I've never played a Spiderweb game before, so it benefits from experiencing for the first time many of the things I assume make up the Jeff Vogel formula. It has impeccable writing, an astonishing sense of place and ambience, and a very rewarding gameplay loop. And it does all that with no music, very simple sound effects, and very few unique pieces of textures and art. It does fall apart in the last third of the game, though. There are a few areas that don't bring anything new in terms of story or quest design, or that they're just plain annoying (environment attacking you, constant creatures spawning, etc.). All in all, I think it's worth experiencing until the end because of the multiple possibilities the game offers.
This is a remake of Spiderweb's 2001 cult classic Geneforge. I'd always wanted to play the game growing up, but that was a time when we were still wary of purchasing games online. I ended up playing through the free demo a few times, but never got ahold of the actual game.
The setting still feels fresh 20 years later. You're playing as an initiate "shaper" -- a magical sect with the power to create life. While travelling to your training, your ship is destroyed. You wash up on an island that has been declared barred by the shapers, on pain of death to anyone who goes there. The island, however, isn't empty. Lifeforms created by shapers prior to their barring of the island have formed their own societies on the island in the absence of their creators. Some want to be treated as equals, some want to return to being obedient, and others want revenge for being used and abandoned. Of course, the mystery of why the island was originally barred is the driving force behind the story.
You have access to the standard variety of RPG spells and weapons, but, as a shaper, you can also create lifeforms to fight for you. This is the games main mechanical differentiator. There are about 10 different types of creatures you can create and upgrade, with up to 7 joining you in combat at a time. There's a good variety of melee, ranged, magic, buffing, cursing, etc. abilities available to the creatures, so the customization is on point.
There are a couple of big issues that led to me dropping the game 30 hours in, unfortunately. The biggest being that there is simply too much meaningless combat. There is something like 80 zones to explore, and a substantial portion of those have you fighting wave after wave of enemies, for very little reward. The combat is fairly bog-standard CRPG turn based affair, so this wears thin rather quickly.
Much of the game wasn't really updated to 2021 standards. For example, the interface is still clunky with tiny little tiles in combat, leading to surprisingly easy mislicks. Battle information and ability descriptions aren't readily available. Geneforge's version of lockpicks, "Living Tools", are not widely available, leading to the old "open a chest and reload if you don't care about the contents", even if you are raising your mechanics skill to limit the amount you need to use. These issues are largely minor or even trivial issues, but they are amplified by the amount of time you have to spend dealing with them.
All in all, there's a lot of charm and a strong core of exploration and narrative. I would have absolutely loved Geneforge if I'd been able to play the full game back in 2001, when I had more time and patience for endless combat in games. As it is now, I'm going to move on to something that's a bit more of a focused experience. I'll probably read about the last 1/3 of the game, though. The lore is worth it, but the game just wasn't fun on the whole.
The setting still feels fresh 20 years later. You're playing as an initiate "shaper" -- a magical sect with the power to create life. While travelling to your training, your ship is destroyed. You wash up on an island that has been declared barred by the shapers, on pain of death to anyone who goes there. The island, however, isn't empty. Lifeforms created by shapers prior to their barring of the island have formed their own societies on the island in the absence of their creators. Some want to be treated as equals, some want to return to being obedient, and others want revenge for being used and abandoned. Of course, the mystery of why the island was originally barred is the driving force behind the story.
You have access to the standard variety of RPG spells and weapons, but, as a shaper, you can also create lifeforms to fight for you. This is the games main mechanical differentiator. There are about 10 different types of creatures you can create and upgrade, with up to 7 joining you in combat at a time. There's a good variety of melee, ranged, magic, buffing, cursing, etc. abilities available to the creatures, so the customization is on point.
There are a couple of big issues that led to me dropping the game 30 hours in, unfortunately. The biggest being that there is simply too much meaningless combat. There is something like 80 zones to explore, and a substantial portion of those have you fighting wave after wave of enemies, for very little reward. The combat is fairly bog-standard CRPG turn based affair, so this wears thin rather quickly.
Much of the game wasn't really updated to 2021 standards. For example, the interface is still clunky with tiny little tiles in combat, leading to surprisingly easy mislicks. Battle information and ability descriptions aren't readily available. Geneforge's version of lockpicks, "Living Tools", are not widely available, leading to the old "open a chest and reload if you don't care about the contents", even if you are raising your mechanics skill to limit the amount you need to use. These issues are largely minor or even trivial issues, but they are amplified by the amount of time you have to spend dealing with them.
All in all, there's a lot of charm and a strong core of exploration and narrative. I would have absolutely loved Geneforge if I'd been able to play the full game back in 2001, when I had more time and patience for endless combat in games. As it is now, I'm going to move on to something that's a bit more of a focused experience. I'll probably read about the last 1/3 of the game, though. The lore is worth it, but the game just wasn't fun on the whole.
Near-Seamless to the original and improves significantly in many ways.
This review contains spoilers
ok this jeff vogel guy might know a thing or two. watching jeff's GDC talk feels more useful to tappin in here than the game's own manual--there's an air of craftsmanship and attention to labor in the talk that feels distinct from contemporaries; idk how much im buyin into everythang jeff is sayin but damn this joint kinda a compelling case. i worry that the "good artists ship!" proselytization might've resulted in a work that feels phoned in and/or sleepy, but instead what i find here is a game that is comfortable in its limitations yet legitimate in its aims to impress and awe. i knew i was in the presence of a real chef when the map system started clicking for me. its simple but each zone is literally one box map, maybe with a lower or upper floor map if you're lucky, and in each box are several points of interest, quests, and gear. and from each zone theres about 2 to 3 exit and entrance points from the world map, depending on how you've cleared any of the adjacent zones or managed to stealth through em. it's byte-sized gaming by pure scale but the timing and cardinality of which you can come and go anywhere scratches the "yay choices 🙂" part of my CRPGhead brain while requiring not nearly as much investment as say like, an underrail playthrough. this is felt really strongly in the back half of the game, where allying yourself with one particularly cantankerous faction lets you catapult past several difficulty spike combat zones straight into endgame regions, and thus lets you backdoor some late game zones to jugg some free loot & XP. but its a genuine tradeoff in that doing so bones you out from the 'natural' progression of clearing zones and puts you into the lil errand bitch boy fast track for either of the game's antagonists (& NOT in a sexy way...). also should mention that its vitally important that zones you pass through become cleared, as in true CRPG fashion being able to hit and run between combat and town for resupplying is critical to success, and fast travelling to town can only be done if there's a line of cleared zones to it. genuinely impressive in how simple point A to point B cartography & securing "supply lines" became my favorite part of the game, and experimenting with different routes throughout the island is the most exciting prospect of a replay. its kinda crazy that geneforge 1 has been out for literally 20 years and CRPG devs are still like "no no no this 3 floor dungeon with 20 lv 4 spiders and 15 min combat encounters is gon bang this time trust". hate 2 say it but some of ur favorite CRPG cult classics might be gettin bodied by a singin nigga.
also remarkable theres a narrative here worth thinkin about. the ethos of self-moderation, focus, and discipline jeff preaches lines up. i'll spare the plot summary but essentially there's two central issues of the game: the geneforge and its little remnant canisters, literal pools of magic goo that rewrite your DNA into 2011 LeBron James or some shit, and the serviles, basically elephant-people created by the PC's society to be slaves, but like, they're not slaves yo.....😠. very central CRPG concerns (literally divinity 2 is concerned with the implications of the former and there's an entire half-orcs subquest line in arcanum thats abt implications in the latter) but but but but i think its really cool how the two link together. you playthru the shit and its clear the consequences of turning into magic LeBron is that you also get wizard CTE and a biological urge to kill everyone. but there's also legitimate temptation to dabble in the gene fuckery, its the only way of learning skills or leveling them up, resulting in some really cool roleplaying where powering up to free the serviles from their many issues also makes your PC more hostile to them...every +1 fireball boost means like -20 years on the average life expectancy. dont wanna give the whole shtick away but after meeting with the game's antagonists its very clear that your PC is legitimately too indoctrinated into an imperalist mindset to be playin Moses. thought it was v cool how this subverts the whole "brobro trust its not a white mans burden thing the pc had to go ssj3 to free the slaves first" thing i was expecting to happen. literally the best thing to do for the serviles is to shut the fuck up, help whenever you can, work against your country, and otherwise stay in your motherfucking lane lmao. real shit jeff real shit indeed.
also remarkable theres a narrative here worth thinkin about. the ethos of self-moderation, focus, and discipline jeff preaches lines up. i'll spare the plot summary but essentially there's two central issues of the game: the geneforge and its little remnant canisters, literal pools of magic goo that rewrite your DNA into 2011 LeBron James or some shit, and the serviles, basically elephant-people created by the PC's society to be slaves, but like, they're not slaves yo.....😠. very central CRPG concerns (literally divinity 2 is concerned with the implications of the former and there's an entire half-orcs subquest line in arcanum thats abt implications in the latter) but but but but i think its really cool how the two link together. you playthru the shit and its clear the consequences of turning into magic LeBron is that you also get wizard CTE and a biological urge to kill everyone. but there's also legitimate temptation to dabble in the gene fuckery, its the only way of learning skills or leveling them up, resulting in some really cool roleplaying where powering up to free the serviles from their many issues also makes your PC more hostile to them...every +1 fireball boost means like -20 years on the average life expectancy. dont wanna give the whole shtick away but after meeting with the game's antagonists its very clear that your PC is legitimately too indoctrinated into an imperalist mindset to be playin Moses. thought it was v cool how this subverts the whole "brobro trust its not a white mans burden thing the pc had to go ssj3 to free the slaves first" thing i was expecting to happen. literally the best thing to do for the serviles is to shut the fuck up, help whenever you can, work against your country, and otherwise stay in your motherfucking lane lmao. real shit jeff real shit indeed.
Hier ist sicherlich nicht alles schlecht.
Die Texte sind nett geschrieben, auch der Plot wirkt erstmal interessant.
Aber das Spiel besteht zum Großteil aus Kämpfen und nicht Dialogen und Welterkundung.
Und die sind wirklich schrecklich.
Rundenbasiert, man kann sich Monster beschwören und die machen für einen dann die Arbeit.
Aber nicht die gesamte Arbeit, man muss leider jede Attacke selbst auswählen. Dann die lange Animation ansehen und dann fällt der Gegner um. Kriegen tut man dafür 0,1% Erfahrung. 0,1%.. das ist so traurig wie WoW.
Das macht wirklich keinen Sinn.
Wer zu viel Zeit hat, kann hier vllt mehr Spaß haben, aber ich sehe keinen Grund das Spiel noch einmal zu starten.
Die Texte sind nett geschrieben, auch der Plot wirkt erstmal interessant.
Aber das Spiel besteht zum Großteil aus Kämpfen und nicht Dialogen und Welterkundung.
Und die sind wirklich schrecklich.
Rundenbasiert, man kann sich Monster beschwören und die machen für einen dann die Arbeit.
Aber nicht die gesamte Arbeit, man muss leider jede Attacke selbst auswählen. Dann die lange Animation ansehen und dann fällt der Gegner um. Kriegen tut man dafür 0,1% Erfahrung. 0,1%.. das ist so traurig wie WoW.
Das macht wirklich keinen Sinn.
Wer zu viel Zeit hat, kann hier vllt mehr Spaß haben, aber ich sehe keinen Grund das Spiel noch einmal zu starten.
I liked Geneforge 1: Mutagen better than either of the Queen's Wish series, though there still isn't much here that sticks with me.
The major problems here are that the gameplay is just too repetitive and samey and the whole of the game itself goes on for too long without enough to say or introduce. Similar problems to Queen's Wish. This seems like a Spiderweb constant to me.
Being an individual character that summons minions does work better than the party based approach in Queen's Wish. I played as an Agent, which basically just becomes a mage by the end of the game, blasting everything down without too much of an issue. I used summons for the first part of the game, but their power and value fell away by the end and I just stopped summoning them (which is probably intended with the character I built).
Things feel very random in this game, unfortunately, with arbitrary stuns or slows having a massive impact on a fight going from intensely difficult to completely trivial. This does cut both ways, but every combat sort of resolves into who can stun who first. Not much of interest here by the end.
I will say that some of the summons and some of the spells are interesting and have some positional gameplay, but the aforementioned stun meta sort of removes most of that anyway.
Exploration is sort of novel, with each zone you travel through having some specific task you can do to make it "safer," allowing fast travel through it. As you progress you are making a network of conquered areas across the island that, while extremely meta, feels like you are having an impact on this island and your place in it.
Narratively there are also a lot of parallels here with Queen's Wish, with three factions you are dealing with as you smash your way across this island. Each of them has a different philosophy and you are sort of picking which of them to support (or just doing your own thing). I didn't find this super compelling and the actual divisions between the factions feel pretty contrived. This feels more like Shin Megami Tensei than Bioware, which is novel for a western RPG.
There is maybe something being said about slavery and the responsibility of a creator to their creations, but things feel incidental because none of it is really tied to my goal (getting off the island) or the overall problem here (the Geneforge).
Geneforge suffers for having a lot of very similar characters, similar groups, and similar situations that make it seem like there are valuable interactions to be had, but really don't matter and sort of blur together by the end.
Just like Queen's Wish, if half of this game's content were removed it would simply be a better, cleaner, and more engrossing experience.
The game is visually just fine. It needs reactivity more than it needs fidelity though this remaster does improve things slightly in both respects.
Geneforge didn't surprise me and didn't really impress me, but I think this more straightforward RPG quest is a better fit for these Spiderweb games and I had a good enough time with it.
It brought me along much better than either Queen's Wish did, though I was definitely done with it before the end.
The major problems here are that the gameplay is just too repetitive and samey and the whole of the game itself goes on for too long without enough to say or introduce. Similar problems to Queen's Wish. This seems like a Spiderweb constant to me.
Being an individual character that summons minions does work better than the party based approach in Queen's Wish. I played as an Agent, which basically just becomes a mage by the end of the game, blasting everything down without too much of an issue. I used summons for the first part of the game, but their power and value fell away by the end and I just stopped summoning them (which is probably intended with the character I built).
Things feel very random in this game, unfortunately, with arbitrary stuns or slows having a massive impact on a fight going from intensely difficult to completely trivial. This does cut both ways, but every combat sort of resolves into who can stun who first. Not much of interest here by the end.
I will say that some of the summons and some of the spells are interesting and have some positional gameplay, but the aforementioned stun meta sort of removes most of that anyway.
Exploration is sort of novel, with each zone you travel through having some specific task you can do to make it "safer," allowing fast travel through it. As you progress you are making a network of conquered areas across the island that, while extremely meta, feels like you are having an impact on this island and your place in it.
Narratively there are also a lot of parallels here with Queen's Wish, with three factions you are dealing with as you smash your way across this island. Each of them has a different philosophy and you are sort of picking which of them to support (or just doing your own thing). I didn't find this super compelling and the actual divisions between the factions feel pretty contrived. This feels more like Shin Megami Tensei than Bioware, which is novel for a western RPG.
There is maybe something being said about slavery and the responsibility of a creator to their creations, but things feel incidental because none of it is really tied to my goal (getting off the island) or the overall problem here (the Geneforge).
Geneforge suffers for having a lot of very similar characters, similar groups, and similar situations that make it seem like there are valuable interactions to be had, but really don't matter and sort of blur together by the end.
Just like Queen's Wish, if half of this game's content were removed it would simply be a better, cleaner, and more engrossing experience.
The game is visually just fine. It needs reactivity more than it needs fidelity though this remaster does improve things slightly in both respects.
Geneforge didn't surprise me and didn't really impress me, but I think this more straightforward RPG quest is a better fit for these Spiderweb games and I had a good enough time with it.
It brought me along much better than either Queen's Wish did, though I was definitely done with it before the end.
Fun! Interesting lore. First time playing a game like this. Would recommend