone’s lives have value. Everyone has something they can contribute, something they can do to make society a better place. Even the most dour interpretations of nihilism would have trouble refuting that point absolutely, I think – even if nothing else, I’m pretty sure nihilists place value on their own lives, since self-preservation is pretty hardwired into us. Sometimes, sacrificing your life really is necessary – but that should only ever be a last resort performed only after all other avenues are exhausted. These characters could have saved themselves if they had just tried harder – fly away from the device, hang back to let the MODs do as much damage as possible, hit-and-run tactics… something, anything! But they don’t try. The moment they see an opportunity to throw their lives away they take it, because they don’t believe their lives have value to themselves or others. They care about the others more than themselves, it’s true – but still, it’s a selfish thing they’re doing. Selfish, and pointlessly self-destructive.
I had hoped, going in, that I would be able to say that I Miss the Sunrise was, overall, a clear improvement over The Reconstruction. But at the end of it all… I can’t be so sure. For every step forward, it seems to have taken a step back. There is definitely more content, characters get more attention, the unique assets make everything a lot more professional… but at the same time, everything feels so sterile. The Reconstruction had low lows, but it also had high highs – Dehl, Havan, Skint, a legitimately shocking and exciting endgame. I Miss the Sunrise just flattened everything out into bland, forgettable mediocrity. We had a plot this time (or more accurately, four separate plots hastily stitched together), but it made no sense. The massive cast got more screentime, but the game didn’t seem to know what to do with it, and we didn’t get any characters that went above and beyond like Dehl or Havan. And as disappointing as the battle system was, the missions were even more disappointing. I remember almost every quest from The Reconstruction, because every one felt unique and almost every one did something special and interesting with the mechanics. There were real puzzles, you had to split up your party to accomplish things, there was flavor text and NPCs we could interact with to learn more about the world. Here, there were multiple times I went “Huh? I don’t remember this at all!” And can you blame me? So many of the missions are just… hope you like staring into the void of space while fighting repetitive, practically identical enemies, forever! There’s no soul to it anymore.
I Miss the Sunrise is all flash and no substance. I mean, it’s good flash – the attention to detail is amazing, the Typelog superhub and EROS research station are breathtakingly beautiful, and the soundtrack moved me to tears. And if this was just some B-movie, designed for quick, mindless entertainment and nothing else, that might be fine. But I don’t think I’m being unreasonable to judge this game as something more. It clearly wants to play in the big leagues, to say something profound, to hold up to critical scrutiny. And if it does, then flash can’t make up for lack of substance.
It's so hard for me to understand what was going through the developer's head. The morals and final message just seem so awful. What was it even trying to say? That death is inevitable? Yeah well no duh death is inevitable, it's not enough just to point out the obvious. What makes art profound is what it does with the points it brings up. Yeah, this is an important topic, but the only answer the author seems to offer is "No hope, get the rope." That just isn't satisfying to me. I want to believe there's more to life than that, that we can do more than just throwing in the towel. I want to live.
I want to live. And that means I can't support a narrative that tells me I should want to die.
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CloseWow. I think this review is... Something... Umm... Not bad. Pretty good really. ...
*Wants to see Deltree's response*
*Wonders if all these points in the review have been brought up already...*
Hmmmm... I want to say something about how every narrative is a valid story, but that just feels preachy and disconnected... ... I guess such a moral/message is implicit if you have a utopic afterlife, or some other metaphysics, where, well, death is better than life, for some reason. ...
Perhaps it's a trait of universes that are inherently cynical? ... I don't even know what I want to say here... *Sigh*
But... there's a sequel! Which means that life goes on! ... And there's magic, which reverses entropy by its very existence...
*Wants to see Deltree's response*
*Wonders if all these points in the review have been brought up already...*
author=argh
I want to live. And that means I can't support a narrative that tells me I should want to die.
Hmmmm... I want to say something about how every narrative is a valid story, but that just feels preachy and disconnected... ... I guess such a moral/message is implicit if you have a utopic afterlife, or some other metaphysics, where, well, death is better than life, for some reason. ...
Perhaps it's a trait of universes that are inherently cynical? ... I don't even know what I want to say here... *Sigh*
author=argh
The correct, canonical sequence of events is to you kill the evil nerd, break his machines, and pat yourself on the back for how you saved the universe.
...Except you didn't. The Big Crunch is still totally going to happen. Killing him and trashing his machines isn’t going to make that problem go away.
But... there's a sequel! Which means that life goes on! ... And there's magic, which reverses entropy by its very existence...
argh
792
But... there's a sequel! Which means that life goes on! ... And there's magic, which reverses entropy by its very existence...
Yes, it's possible we will be going Good End after all. I did bring this up in the original post: since this is an incomplete story, I can't be certain my reading is correct. Maybe the moral is going to be that the Progenitor was just going about it the wrong way and it is totally fine to want to save the world! I'd still have issues with that but it would be a lot less creepy. But because the plot is nothing but sequel hooks, it's kind of hard to know what the ultimate resolution will be.
Edit: Also reversing entropy (if latent energy can even do that) wouldn't actually help here; you're thinking of the Big Freeze (which scientists believe is the more likely outcome). The Big Crunch is caused by the gravity of all matter overwhelming the expansion force of the universe. But I'm sure magic could find a way to eradicate tons of matter too. /nitpick
Hell if I know! I came up with this thing 7 years ago, so who knows where my head was at at the time. I've always taken sci-fi as inherently cynical, because you're eventually hitting a ceiling of the realm of physical possibility. At first I figured I'd exaggerate everything else about the setting at the same time. Consequently, time suddenly has meaning again, and Ros is offered the chance at actual immortality - through universal remembrance, rather than just as a physical being. That was the idea, anyway. Then I got cold feet and started pulling it back into something more recognizable, with the gameplay sort of following suit (which lead to a re-balancing and flattening of the difficulty - go way back to Craze's video and things are very different). Lesson: start with a plan, and stick with it.
Anyway, story's over. I'm not gonna finish it out. No time, no drive. Some spoilers for How Far:
Thanks for your thoughts, as always!
Anyway, story's over. I'm not gonna finish it out. No time, no drive. Some spoilers for How Far:
Marie and Daszk are joined by old-man Xopi and TBO as party members (as well as a few original characters); Tez is the final boss; Tez, TBO and Tatz (aka The Red One) return to their own plane of existence, and magic disappears as a result of the breach at the bottom of the Drop closing, meaning the PLSE project is abandoned and the surface world is allowed to evolve into its own spacefaring civilization, eventually. The Shra capital is run by the shra women who used tech from Tez's downed spacecraft to fortify it and prevent intruders under guidance from TBO, who hides out inside to protect himself from the routine purges. Oh, and Daszk sacrifices himself. That's all I can recall at the moment. (That's it for details; for themes and meanings, you're on your own!)
Thanks for your thoughts, as always!
You might want to put that information inside a Hide tag, Deltree.
How Far is one of the games, if not the game I had been looking forward to the most, so knowing for sure it's never going to be made now deals a lot of Soul damage to me. It's such a pity, too, after all the buildup and the enthusiam with which the series was generally received. It's obviously not my place to tell you what to do, and I understand you have a lot of other work to take care of. But I can't help but feel it's a mistake to abandon the legacy of the Reconstruction series at its most crucial point.
Regarding the review itself, I understand the point you are coming from, but it still reads like we played two completely different games. Obviously, circumstances change between episodes, because literally millions of years pass between them. And I found the stories not nonsensical and disconnected at all - to me, they seemed to be exploring (not resolving, mind you) different philosophical concepts. The same is true for the conversations with the various crew members.
Honestly, I always found the final chapter of The Reconstruction to be far more depressing than this game's. I will however agree that the former had the more well-written and mindblowingly amazing ending, yes.
How Far is one of the games, if not the game I had been looking forward to the most, so knowing for sure it's never going to be made now deals a lot of Soul damage to me. It's such a pity, too, after all the buildup and the enthusiam with which the series was generally received. It's obviously not my place to tell you what to do, and I understand you have a lot of other work to take care of. But I can't help but feel it's a mistake to abandon the legacy of the Reconstruction series at its most crucial point.
Regarding the review itself, I understand the point you are coming from, but it still reads like we played two completely different games. Obviously, circumstances change between episodes, because literally millions of years pass between them. And I found the stories not nonsensical and disconnected at all - to me, they seemed to be exploring (not resolving, mind you) different philosophical concepts. The same is true for the conversations with the various crew members.
And while I see how you'd find what you presumed to be the story's implied morals to be unsatisfying, I think the most terrible thing about nihilism is that to a certain degree, it's actually correct. The way I read it, at some point the characters just have to accept that true immortality is neither necessary nor worth striving for. You've already seen what they did with it when they presumably had it - people were just living like robots or sitting around tranced out for thousands of years. It's fine to have hopes and dreams and even power fantasies. But at some point the universe is simply going to implode, and trying to prevent that by making it implode earlier is not helpful.
Honestly, I always found the final chapter of The Reconstruction to be far more depressing than this game's. I will however agree that the former had the more well-written and mindblowingly amazing ending, yes.
Haha, sorry, I think you're right about the spoilers. I'd just woken up when I wrote that, so I've amended it.
It's a big ol' mess of story, though, and I was burned out enough with the setting that I started it three times in three different engines, and never got more than a half-hour of game done. And that was two years ago; nowadays, it's completely left my mind. I apologize that it built up for so long; that was never my intention, and I'm such a fan of branching out (at least as far as design goes) that I should have seen it coming sooner.
It's a big ol' mess of story, though, and I was burned out enough with the setting that I started it three times in three different engines, and never got more than a half-hour of game done. And that was two years ago; nowadays, it's completely left my mind. I apologize that it built up for so long; that was never my intention, and I'm such a fan of branching out (at least as far as design goes) that I should have seen it coming sooner.
argh
792
Aw, that's a shame about How Far, especially given how much buildup it had. Maybe it is best for you to move on to bigger and better things though. TTL's apocalypse narrative sounds like it might be covering similar ground, which interests me.
I'm surprised to discover that Tez was actually intended to be the ultimate final boss. I thought we were intended to read him as sympathetic throughout the games, which led to some frustration at how selfish and cowardly he was -- but if he was intended to become a villain eventually, that actually does make sense. I still think it could have been a lot clearer in IMTS, but that does make me a lot more charitable to the narrative.
Shame that it has a "the magic goes away" ending, though, that trope always makes me sad. The interaction of magic and science always struck me as the most interesting and creative point in this series, so it's a shame it sounds like it was never going to be explored thoroughly.
Whatever was the deal with Moke and the greater shra, though?
(How many of my wild crackpot theories were accurate, by the way?)
@NeverSilent: Do millions of years really pass between episodes? I never got that impression. Not much time seems to pass between episodes 1, 2, and 3; the only time we're told that a major timeskip occurs is between 3 and 4, and there's payoff to the claim, as things are very different from how they were before.
That is exactly the problem. An episodic format would be acceptable if each episode was a truly self-contained story... but they aren't, because nothing is ever resolved. The story feels indecisive as to whether it wants to be a grand overarching epic or a series of disparate vignettes. I actually think each episode contains an interesting idea and I might even like them a great deal if they were expanded into full stories (and didn't lean so heavily on cliches)... but they're never allowed to reach their full potential. Each one contains setup, and action, but never resolution. They tap out just as I'm starting to get engaged. Episode 4 is the worst offender -- despite having the most action and stuff actually happening, it crams two plots into the same space, which obviously results in it not having enough time to do justice to either.
They also step on each others' toes far too much. It's not just the circumstances that change wildly between episodes, but the tone and narrative themes. A post-apocalyptic setting cannot coexist with the plots of episodes 2, 3, and 4, which revolve around very powerful organizations at their full strength acting on very high-minded goals. They're magically completely unaffected by the Shine due to plot fiat, which makes no sense, narratively. If the inciting event doesn't matter, you don't have a consistent story. And as I mention in the in-depth posts, Typelog and EROS, and their respective sins, come from two different worlds, so pitting them against each other and asking deep questions about which one is worse is just really confusing.
Simply bringing up philosophical topics isn't enough to carry a story, at least not one of this length. At some point something needs to happen; a point needs to be made. This happens in one episode, but it would have been better if it had happened in all of them, if they were really intended to be discussing completely different topics.
Ah, but that's just it -- we didn't. Show, don't tell. I honestly thought pre-Shine society sounded pretty nice, my first time through.
But -- that idea is itself a nihilistic cliche. I don't think it's inevitable that utopian societies will inevitably fall to decadence and ennui. And honestly, telling that to me, an (almost) engineer, is really dispiriting and hurtful. I worked myself up into a good rant here, but basically, it's not just the ending that bothered me, but a combination of things that made me read the ending in a worse light than I might have otherwise. Media (sci-fi in particular) as a whole is really, really anti-intellectual and anti-science, and this "technology will only make us unhappy so stop trying to make the world a better place" narrative is really tiring to me. I see myself in Neff, in Ral, and in the Progenitor -- but all the story does for them is to trample over their dreams, tell them they're wrong and/or evil for trying, and kill them. Stories that do that are just as much bullies as the people who beat us up and take our lunch money -- but worse, because they discourage adults who are in the position to make real change. There's wisdom in being Zen about things, but "nothing matters, stop trying and commit softcore or actual suicide" takes it way too far, in my opinion.
I'm surprised to discover that Tez was actually intended to be the ultimate final boss. I thought we were intended to read him as sympathetic throughout the games, which led to some frustration at how selfish and cowardly he was -- but if he was intended to become a villain eventually, that actually does make sense. I still think it could have been a lot clearer in IMTS, but that does make me a lot more charitable to the narrative.
Shame that it has a "the magic goes away" ending, though, that trope always makes me sad. The interaction of magic and science always struck me as the most interesting and creative point in this series, so it's a shame it sounds like it was never going to be explored thoroughly.
Whatever was the deal with Moke and the greater shra, though?
(How many of my wild crackpot theories were accurate, by the way?)
@NeverSilent: Do millions of years really pass between episodes? I never got that impression. Not much time seems to pass between episodes 1, 2, and 3; the only time we're told that a major timeskip occurs is between 3 and 4, and there's payoff to the claim, as things are very different from how they were before.
they seemed to be exploring (not resolving, mind you) different philosophical concepts
That is exactly the problem. An episodic format would be acceptable if each episode was a truly self-contained story... but they aren't, because nothing is ever resolved. The story feels indecisive as to whether it wants to be a grand overarching epic or a series of disparate vignettes. I actually think each episode contains an interesting idea and I might even like them a great deal if they were expanded into full stories (and didn't lean so heavily on cliches)... but they're never allowed to reach their full potential. Each one contains setup, and action, but never resolution. They tap out just as I'm starting to get engaged. Episode 4 is the worst offender -- despite having the most action and stuff actually happening, it crams two plots into the same space, which obviously results in it not having enough time to do justice to either.
They also step on each others' toes far too much. It's not just the circumstances that change wildly between episodes, but the tone and narrative themes. A post-apocalyptic setting cannot coexist with the plots of episodes 2, 3, and 4, which revolve around very powerful organizations at their full strength acting on very high-minded goals. They're magically completely unaffected by the Shine due to plot fiat, which makes no sense, narratively. If the inciting event doesn't matter, you don't have a consistent story. And as I mention in the in-depth posts, Typelog and EROS, and their respective sins, come from two different worlds, so pitting them against each other and asking deep questions about which one is worse is just really confusing.
Simply bringing up philosophical topics isn't enough to carry a story, at least not one of this length. At some point something needs to happen; a point needs to be made. This happens in one episode, but it would have been better if it had happened in all of them, if they were really intended to be discussing completely different topics.
You've already seen what they did with it when they presumably had it
Ah, but that's just it -- we didn't. Show, don't tell. I honestly thought pre-Shine society sounded pretty nice, my first time through.
But -- that idea is itself a nihilistic cliche. I don't think it's inevitable that utopian societies will inevitably fall to decadence and ennui. And honestly, telling that to me, an (almost) engineer, is really dispiriting and hurtful. I worked myself up into a good rant here, but basically, it's not just the ending that bothered me, but a combination of things that made me read the ending in a worse light than I might have otherwise. Media (sci-fi in particular) as a whole is really, really anti-intellectual and anti-science, and this "technology will only make us unhappy so stop trying to make the world a better place" narrative is really tiring to me. I see myself in Neff, in Ral, and in the Progenitor -- but all the story does for them is to trample over their dreams, tell them they're wrong and/or evil for trying, and kill them. Stories that do that are just as much bullies as the people who beat us up and take our lunch money -- but worse, because they discourage adults who are in the position to make real change. There's wisdom in being Zen about things, but "nothing matters, stop trying and commit softcore or actual suicide" takes it way too far, in my opinion.
I was disappointed to see That One Bad Review™ for this game, but after reading this I kind of understand why this rating is deserved. When I reviewed it, I was impressed at the game. and also too young to be reviewing games I tend to hold games on this website to the most mediocre of RPG Maker standards, so anything that stands out happens to garner positive attention from me.
This is still one of my favorite RM games, but after reading this I really understand why the story was lackluster. The characters 'philosophies' are really out of place in the setting, their interactions w/ each other were strange in nature, and the story wasn't executed optimally. (In all honesty my understanding of it wasn't that deep during my playthrough but reading some writing picking it apart was insightful)
This is still one of my favorite RM games, but after reading this I really understand why the story was lackluster. The characters 'philosophies' are really out of place in the setting, their interactions w/ each other were strange in nature, and the story wasn't executed optimally. (In all honesty my understanding of it wasn't that deep during my playthrough but reading some writing picking it apart was insightful)
Hasvers
1298
This review raises some valid points in a fairly uncivil way.
It is not unfair to score a game as a function of its aspirations, but then I think you should append a reference point to that score. Giving this game's plot+setting 2.5 out of 5 Asimovs or GregEgans seems defensible, while it clearly deserves 4.5 out of 5 VideogameSciFi.
Also, you kind of mix the game falling short of its potential and it saying something you don't like, which are both reasons for not enjoying it, but which should not be presented as arguments for each other.
Now I did not update my own review after playing the whole game, but I have to admit plot development overall was a bit more formulaic and less exciting than the rather radical setting - for me, the best part was all the flavor stuff, as is often the case in (the better end of) vidyagame writing. I won't lie, I had hoped for more, but still, "no substance"...
As for the gameplay, I think it just goes to show that balancing a RPG is hell; I remember when the game was *really* challenging. I'd just like to disagree with this:
This might or might not be the case here (I don't think it is, personally), but it's a fairly bad argument in general, like saying Go has no tactics because you have no supporting characters. Everything is always convertible to DPS/DPturn in RPG battle systems. Making this more transparent and then adding more temporal/spatial management tends to help have *real* tactics rather than just "find the gamebreaking combination of skills and equipment that the dev couldn't balance out".
If anything, I still think it was not transparent enough, with too many details to memorize before you could make significant decisions.
I raise that point in case Deltree (or anyone else) considers those arguments when making another game.
It is not unfair to score a game as a function of its aspirations, but then I think you should append a reference point to that score. Giving this game's plot+setting 2.5 out of 5 Asimovs or GregEgans seems defensible, while it clearly deserves 4.5 out of 5 VideogameSciFi.
Also, you kind of mix the game falling short of its potential and it saying something you don't like, which are both reasons for not enjoying it, but which should not be presented as arguments for each other.
Now I did not update my own review after playing the whole game, but I have to admit plot development overall was a bit more formulaic and less exciting than the rather radical setting - for me, the best part was all the flavor stuff, as is often the case in (the better end of) vidyagame writing. I won't lie, I had hoped for more, but still, "no substance"...
As for the gameplay, I think it just goes to show that balancing a RPG is hell; I remember when the game was *really* challenging. I'd just like to disagree with this:
That right there is your skill menu -- your only skill menu. Notice something? There are only attack skills (and a passive stat boost). Yes, really: instead of the rich diversity of character skills seen in most RPGs, your options are only ever damage, more damage, or damage of a different type. There aren’t even any AoE attacks, everything’s single-target. This is easily the worst design decision in the entire game; it pretty much vaporizes any possibility of tactical depth.
This might or might not be the case here (I don't think it is, personally), but it's a fairly bad argument in general, like saying Go has no tactics because you have no supporting characters. Everything is always convertible to DPS/DPturn in RPG battle systems. Making this more transparent and then adding more temporal/spatial management tends to help have *real* tactics rather than just "find the gamebreaking combination of skills and equipment that the dev couldn't balance out".
If anything, I still think it was not transparent enough, with too many details to memorize before you could make significant decisions.
I raise that point in case Deltree (or anyone else) considers those arguments when making another game.
argh
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the best part was all the flavor stuff, as is often the case in (the better end of) vidyagame writing
This is true -- as with The Reconstruction, the technical writing was often quite good -- but I consider that more flash than substance.
but still, "no substance"...
I genuinely hope I am wrong about this. If you found engaging literary themes in this worth discussing that I missed, I would love to hear it. Those existed in The Reconstruction and The Drop, even if they were a little hackneyed -- I still believe that Havan is the most chilling and effective analysis of player and hero behavior this side of Undertale's Chara. But I don't see IMTS making any point that hasn't been made before in countless other science fiction cliches.
Giving this game's plot+setting 2.5 out of 5 Asimovs or GregEgans seems defensible, while it clearly deserves 4.5 out of 5 VideogameSciFi.
I disagree with that. Even leaving aside the plot (which is often the focus of RPGs), the gameplay just wasn't engaging to me. The bonus boss is the only battle that doesn't end in a blink of an eye (and therefore allows you to use the battle mechanics to their fullest potential) and it's just... boring. Attack, attack, attack, retreat, attack, attack, attack, for a good half-hour or so. The battle system is trapped between a rock and a hard place -- the damage formulas make battles end far too quickly for the mechanics to actually come into play (Zone of Control was almost never a factor for me, for instance), but even if that was fixed more reasonable battles still would have no depth. The Reconstruction let you strategize, set up buffs, disable opponents, stuff like that. Even the attack skills were very varied in what they could do. This all resulted in battles that were legitimately exciting and engaging -- they were drawn-out, but that was accompanied by changes in circumstance that required you to change your tactics over time. That's not the case here, sadly.
I was very close to giving this 3/5, but all the little things added up to tip it over the edge.
Also, you kind of mix the game falling short of its potential and it saying something you don't like, which are both reasons for not enjoying it, but which should not be presented as arguments for each other.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. It's more that, while flailing around for something to engage with, I saw the ending as the one thing with anything approaching literary depth, and so I analyzed that, and disagreed with the conclusions I found. That's two strikes against the game -- it had very little to say, and what it did say I disagreed with.
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