Constructive criticism concerning Ep:4 Dangeresque 3
I am going to go against my forum beliefs and do something that I usually yell at others for doing... I am going to complain!
Usually, I am silent about these episodes, They don't usually inspire much of an opinion... But this time around it did, disappointment.
I know its supposed to be a parody, I get that. But my (somewhat odd) complaint was that there is too much "Dangeresque 3". The entire episode was all the same crap over and over, with no variety. Each act was some variation of "So-and-so is (blank) so we have to find (Blank) to save (blank)" rinse, repeat.
They should have had some outside exposition. I was kinda expecting to have to set things up... Recruit (or fight with) actors to get them in the picture, get stuff to make the sets, do things to get ideas for the story, etc.
All of the previous episodes had elaborate setup and conclusion stories apart from the "bread and butter" that the episode was centered on...
For example, Episode one revolved around getting Homestar out of the house, but they also told the story of how he came to be there, and the party afterwards.
Episode two centered on getting countries to join Strong Badia, but also had a first act explaining why strong bad wanted to crush the KOT, followed by what happened after he did.
Episode 3 centers on a battle royale of the bands, but also has two acts of setting up the battle royale (and of course that sweet finale).
Episode 4 Centers on the movie Dangeresque 3. Apart from that? Nothing, no set up story, no finale after the movie... Just jump right into the movie, 4 similar acts of movie story material... The end of the movie is the end of the game, now do you see where I am coming from?
On top of a single point story, Episode 4 takes 2 giant leaps back from the previous two installments... The "advanced difficulty" and "off the wall puzzle solutions" are substituted for "limited options" and "characters giving blatant hints that outright tell you what to do" Not to mention all the access restrictions, we can't see the rest of the strong house, nor the inside of marzipans...
I'm sorry... I just expected more from this episode, and it fell flat for me. Awesome extras do not make up for what the rest of the episode lacks...
Finally, The episode was obviously rushed, and it shows... I would complain about the bugs I found, but I am getting used to bug filled Strong Bad episodes by now. (P.S. Telltale really needs to consider having outside QA testers.) Anyways, I am not even going to waste my breath on that one.
You can all now begin calling me a moron for not liking the episode, but this is my opinion and i'm sticking to it.
Usually, I am silent about these episodes, They don't usually inspire much of an opinion... But this time around it did, disappointment.
I know its supposed to be a parody, I get that. But my (somewhat odd) complaint was that there is too much "Dangeresque 3". The entire episode was all the same crap over and over, with no variety. Each act was some variation of "So-and-so is (blank) so we have to find (Blank) to save (blank)" rinse, repeat.
They should have had some outside exposition. I was kinda expecting to have to set things up... Recruit (or fight with) actors to get them in the picture, get stuff to make the sets, do things to get ideas for the story, etc.
All of the previous episodes had elaborate setup and conclusion stories apart from the "bread and butter" that the episode was centered on...
For example, Episode one revolved around getting Homestar out of the house, but they also told the story of how he came to be there, and the party afterwards.
Episode two centered on getting countries to join Strong Badia, but also had a first act explaining why strong bad wanted to crush the KOT, followed by what happened after he did.
Episode 3 centers on a battle royale of the bands, but also has two acts of setting up the battle royale (and of course that sweet finale).
Episode 4 Centers on the movie Dangeresque 3. Apart from that? Nothing, no set up story, no finale after the movie... Just jump right into the movie, 4 similar acts of movie story material... The end of the movie is the end of the game, now do you see where I am coming from?
On top of a single point story, Episode 4 takes 2 giant leaps back from the previous two installments... The "advanced difficulty" and "off the wall puzzle solutions" are substituted for "limited options" and "characters giving blatant hints that outright tell you what to do" Not to mention all the access restrictions, we can't see the rest of the strong house, nor the inside of marzipans...
I'm sorry... I just expected more from this episode, and it fell flat for me. Awesome extras do not make up for what the rest of the episode lacks...
Finally, The episode was obviously rushed, and it shows... I would complain about the bugs I found, but I am getting used to bug filled Strong Bad episodes by now. (P.S. Telltale really needs to consider having outside QA testers.) Anyways, I am not even going to waste my breath on that one.
You can all now begin calling me a moron for not liking the episode, but this is my opinion and i'm sticking to it.
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Comments
(I get the feeling the episode 5 is going to be centered on
About design, however, the problem is that this episode was... "fan-constrained" so to speak. Because it is the third part of Dangeresque, several gags and lines had to be included to reference that, plus the structure should be similar to the flash movies too. So, setting up things with Strong Bad to later film them as Dangeresque is a good idea, but it would weaken the thought of this being Dangeresque 3 . Guess you can call it fanservice if you want, but one not-so-good episode out of four for you isn't so bad either :P
On the other hand, 8-bit is Enough sounds awesome. Telltale+videogame parodies was a great match in Sam & Max, so I have the hype-o-meter pretty high
Maybe it's due to
Also, I'm still getting the no eyes problem with Coach Z in this one, haven't had problems with any other characters yet.
I went into it fully expecting to just be playing the movie, because I figured that the movie would be decidedly short, were I to spend the first two acts convincing people to be in the film and building sets or gathering props or what have you.
Not to say I think that your criticism is dumb or even unfounded. It certainly was a change of plot pacing to just jump right into it, and the pacing is certainly more movie-style and less video game-style, which will throw you.
I really did enjoy this Episode, as I have enjoyed each one more and more as the series has gone on. I've liked the different construct of each one, and the writing keeps getting better.
I don't think this complaint is bad, or that you're a moron or anything. I suppose we just have different tastes.
And for that, we must fight to the death.
no, just kidding. episode 4 was different and more story focused than the other ones. like a crappy, no-budget, interactive movie. i found that to be most entertaining..maybe because i used to do such movies myself when i was young.
the point that the puzzles are to easy is perfectly valid in my opinion though. there was one puzzle that gave me a hard time..apart from that it was simply walking through the movie. still liked it.
actually i thought the story would be centered around making the movie instead of watching it. personally i like it better the way it turned out. making the movie would be to similar to episode 3...
To continue in a more serious vein, I really love this episode for its feel of playing through an HR toon. One reason I personally love video games is because they're a vicarious experience. You watch a movie you observe it, you play a game you come closer to living it. This does not mean I play games only for their stories, but when I play a game that reveals a story to me in a way that really makes me feel a part of it I am more than willing to cut that game a little slack. Games that are fun to play aren't uncommon, games that I want to play through again to enjoy the story aren't so readily available.
I'm not saying this episode is the James Joyce's Ulysses of games, but it is a story set entirely in its own odd, little reality very much in the HR style with laughs, surprises and great real world references that parody movies, DVD’s and extras therein. I applaud Mr. Darin for creating an episode so in the spirit of the original cartoons while keeping it fresh and funny and not become just an homage to itself.
And also it bothered me that when they videotaped the TV, there was no half-the-screen-flickering-black effect. If you've ever done it you know what I mean.
Great games company, would buy from again A+++
-m0r
It was a somewhat welcome break, but episode 5 had better go out with a bang and return to this pattern... It does not need to be hard, but the hand holding and telling us what to do needs to go away, you now have 2 episodes of new locations to catch up on (the office was only a modest offering) and I would like to get one last fresh look of all the previously introduced locations and characters... is that too much to ask? (for a finale, I think not.)
another word about the difficutly: in episode 4 i even beat the mini-game or micro-game...the videlectrix game..thingy...in the first try. that was quite odd. i still couldn't get a green score on the limozeen game and it took me ages to to so in snake boxer. the space circus game was a piece of cake however. i just started playing to give it a first try and see what it's like...bam, green score. either i am pretty awesome...which i doubt..or it really is easy.
Don't get me wrong, the whole amature video thing was funny, but I just don't think it made an enjoyable game.
Can't complain too badly though; if Telltale tried to stick to the norm every time we'd never have had some of their best episodes.
I thought it would be making the film not look like **** as well, but I enjoyed seeing a longer version of the backyard film. And it's hard to make Dangeresque not bad
It's a home movie. What did you expect? Star Wars? And I already said I thought TellTale did not go with the, "The movie's falling apart, and YOU need to fix it!" plot. What do you think would happen after the movie. Strong Bad appeases the cast by sitting at his editing kit (not the Lappy) and entering the the *Sarcasm* un-tedious *Sarcasm* world of movie editing?
No comment.
I encountered no glitches whatsoever. I was pleased with it. Not amazed, but I still found it hilarious.
Anyway, DangerZone is much more likely to find glitches because he's pretty dedicated in his pursuit of "Play-It-All" stuff. It seems that he uses every item on everyone and every thing at every point in every possible plot progression. (Either that, or he spends a couple of hours listening to the entire episode's dialogue files looking for ideas about things to try.)
I did notice a number of strange glitches myself, though - even things that I would have expected to have been tested away.
(For instance, when you obtain the formula a second time which is NECESSARY for one of the collectibles, Coach Z's dialogue is spoken by a non-existent Z.)
For the record, the second formula isn't necessary, you can also use the cola directly on the stick.
Yeah, that's one of those bugs that we actually found but weren't able to fix before the Wii build went out. One thing to consider when we find last minute bugs like that is how safely can we fix it and if we can we fix it in time for the game to hit the launch window.
For this particular example, it was a case of either fixing the bug and making a new build (which would require a whole new round of testing, potentially break other things, and cause the game to be delayed by at least another week, if not two), or letting it go out. When only a small percentage of Wii players are likely to see this bug (a harmless bug at that), sometimes you just have to suck it up and ship it. Now obviously if it were something critical and/or game breaking, then yeah of course you delay the launch.
Anyway, just thought I'd give you a little window into game testing and development.
(I have yet to finish it though)
(And I've only have Strong Badia the Free and this one.)
Anyways, I would go as far as to say that this episode is the homestarrunner.com twist on the word "epic".
I did? Seriously? Yaaaaaaaay! I'm special! My mommy always said that! Bushes are nice, cause they don't have prickers! Unless they do... this one did, ouch!
On the positive side, the humor was fantastic. Even the least funny lines left me with a smirk.
I really think they just did that to be able to work harder on the finale, and while it's true that having one episode be half of a completely arbitrary standard episode length and another be a half longer, it's also key to have a finale that's as epic as possible.
It was hilarious however.
This is probably all because of Telltale experimenting and trying to keep the episodes fresh, which is all we can hope for to be honest. It's not going to be perfect every time.
Can't believe I have to wait a whole month for ep 5 now! I'm gonna get withdrawl symptoms after this four episode mega week I just had.
In a way the easiness of the puzzles serves the episode well, because it's supposed to feel sort of like a movie and so getting stuck for a long time kind of breaks the flow. And it's hard to allow a whole lot of room for that while maintaining the movie facade; the characters can't talk about it quite as freely as usual. I'm not saying there's no way to overcome that obstacle, just that it's an obstacle. For the most part, it was a success.
But anyway, aside from the bugs present in the previous games (loss of sound at certain moments), this game has one immersion-breaking glitch.
A-let me show it to you, with my high-tech photo-realistic Snappy.
[img]http://www.multiverseworks.com/garycxjkrandomstuff/12-04-08 21_26_33.png[/img]
Yeah, I believe that triggered the glitch.
When the retail, or bonus dvd, version comes out will these things be taken care of?
First of all, I had trouble with
Second of all, I didn't like this episode at first, but at the end of it all, I loved it. So I guess it grew on me.
Episode 4 so far is my favorite game. I really enjoyed the fact that the story seemed to click with the right amount of humor and situations. Extended play as the special edition DVD is great, and a nice way to mix it up. I spent a lot of time laughing at movie, and even I could guess kind of what is coming up, it still felt fresh and humorous. Hands down, my favorite part about whole episode was the cardboard sets. Like you would of done if you had a camera, and were 13 years old.
The episode didn't come out perfect, there were some problems with scenes, and the lack of difficulty. I was never stumped in this episode, I just seemed to keep chugging along with just one 'what do I do here' (and that was potted plan in the shark pond)
If I would change ONE thing about SBCG4AP. Since episode 1, I expected a new intro song for each episode, and I was quite dissapointed when episode 2 didn't have one, Every time I started a new episode, I really wanted a new intro song... Maybe for Episode 5, or season 2.
Overall Telltale, excellent job. Get the bugs out of your scripting and rendering engines, and I'd have no complaints.