Even more Witcher thoughts
Jun. 6th, 2019 05:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kutsuwamushiI'm sill playing the hell out of The Wild Hunt.
I've always been drawn to stories that have a strong sense of place - where the story is rooted in the world that it's set in. Open world games can really excel at this, just because the world is such a big part of the experience: You're running around in it, exploring it for yourself, and so on. But this potential can really easily be squandered.
Destiny squandered this. The worlds are strongly designed from a purely visual perspective. Each is unique, with a strong visual identity. Every time I released one I was like, "wow, this is gorgeous." But there was a lot less meaningful exploration than there should have been; the worlds felt kind of empty.
The Witcher has a lot of meaningful exploration built in and it's also gorgeous. The side quests and contracts are IMO the strongest part of the game, because it feels like you're a witcher roaming the countryside taking care of people's monster and magic problems. The environment is an impressive piece of art.
That's why the eye-candy is so frustrating to me, beyond just the ... ugh ... of it. It breaks the immersion. It clashes with the rest of the visual design, which is for the most part thoughtful and realistic. It almost feels like there are two different teams with two very different ideas about what kind of game they're making; one team got put in charge of strumpets and sorceresses, and the other team got put in charge of everything else.
Like, there were times while playing that I had to pause and come back later because I was embarrassed to have my roommate see it. He'd never judge me, but he'd think a lot less of the game - which is entirely fair of him. But, it's kind of hard to sell a game as being artistically impressive when an NPC in booty shorts is telling you she's a material girl.
Anyway, unrelated...
I think this might be the first game I've played that is an adaptation from another genre. At some points in the quests, there is a tension between the game as a game, and the game as a audiovisual adaptation of the story the writers want to tell.
I'll give you a couple of the strangest examples. In one quest you have to kill a giant. All indications are that there will be a big boss fight when you finally meet the giant. But, actually, the fight turns out to be very easy, and the giant actually dies in a cut scene - not like most other monsters you fight, who die when you finally get their health bar down to zero. Even though it's not really important how the killing blow was struck, they have a story they want to tell about it, so you the gamer do not actually get to strike the killing blow.
In another quest, some local toughs try to pick a fight with you at the bar. I'm playing Geralt as old and tired and less interested in defending his pride than avoiding a hassle, so I tried to pick dialogue options that would let me avoid the fight. It's unavoidable though. During the fight, you will get knocked out regardless of what you do, so they can put in a short cut scene where your companion dies. It's really jarring.
And it's not inevitable that a story-based game will do this. The last game I played a lot of, Horizon: Zero Dawn doesn't do this for the most part. When a cut scene does get inserted into a fight for story reasons, it's a lot less jarring; there's more care given to integrating it into the flow, so it happens at a natural point in the action.
I've always been drawn to stories that have a strong sense of place - where the story is rooted in the world that it's set in. Open world games can really excel at this, just because the world is such a big part of the experience: You're running around in it, exploring it for yourself, and so on. But this potential can really easily be squandered.
Destiny squandered this. The worlds are strongly designed from a purely visual perspective. Each is unique, with a strong visual identity. Every time I released one I was like, "wow, this is gorgeous." But there was a lot less meaningful exploration than there should have been; the worlds felt kind of empty.
The Witcher has a lot of meaningful exploration built in and it's also gorgeous. The side quests and contracts are IMO the strongest part of the game, because it feels like you're a witcher roaming the countryside taking care of people's monster and magic problems. The environment is an impressive piece of art.
That's why the eye-candy is so frustrating to me, beyond just the ... ugh ... of it. It breaks the immersion. It clashes with the rest of the visual design, which is for the most part thoughtful and realistic. It almost feels like there are two different teams with two very different ideas about what kind of game they're making; one team got put in charge of strumpets and sorceresses, and the other team got put in charge of everything else.
Like, there were times while playing that I had to pause and come back later because I was embarrassed to have my roommate see it. He'd never judge me, but he'd think a lot less of the game - which is entirely fair of him. But, it's kind of hard to sell a game as being artistically impressive when an NPC in booty shorts is telling you she's a material girl.
Anyway, unrelated...
I think this might be the first game I've played that is an adaptation from another genre. At some points in the quests, there is a tension between the game as a game, and the game as a audiovisual adaptation of the story the writers want to tell.
I'll give you a couple of the strangest examples. In one quest you have to kill a giant. All indications are that there will be a big boss fight when you finally meet the giant. But, actually, the fight turns out to be very easy, and the giant actually dies in a cut scene - not like most other monsters you fight, who die when you finally get their health bar down to zero. Even though it's not really important how the killing blow was struck, they have a story they want to tell about it, so you the gamer do not actually get to strike the killing blow.
In another quest, some local toughs try to pick a fight with you at the bar. I'm playing Geralt as old and tired and less interested in defending his pride than avoiding a hassle, so I tried to pick dialogue options that would let me avoid the fight. It's unavoidable though. During the fight, you will get knocked out regardless of what you do, so they can put in a short cut scene where your companion dies. It's really jarring.
And it's not inevitable that a story-based game will do this. The last game I played a lot of, Horizon: Zero Dawn doesn't do this for the most part. When a cut scene does get inserted into a fight for story reasons, it's a lot less jarring; there's more care given to integrating it into the flow, so it happens at a natural point in the action.
