efebei
10-08-2008, 02:00 PM
Hi everyone, although Iīm a new member here, Iīve posted on the other toohuman.net versions before, and usually watch this forums. Iīm Spaniard, so please, try to use your best reading skills ;).
First of all, congratulations Silicon Knights for making such an interesting game. When I first heard Denis Dyack telling that Too Human was going to be their best game I didnīt know what to think. Now, that Iīve played it all, I agree with him (well, Iīve only played Eternal Darkness among their other games :confused:). But it has its flaws, and they are BIG ones. On one hand I feel that story, music, gameplay, depth and replayability are much better than in Eternal Darkness, on the other hand Too Human feels much more unpolished, and the game experience is disappointing for the player in many ways.
Iīm looking forward to Too Human II, so Iīm gonna list all the errors and flaws I have seen and some of their probable solutions. I know Too Human has a difficult path to get a sequel, but this notes should help for its development if Microsoft or another partner decides to support it. First off all (red text) Iīll list the major flaws of the title that need to be solved to appeal to the mass market (you know, good reviews and first month sales over 500.000 units). In yellow are other important topics to improve the overall experience. Finally in green, there are other minor ideas (less important). All is listed in order of priority, indeed.
Major flaws (or why Too Human is rated so poorly)
* The animation system needs to be completely rebuilt. It does not work. The in-game animations keep most of the potential buyers away of Too Human. It looks worse than most of the dungeon crawlers and action games out there. The collision detection has to be revised too, there are many weird bugs because of it, and it doesnīt help the combat to feel more badass.
* The camera system. It worked very well in Eternal Darkness (in fact the personality of this game is mainly in its camera), but in Too Human it makes no sense. On the one hand the system rarely provides cinematic views (I think its possibilities are mostly missed and only used in the Hall of Heroes and some parts of World Serpent), on the other hand it hurts sometimes the combat experience, and rarely can become crazy (always in case of the circular scenarios). So this is an unfortunate paradox. Furthermore I feel that some of the framerate problems could be caused by the camera, Am I wrong? So the camera needs to be fixed and the cinematic presentation of the game needs to be enhanced too.
* Too Human II has to have a tutorial. It needs a way to explain interactively how to use the charms and runes, besides a good learning curve and some kind of mechanism to get used to the combat and combo system. This is another paradox, because when Too Human was first conceived, Silicon Knights argued that one of the most important features was the intuitive controls that would let any kind of player to get used easily to the gameplay, appealing to a wider audience. Actually Too Human gameplay is super-complex.
* The sandbox is SegaSaturn-timeslike :o. AAA titles today canīt have such an amount of invisible walls. Too Human is replete of them. Baldur needs to interact at least a bit with the scenarios. They are giant imperturbable spaces, where the godlike main character canīt climb a single rock.
* Cyberspace. One of the major design fails in the game, it totally breaks the flow of the game with its large ugly corridors and its boring puzzles? Cyberspace needs to feel a warm and full of life place opposed to the icy and denatured reality. Rebuilt it with better graphics (they are now ps2-like) and other gameplay essence beyond the only aim of opening doors and collect loot. And please, its extension doesnīt need to be so large.
* 4 player Co-op.
Other less important improvements :
* Subtitles. Half of the game is not subtitled (all the in-game talks and some cutscenes). I donīt know who is the responsible for this failure, Silicon Knights or Microsoft Game Studios. But they have lost a lot of potential buyers out of the spanish market, among others, because we cannot understand half of the plot and the overall experience suffers (voice acting is not performed in spanish). I should have coloured this improvement in red, but I understand that this doesnīt affect the public of the countries where the voice acting has been translated.
* Sound design. Jumping sound effect is a pain. With an incredible good music and voice acting, the rest of the sound design is chaotic. Some things, like the missiles, sound really loud, and doesnīt fit in the overall sound structure. So does the music that, while incredible good, randomly changes and gets off and on. SK needs to review their sound tools.
* The inventory screen. It works much better than in other games like, for example, Mass Effect. But it is very ugly and bad designed. I mean, it feels like an entire screen of letters and numbers, and takes some hours to get used to. Furthermore Itīs far from an intuitive approach and is ugly.
* Watch out the balancing of the polarities and their permanent damage. They have caused multiple headaches over the Too Human community during our first 20 hours of game.
* The bonuses of the runes, weapons and so on (hybrid damage, etc.) need to be explained in any sheet of the menus, like the part of advanced combat that is in the main menu.
* This game needs some way to trade objects between your own characters.
* The most of the combat cool skills (ricochet, necrotize, etc.) start to appear after you have spent 70 or 80 hours with your character. Besides rewarding the hardcore player, Too Human needs to reward and surprise the casual player too.
* It would be nice if Too Human II improves animations in the cinematics and their lip sync. It would help them to feel more dramatic and credible.
* Concept art in Too Human is great. But in the process between the concept art and the final look of the textures, specially in the characters, objects, and some parts of the scenarios, something fails. The final look of the art in-game looks sometimes odd and ugly. The items drops are ugly and no consistent with the aesthetics of the first concept arts. The same can be said for most of the visual effects of the game. For example, I think there is a lot of artistic and human work behind all the type of ruiners, but then in-game the most look confusing and not very impressive (I loved that one in the first steps of the development of the game with the pistols shooting like wings, why the hell that is not in the final game?).
* Graphics. Too Human running at a real 30 fps would help this kind of game a lot. Polishing the graphic engine a bit could help part II to sell better (what a secret!), and charactersī hair and eyes graphics need a lot more of work on.
* It would be nice to add a run function in the controls. It could be clicking the left stick. I think this is essential for exploring such huge scenarios.
* Control scheme needs to be improved because often something rare happens controlling Baldur, and every sequel does so too!
* The game feels a little short, please 2 or 3 hours more for the next installment.
* Cyberspace is a good place for introducing new elements of exploration and storytelling ala Bioshock. Instead of audio tapes, it could be arcane texts explaining the ancient myths of nordic mythologies, so the player that is unaware of the myths behind the plot of Too Human could appreciate the depth behind the story. In cyberspace could appear other characters of the myths beyond the norns (like that squirrel whose name I donīt remember, for example).
* Although the narrative of Too Human is very good with its cutscenes, the overall experience feels like 3 hours of combat by level, and then a cutscene, I mean, fragmented. It would be better to implement storytelling more deeply into the gameplay. Like the first part of Hall of Heroes, or the first part of World Serpent. Make more use of the crows of Odin!
First of all, congratulations Silicon Knights for making such an interesting game. When I first heard Denis Dyack telling that Too Human was going to be their best game I didnīt know what to think. Now, that Iīve played it all, I agree with him (well, Iīve only played Eternal Darkness among their other games :confused:). But it has its flaws, and they are BIG ones. On one hand I feel that story, music, gameplay, depth and replayability are much better than in Eternal Darkness, on the other hand Too Human feels much more unpolished, and the game experience is disappointing for the player in many ways.
Iīm looking forward to Too Human II, so Iīm gonna list all the errors and flaws I have seen and some of their probable solutions. I know Too Human has a difficult path to get a sequel, but this notes should help for its development if Microsoft or another partner decides to support it. First off all (red text) Iīll list the major flaws of the title that need to be solved to appeal to the mass market (you know, good reviews and first month sales over 500.000 units). In yellow are other important topics to improve the overall experience. Finally in green, there are other minor ideas (less important). All is listed in order of priority, indeed.
Major flaws (or why Too Human is rated so poorly)
* The animation system needs to be completely rebuilt. It does not work. The in-game animations keep most of the potential buyers away of Too Human. It looks worse than most of the dungeon crawlers and action games out there. The collision detection has to be revised too, there are many weird bugs because of it, and it doesnīt help the combat to feel more badass.
* The camera system. It worked very well in Eternal Darkness (in fact the personality of this game is mainly in its camera), but in Too Human it makes no sense. On the one hand the system rarely provides cinematic views (I think its possibilities are mostly missed and only used in the Hall of Heroes and some parts of World Serpent), on the other hand it hurts sometimes the combat experience, and rarely can become crazy (always in case of the circular scenarios). So this is an unfortunate paradox. Furthermore I feel that some of the framerate problems could be caused by the camera, Am I wrong? So the camera needs to be fixed and the cinematic presentation of the game needs to be enhanced too.
* Too Human II has to have a tutorial. It needs a way to explain interactively how to use the charms and runes, besides a good learning curve and some kind of mechanism to get used to the combat and combo system. This is another paradox, because when Too Human was first conceived, Silicon Knights argued that one of the most important features was the intuitive controls that would let any kind of player to get used easily to the gameplay, appealing to a wider audience. Actually Too Human gameplay is super-complex.
* The sandbox is SegaSaturn-timeslike :o. AAA titles today canīt have such an amount of invisible walls. Too Human is replete of them. Baldur needs to interact at least a bit with the scenarios. They are giant imperturbable spaces, where the godlike main character canīt climb a single rock.
* Cyberspace. One of the major design fails in the game, it totally breaks the flow of the game with its large ugly corridors and its boring puzzles? Cyberspace needs to feel a warm and full of life place opposed to the icy and denatured reality. Rebuilt it with better graphics (they are now ps2-like) and other gameplay essence beyond the only aim of opening doors and collect loot. And please, its extension doesnīt need to be so large.
* 4 player Co-op.
Other less important improvements :
* Subtitles. Half of the game is not subtitled (all the in-game talks and some cutscenes). I donīt know who is the responsible for this failure, Silicon Knights or Microsoft Game Studios. But they have lost a lot of potential buyers out of the spanish market, among others, because we cannot understand half of the plot and the overall experience suffers (voice acting is not performed in spanish). I should have coloured this improvement in red, but I understand that this doesnīt affect the public of the countries where the voice acting has been translated.
* Sound design. Jumping sound effect is a pain. With an incredible good music and voice acting, the rest of the sound design is chaotic. Some things, like the missiles, sound really loud, and doesnīt fit in the overall sound structure. So does the music that, while incredible good, randomly changes and gets off and on. SK needs to review their sound tools.
* The inventory screen. It works much better than in other games like, for example, Mass Effect. But it is very ugly and bad designed. I mean, it feels like an entire screen of letters and numbers, and takes some hours to get used to. Furthermore Itīs far from an intuitive approach and is ugly.
* Watch out the balancing of the polarities and their permanent damage. They have caused multiple headaches over the Too Human community during our first 20 hours of game.
* The bonuses of the runes, weapons and so on (hybrid damage, etc.) need to be explained in any sheet of the menus, like the part of advanced combat that is in the main menu.
* This game needs some way to trade objects between your own characters.
* The most of the combat cool skills (ricochet, necrotize, etc.) start to appear after you have spent 70 or 80 hours with your character. Besides rewarding the hardcore player, Too Human needs to reward and surprise the casual player too.
* It would be nice if Too Human II improves animations in the cinematics and their lip sync. It would help them to feel more dramatic and credible.
* Concept art in Too Human is great. But in the process between the concept art and the final look of the textures, specially in the characters, objects, and some parts of the scenarios, something fails. The final look of the art in-game looks sometimes odd and ugly. The items drops are ugly and no consistent with the aesthetics of the first concept arts. The same can be said for most of the visual effects of the game. For example, I think there is a lot of artistic and human work behind all the type of ruiners, but then in-game the most look confusing and not very impressive (I loved that one in the first steps of the development of the game with the pistols shooting like wings, why the hell that is not in the final game?).
* Graphics. Too Human running at a real 30 fps would help this kind of game a lot. Polishing the graphic engine a bit could help part II to sell better (what a secret!), and charactersī hair and eyes graphics need a lot more of work on.
* It would be nice to add a run function in the controls. It could be clicking the left stick. I think this is essential for exploring such huge scenarios.
* Control scheme needs to be improved because often something rare happens controlling Baldur, and every sequel does so too!
* The game feels a little short, please 2 or 3 hours more for the next installment.
* Cyberspace is a good place for introducing new elements of exploration and storytelling ala Bioshock. Instead of audio tapes, it could be arcane texts explaining the ancient myths of nordic mythologies, so the player that is unaware of the myths behind the plot of Too Human could appreciate the depth behind the story. In cyberspace could appear other characters of the myths beyond the norns (like that squirrel whose name I donīt remember, for example).
* Although the narrative of Too Human is very good with its cutscenes, the overall experience feels like 3 hours of combat by level, and then a cutscene, I mean, fragmented. It would be better to implement storytelling more deeply into the gameplay. Like the first part of Hall of Heroes, or the first part of World Serpent. Make more use of the crows of Odin!