This review contains spoilers
A beautiful and stylish tribute to Heavy Metal, even if I'm not a huge nerd of it, I can feel the passion it has for it and really appreciate it. A fun charming game and an interesting blend of genres though I really hate the late game RTS section...man I did not sign up for this and it really sucked the fun out for me...had to copy walkthroughs to get through em (how fun). But outside of that, the customization, collectibles, beautiful world, funny side quests, celeb cameos, licensed music, charming cartoony artstyle and animations, hack 'n slash, open world gameplay, the solos, it's all really cool.
I think the two things the story handled poorly was Lars' death and how Eddie just turns on Ophelia...let's take on one at a time. Lars' death felt pointless, quick, cheap and avoidable, you can kinda see it coming a mile away with how simplistic it was. He lets his anger get the better of him and reveals himself to Doviculus, who easily stabs him, why does no one even try to stop him, I have no idea but in a good story, a death like this should feel like it's unavoidable or how it's not avoided should feel logical atleast, not stupid, but here it feels like it's easily set up in a "scripty" way, it didn't make me feel much as a result.
After that Eddie all of a sudden suspects Ophelia and completely shuts her out, causing her to become Drowned Ophelia, really? What happened to all that talk about trust? And based on what did you suddenly decide this? This also felt cheap and outta nowhere, felt like Eddie was just wailing on her...because! It feels like a really stupid way to blame Lars' death on Ophelia, without there being enough reason to even suspect her. I really expected Eddie to not succumb to the same distrust Lita had. This feels especially silly when you find out about who Eddie's parents were....wish we atleast saw them in the flesh in a flashback or something but I get a game like this might have some budget or time issues, so I won't bother with that much.
PC port is pretty good, crazy to think it came out 4 years after the original PS3/360 release. Subtitles are kinda fucky though, they will often switch on the fly to whoever says what, wish they really filtered these to time 'em better or only have the important shit, also the sound effect ones are really useless. I get they're for deaf people but why does no one understand non-deaf people like using English subs on English audio too? Maybe it's their second language or maybe they just like it that way...this is a common thing that I wish people would just realize...a big bad side effect of this here is, it seems on every the start of gameplay section, Eddie spawns and hits the ground but the game always displays subtitles for the landing sound, this would be noticable enough on it's own but like this it's really distracting....also thanks to this game now I know what a Roadie is! OST is pretty good, I'm no expert so yknow, nothing I'd recognize that deeply and now I know a thing or two about Ozzie Osbourne I suppose.
Some Notes: Played on Normal, I originally got this game for free when they were giving it away for a short time on Steam on November 2017, I went from December 2017 to January 2018 (and looks like tried again on March 2018) and eventually gave up on the game back then due to not being able to pass Dry Ice, Wet Graves. This year I got reminded of it after being recommended a clip of Eddie saying "Oh man! Don't tell me I've been slaying hot girls this whole time.." and figured why not revisit? Glad I did, with it's ups and downs, also sidequests are fun, kept short and sweet and feels like one of the few games where the idea of going for 100% isn't a tedious waste of time? This would deserve a 4.5 but RTS takes away that .5 for me
Also, I got 100% on September 21st! For some reason it didn't require me to unlock all the Creature concept arts though?
On the closing note, despite all her distrusting....Lita is bae <3
I think the two things the story handled poorly was Lars' death and how Eddie just turns on Ophelia...let's take on one at a time. Lars' death felt pointless, quick, cheap and avoidable, you can kinda see it coming a mile away with how simplistic it was. He lets his anger get the better of him and reveals himself to Doviculus, who easily stabs him, why does no one even try to stop him, I have no idea but in a good story, a death like this should feel like it's unavoidable or how it's not avoided should feel logical atleast, not stupid, but here it feels like it's easily set up in a "scripty" way, it didn't make me feel much as a result.
After that Eddie all of a sudden suspects Ophelia and completely shuts her out, causing her to become Drowned Ophelia, really? What happened to all that talk about trust? And based on what did you suddenly decide this? This also felt cheap and outta nowhere, felt like Eddie was just wailing on her...because! It feels like a really stupid way to blame Lars' death on Ophelia, without there being enough reason to even suspect her. I really expected Eddie to not succumb to the same distrust Lita had. This feels especially silly when you find out about who Eddie's parents were....wish we atleast saw them in the flesh in a flashback or something but I get a game like this might have some budget or time issues, so I won't bother with that much.
PC port is pretty good, crazy to think it came out 4 years after the original PS3/360 release. Subtitles are kinda fucky though, they will often switch on the fly to whoever says what, wish they really filtered these to time 'em better or only have the important shit, also the sound effect ones are really useless. I get they're for deaf people but why does no one understand non-deaf people like using English subs on English audio too? Maybe it's their second language or maybe they just like it that way...this is a common thing that I wish people would just realize...a big bad side effect of this here is, it seems on every the start of gameplay section, Eddie spawns and hits the ground but the game always displays subtitles for the landing sound, this would be noticable enough on it's own but like this it's really distracting....also thanks to this game now I know what a Roadie is! OST is pretty good, I'm no expert so yknow, nothing I'd recognize that deeply and now I know a thing or two about Ozzie Osbourne I suppose.
Some Notes: Played on Normal, I originally got this game for free when they were giving it away for a short time on Steam on November 2017, I went from December 2017 to January 2018 (and looks like tried again on March 2018) and eventually gave up on the game back then due to not being able to pass Dry Ice, Wet Graves. This year I got reminded of it after being recommended a clip of Eddie saying "Oh man! Don't tell me I've been slaying hot girls this whole time.." and figured why not revisit? Glad I did, with it's ups and downs, also sidequests are fun, kept short and sweet and feels like one of the few games where the idea of going for 100% isn't a tedious waste of time? This would deserve a 4.5 but RTS takes away that .5 for me
Also, I got 100% on September 21st! For some reason it didn't require me to unlock all the Creature concept arts though?
On the closing note, despite all her distrusting....Lita is bae <3
5 Comments
@Spinnerweb I bet it was a great experience for you then, surprised not many love letter games like this exist...and thank you! And mannnn, EA doing something good? Now that's rare, I'm really glad to know the game ended up this way and not purely service for Tim Schafer himself, thanks for sharing that, now I know! I guess it must've come in early or mid development cuz what's here is done really well and naturally.
@SuperMaster10 Yeah, it's one of the only two times in history when EA did something good.
(The second thing was hiring the dev that made Dead Space 1 and 2)
(The second thing was hiring the dev that made Dead Space 1 and 2)
Oh and I almost forgot to say, I hope you have a great day!
@Spinnerweb I feel like there were more examples, oh well...
And aww, that's really sweet of you, you too!
And aww, that's really sweet of you, you too!
Spinnerweb
8 months ago
Great essay on the game too. Was a fun read.
However there's something I interesting I'd like to share with you...
The shitty RTS section was supposed to be the whole game. The entire game was supposed to be RTS, with no hack'n'slash or exploration. EA forced the developers to insert the hack n slash gameplay the make the game marketable... and for the better, because like you, I hated the RTS elements. However, the lead designer Tim Schafer is still extremely bitter about having to do this (he's specialized in making games no one except him enjoys since the 90s after all). The multiplayer mode is RTS too.