My biggest problem with the game.
I don't much like the combat system. Not the QTE stuff (straight button press) but the QTE if you can aim quickly enough stuff.
The target and the aiming reticle being the same color is a bit of a problem. That the reticle seems to appear in some random part of the screen and I've failed the event before I can even find it is also a bit of a problem. And it feels really random which button press is required. It is a bit frustrating and "cheap kill" feeling.
Now it doesn't seem game breaking and since I didn't get a "game over" and in a ways it adds to the cinematic feel. I don't feel like I can complain much but it is getting to be an issue with these interactive movie style games. (Got this vibe in "Beyond Two Souls" as well.)
It feels a bad compromise between trying to add more "not QTE game" to the game without giving up the preferred cinematic sequence of the fight. It can also feel like the goal posts are moving. The reticle often feels like it is fighting you. Like I'm fighting the game and not the villain. (It is one of the things that drive me crazy about scope sway in sniper shooting parts of FPS games. It never feels organic. Seems like you've suddenly just been yanked off target by someone pulling a string.) TWD had this feel as well.
I still had fun with the game (because I came for the story and was not let down in that respect) but it often feels in these sequences like the game isn't playing fair or honest. A trumped up difficulty meant as a patronizing sop to the more hardcore/experienced gamer because anything else would be too hard for the inexperienced or ruin the preferred narrative flow.
I guess I'm saying I'd be okay with the game being "too easy" because I didn't really buy it for a lot of "video game" in the first place.
Comments
I agree, but it does add that feeling of tenseness to a fight, the 'Am I gonna make it?' feel. But with the ones where you choose the aggressive option, there does need to be a bit of a bigger time-frame to see and make your decision. In the first fight with Woody, I attacked him with the sink. Not because I wanted to hurt him more, but because it was the first thing that caught my eye, and instinctively I went for it.
If for example, were in a real fight, in the heat of the moment most people tend to react to what is happening though. I wouldn't think someone would try to pick and choose how to hurt their foe. If a bottle is within reach, they would just smash it over their foe's head. if they see the sink first however, they slam their foe's head into the sink. When in a tense situation like that, there isn't going to be time to think "should i use the bottle or the sink?" because if they did, they would lose the fight. I think TT did it perfectly. But that's just my 2 cents.
I agree that it can lead to a bit more tenseness over the outcome but that tenseness is what I mean by the preferred cinematic sequence.
I feel like I'm nitpicking here but this is the area that I get the "false agency" vibe that folks complain about with regards the overall shape of the story. I don't much get the complaints in that sense over where the story ends up. Whenever a fight starts I'm waiting for the "gotcha" moment. On the one hand that does create tension on the other it can feel like the writer isn't playing fair or like I'm the cat and they're holding the laser pointer.
It is doing something right since I'm in for the rest of the ride but it does seem worth mentioning.
Just growing pains with a new way to tell stories and play video games I guess.
Personally, my only real problem was the colouring of the targets, which I found to be too dark to see half the time.
Otherwise, I think it was fine. Well, tolerable, at any rate
.
Tolerable is a good word for it. I don't have a better idea to offer and it isn't NOT working but it really seems there is a "better" out there.
Well the thing is also there is a space where I'm as DeadinThehead suggests reacting. Sure you just react but based on much more knowledge of your surroundings. I can't interact with the bottle or the sink before the fight so I have trouble shifting to being able interact with it suddenly as a quick thinking reaction.
I suspect it will get easier as the story goes along and we get the hang of how it works?