This week's Dan Solo features a lot of thoughts about all this strange news regarding Final Fantasy VII: Remake. Going into things like the completely re-worked gameplay, the confusing meaning of an "episodic" release, and how the news that they're making multiple full-scale games and say to think of it like Final Fantasy XIII doesn't exactly fill me with enthusiasm. Plus, I sidetrack a bit into why I think it's a bit off-base to think that people don't like those early Final Fantasy games for the gameplay.
Run time: 40:19
What do you think? Has your enthusiasm for the remake died down at all? A lot? Are you more interested in it? Is this all a good idea, or does it just feel like a bigger money grab than it would have inherently been?
With so many series under their belt, it isn't hard to see why some may feel that the Telltale style of game - with it's limited gameplay options - have gotten a little stale. The strength of the games has been and continues to be in their ability to tell a compelling story with interesting characters. Even if you find Tales from Borderlands boring to actually play from a mechanics standpoint, it turned out to be one of the better written and more enjoyable in their repertoire. They clearly still have something to offer players, but it's actually a bit difficult going back and playing their true breakthrough game: The Walking Dead.
The thing about Telltale's first season of their episodic game based off of the Robert Kirkman/Tony Moore/Charlie Adlard comic is that it doesn't ultimately hold much replay value. It's difficult taking a second look at it because you already know what's coming and what your choices ultimately amount to. All you see are the cracks and holes in the writing, and how foolish you were if you actually believed you had any real agency in the game. This is, of course, true of many games. Mass Effect isn't the same when you know what's going to happen, and the choices you make feel less critical by the end of the trilogy. Replays are fundamentally different with all games though, including ones not built on choice. The Last of Us is a great game, but it does lose a bit of its narrative luster on second or third playthroughs. It's to be expect. Same thing happens with movies. You can never experience Star Wars for the first time again.
However, the big difference between Mass Effect and The Walking Dead is that the former at least provides plenty of additional enjoyment. There's action-packed combat, the ability to explore new planets, character and equipment leveling, and more complex and intriguing characters you can converse with. While the end might be the functionally the same each playthrough, there are enough different ways to actually go through and play it that it's still fun to play. The same thing is not exactly true of Telltale's narrative-focused, choice-driven games. Thus, looking back is tricky.
Personally, I was exposed to The Walking Dead's big conceit early on: choices are illusions. One of the very first decisions you are forced to confront is which character to save at the farm. You have a moment to decide between two people - neither of which you're particularly attached to at this point (it's still early) - and in the end, it's irrelevant. The same character dies, regardless of who you choose. You lose points with some people in your party if you help one, but you don't gain points from other people if you help the other. Either way, that character ends up dead and you move on from the farm. (It's not Walking Dead if the characters are constantly finding a place to stay before blowing it and having to migrate, right?)
There could be something to do that if the choice branches truly lead to different points, but they don't. In another moment, you have to decide between another couple of people. Who you pick makes a difference (sort of) for about an episode and a half before, again, that person bites it regardless. Not only that, but they die in the exact same spot and exact same manner.
That's ultimately the issue with these games. Unless your choices branch off into noticeably different and varying paths, then they don't feel like they mean anything. You can typically compensate for that in bigger games by including fun gameplay or exploration options. With a game like The Walking Dead, there isn't any real gameplay or exploration. Sure, you can kind of walk around an area and look at certain objects, but that's extremely limited. The conversations you can have are interesting, but equally limited. There just isn't much that can make up for the dead-end branches.
Funny thing about choice-based games too is that there's almost a second playthrough inherently built in. You play once, then play it a second time doing all the opposite things of what you did before to see what happens. The Walking Dead, however, is at its best when you are fully embraced by the smoke and mirrors. Unfortunately for me, I caught on very quickly to the fact that your choices don't matter, and that made the entire playthrough drag. I couldn't help but notice, as a result, how boring it all truly was. Without the mirage of meaningful decisions, it was just crappy characters with inconsistent (although most often terrible) dialogue doing completely illogical things and overreacting to every tiny thing. So, really, it was The Walking Dead. (The other problem is, if you're familiar with the comic and the show, then most things in this game are just more of the same.) The first season has moments, but it doesn't wind up doing the best job with its writing. More importantly, they don't do a great job masking that your choices are pointless. And if that is in itself the metaphor, then it's a tired one at that.
All that said, the one thing Telltale has injected into the inaugural season of The Walking Dead is arguably the strongest emotional core of anything in the license. The central relationship between Clementine and Lee is one of the most touching and well-written within the Walking Dead property. It's, frankly, better than anything in the comics, and it's absolutely better than anything in the show. The result is an emotionally charged finale that is nearly perfect, contrived points and all.
It's tempting to say that the end is so damn strong that it makes up for all of the problems within the game, but I'm not so sure it is. To my mind, it is one of the better, more compelling, and more emotional endings to any game I've played, but I'm not convinced it makes up for the fact that it took four and a half episodes of poorly written plot and deceptive gameplay.
I suppose, though, that if The Walking Dead is your thing and you think the show is amazing and haven't gotten tired of the comic yet, I don't see why you wouldn't be super into this.
The first thing you might notice about Pandora Tomorrow, the sequel to the breakout stealth game Splinter Cell, is that it plays a lot smoother than the first. Makes sense. This is pretty typical of follow up games. There are plenty of other ways that Pandora Tomorrow builds and improves upon the original game. Sure, the ability to lure enemies with whistling is a nice improvement, and being able to draw your pistol while hanging from a pipe or in the splits, but it's far from the only thing.
One of the more interesting things to notice about the game is how frequently they put you outdoors and in light conditions. The tutorial mission starting the game sees super spy Sam Fisher at dusk trying to make way through a village to rescue hostages. After the first game trained players to shoot out all the lights they could, the second forces players to find alternative ways to sneak through levels. There's almost always going to be some shadowy areas to hide in, but there may also be stretches where dark cover is very limited. At another point in the game, you must make your way through another base outdoors. It's still dusk, but it's brighter. Other levels feature plenty of neon signs or other, farther away light sources that can't be shot out. This forces players to move a bit more quickly and decisively, as they plan their moves.
Another interesting thing is the number of levels where civilians are thrown into the fray. In Splinter Cell, there were people that you could not kill, but pretty much everyone was available to knock out. In Pandora Tomorrow, there are scenarios in which you can't even be spotted. There aren't just "terrorists" and "security guards" or "CIA agents." Now, there are full blown civilians that you must completely avoid. This first occurs early on when you must sneak your way through a passenger train, careful to avoid civilian attention. Then, there's a mission in Jerusalem where you must stick to the shadows completely. The final mission puts you in an airport full of civilians who you can't get spotted by at all, security guards and employees who you can knock out, and terrorists who you must kill. It adds a lot and forces the player to approach each level a bit differently.
Speaking of levels, level design is also improved upon. Splinter Cell saw very linear maps. You simply moved from point A to point B and had to maneuver around the in-game obstacles, whether it were a door you had to pick or guards in your way. This can easily be forgiven for a game released in 2002, where linear levels were the norm and technological limitations prevents much expansion. Pandora Tomorrow doesn't exactly open it up completely. None of the games in the franchise play as open world, nor should they really. Yet here, the designers present players with multiple routes. Your starting point is always the same. Your end point is always the same. There isn't too much deviation from the linear approach, but they do provide occasionally divergent pathways. In some ways, this calls do mind the difference between Uncharted and Uncharted 2. Still linear, but the fact that players have choices in how they approach a rather linear level makes the maps feel bigger than they are.
The on screen information is also streamlined and upgraded. The menus for swapping gadgets and weapons is cleaner, and it just looks nicer. The health bar and visibility meters are clearer and more helpful, which is required given the amount of "natural light" you must contend with in some levels. The pistol is still woefully inaccurate, sometimes even at close range, but odds are that you'll spend most of the game relying on your rifle anyway. Ammo isn't particularly scarce, and with enough patience, headshots and one-shot kills are easy.
As I mentioned in my Splinter Cell review, I've been playing the first three games on the PS3. There is an HD Remaster collection on the PS3 store (if you can access it - seriously, how has the PS Store gotten so incredibly terrible on the PS3?). Like the first game, Pandora Tomorrow is also disappointingly buggy. The first time I started it up, I got all of twenty minutes into the game before frame rate issues popped up and rendered the game completely unplayable. I switched to my PS2 copy to compare, just to make sure this wasn't just some strange thing with the original game. (It's not.) I did think to try it again on PS3 after exiting the game. That seemed to help. Barring a few brief moments, the only frame rate issues that came up again were late in the game and only when I looked through the rifle scope. That in and of itself is problematic, given if the frame rate isn't smooth, it is extraordinarily tricky to shoot accurately, but at that point, I was proficient in other styles of play. I compensated for those bugs by approaching the levels differently. Other than that, the audio bugs are far fewer between. There was only one moment where an audio bug really screwed me over (there's a mission late in the game where you have to listen to a conversation, but the dialogue audio dropped out completely so I had to wing it; it took a few tries). With the HD remaster of Pandora Tomorrow being a bit less buggy than Splinter Cell, I can only hope this means they figured it out by the third game.
In many ways, the second installment is a big improvement. The story and characters begin to move away from their more grounded, political thriller, Tom Clancy nature, instead detouring a tad more into typical action super spy stuff. Global politics aren't as much a factor in this game. Instead, Fisher and Third Echelon are hunting down these almost Bond-like villains. It's still grounded enough that it isn't super different. The devolution of the story and characters would come a little later in the franchise.
