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More 3rd Birthday ranting
14 years ago
First off, I have to admit that I wasn't entirely fair toward The 3rd Birthday in my last post. It does have some good things going for it.
- The graphics are pretty damn good, but this is Square-Enix so that pretty much goes without saying. However, most of the cutscenes are done with the in-game assets, even though they're pre-rendered. This makes the few high-poly cutscenes really stand out. Unfortunately, they all get used in the intro, so they don't even have the benefit of being an endgame treat.
- The music is awesome. Some of the tracks are even rearranged from the original Parasite Eve soundtrack. One of my personal favorites is the remix of Escape From U.B. Considering the original was just four notes that repeat, they did an amazing job expanding upon it. Seriously, tell me this isn't flippin' sweet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK5rh5lv-kc
- The Overdive mechanic is really cool in battle. Basically, in each arena are a bunch of soldiers in addition to your player, and you're able to transfer your soul between them to gain control of them. Sometimes this simply gives you a new vantage point, sometimes it's necessary to move between areas that are blocked off from each other, sometimes it's necessary to take advantage of a special weapon one of the soldiers has. You can also perform an Overdive Kill on an enemy if you hit it with enough force (which is different from dealing a certain amount of damage), although its name isn't entirely accurate as it's not guaranteed to kill the target, but it will do quite a bit of damage.
- The game also has weapon customizing, and while not as freeform and versatile as the customization in the first PE, it's a lot better than PE2 which simply had some M16 attachments and maybe a couple different types of ammo for each type of weapon. This time, Aya's skill in each weapon type levels up as she uses it, and gaining a level up for a weapon type unlocks new weapons of that type and new equipment for each weapon. The different equipment includes things like stabilizers to make her shots more accurate and different kinds of ammo. Some ammo does more damage, some ammo has more impact. More damage reduces the target's HP faster, while more impact makes them become susceptible to an Overdive Kill faster.
There is one gameplay element that doesn't work very well, though, and unfortunately it's an important one when it comes to increasing Aya's abilities: The DNA board. This is a 3x3 grid that you can install chips on to give Aya new abilities, like recovering health after performing an Overdive, recovering ammo after performing an Overdive (yeah, she modifies her DNA and it makes ammo appear out of nowhere - at least I can forgive this one for being a gameplay element rather than a plot element), creating a shockwave to repel enemies after performing an Overdive, becoming invincible temporarily after taking damage, and more. Each unit on the grid has one ability, and each unit can have a level from 1 to 25. Multiple units can have the same ability to increase its effect, too, although I'm not sure if this can be used to break the level 25 cap.
Everything sounds good so far, right? Well, there's one more aspect of it - you can stack chips. When you stack chips, if they are the same ability, it has the potential to increase that ability's level. If they are different abilities, it could become either of those abilities, or it could mutate into a new ability. The thing is, you don't know what the result of combining chips will be until you try it, and there is a very random element to it. If you have two high level abilities and you place a two-ability chip on top of them, it could add the levels from the new chip to the old abilities, or it could dramatically reduce the levels of the existing abilities, there's really no way to tell. However, they completely negate the randomization element by allowing you to retry if you don't like the outcome of adding a chip. However, you can only view one result at a time, and if you liked a previous result that you had, you just have to keep retrying until that result comes up again, making the entire process tedious and annoying. I can see the point of randomizing it so beneficial mutations aren't ridiculously easy to obtain, but simply adding levels becomes a complete pain in the ass. If they simply showed more than one result of the randomization process and allowed you to select the one you wanted, it would be vastly superior to what we have now.
The main action gets kind of samey, too. The enemies behave differently, sure, but it still pretty much boils down to lock onto target, shoot a bunch, Overdive Kill, dodge when necessary, hide behind cover when necessary, maybe throw a grenade from time to time. Sometimes they change it up, but it's not really varied enough to keep from getting stale. In one mission you take control of a sniper so now you have to manually aim from a distance. In another you get access to a satellite cannon, which is kind of the same thing only now you have to wait for it to charge and the projectile is fired from the sky instead of you. In another you get to mount tanks and use their heavy artillery to fire at enemies, which again is kind of the same thing because the tanks can't move. In another you're in a helicopter firing at enemies clinging to the outside of a building, but it's on-rails so you only get to move around the screen as the camera follows its pre-defined path.
Also, the last boss is complete bullshit. There's another ability you have called Liberation, and it becomes available to you when the Liberation gauge is full. With Liberation enabled, your shots become more powerful, you move around a lot faster, and you essentially become invincible, but it only lasts for a few seconds. Except during the last boss, where it lasts for minutes. So any challenge that the last boss might have been is negated because you're invincible for the entire fight. Maybe this changes at higher difficulties, I don't know, my rage hasn't subsided enough for me to want to play the game any more.
Anyway, there's some more plot garbage that I wanted to rant about, so here I go!
First, Aya's line, "Why did you... put me up against the High Ones?" (Yes, that pause is there in the game, and it sounds even more unnatural than it probably does as you're reading it. I know it's because they matched the animation to Japanese speaking, then dubbed the English to match the animation, but it just sounds awkward.) She says this to Hyde when she meets him in the Grand Babel.
To begin with "High Ones" is a term that Maeda coined, so I find it odd that Hyde even knows what she's talking about, but he does. Also, there's no indication that he put her up against them.
In episode 1, even though it's not explicitly stated, I can see how maybe he planned for her to encounter one of the High Ones at the dance club.
In episode 2, Hyde sends her back 3 days to rescue Cray. When she saves Cray, she radios back to inform them of their status (seems kind of pointless since they can see and hear her through their time-spanning monitoring device, but whatever) and reaches Boss instead. He explains that Gabrielle's signal was lost and directs Aya to the location of Gabrielle's last transmission. Of course as he's saying his lines, he's saying them in an obvious "lying asshole" voice that in-game characters are always oblivious to and she ends up in an open area with nobody around. Cut back to the present and we see that Boss gassed everybody and he's the only one left conscious. Aya then fights a High One which turns out to be Gabrielle. Once she's defeated, we cut back to the present where we watch Gabrielle, who somehow survived the gassing and regained consciousness, disintegrates because she was killed in the past. So it was Boss that sent her there, not Hyde. BUT, to know to send Aya there, he would have had to have known that there was a High One attack there, and for him to have known that there was an attack there there would have had to have been an attack there which can't be the case if Gabrielle's still human in the present, which she was. Until she was killed in the past. But they show it as if the past and present are happening in parallel, and the changes in the present correspond with the changes in the past in relation to how long they took after Aya use the Overdive device, so when Boss directed Aya to the open area, Gabrielle was still human, meaning she hadn't transformed in the past.
In episode 3, Aya recalls a message she received from Kyle at the end of episode 2 in which he told her to meet him "at the Babel in the red fog." So she goes back to Operation Red Fog to meet him. She runs into Cray while she's there, which I ranted about plenty in the previous journal. Apparently he's a High One as well, but he doesn't transform, he just disappears into an orb on the Babel, she dives into the orb after him, his soul talks to her a bit and then disappears. In any case, Hyde didn't put her up against Cray, she went there on her own. Although the High Ones are able to Overdive, so I suppose Hyde could have sent Cray there at some point in the past, which would explain why the timeline suddenly changed with no explanation. But if Cray was there in the past, then he wouldn't be there in the present, unless it wasn't the same Cray. But it WAS the same Cray, because when he was killed in the past, he disappeared in the present. Also, while he was disappearing, he starts saying, "You did it, Aya. You saved Manhattan." How does he know this? The Cray in the present wasn't there at Operation Red Fog. The Cray at Operation Red Fog killed the whole squad and I don't see how he'd get anything less than the death penalty for that. Assuming he stayed human, anyway, because apparently he transformed back then. But if he transformed back then, he wouldn't be human now.
I could keep ranting but I need to go. Before I do, I leave you with a motivational speech from Maeda.
"Listen to me, Aya. You're here. You're real. If you're hurt, it's okay to cry. I mean it. Letting your emotions out will help heal your wounds. Ahh... I know it will... Ha ha ha ha... How sweet your tears must taste..."
- The graphics are pretty damn good, but this is Square-Enix so that pretty much goes without saying. However, most of the cutscenes are done with the in-game assets, even though they're pre-rendered. This makes the few high-poly cutscenes really stand out. Unfortunately, they all get used in the intro, so they don't even have the benefit of being an endgame treat.
- The music is awesome. Some of the tracks are even rearranged from the original Parasite Eve soundtrack. One of my personal favorites is the remix of Escape From U.B. Considering the original was just four notes that repeat, they did an amazing job expanding upon it. Seriously, tell me this isn't flippin' sweet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK5rh5lv-kc
- The Overdive mechanic is really cool in battle. Basically, in each arena are a bunch of soldiers in addition to your player, and you're able to transfer your soul between them to gain control of them. Sometimes this simply gives you a new vantage point, sometimes it's necessary to move between areas that are blocked off from each other, sometimes it's necessary to take advantage of a special weapon one of the soldiers has. You can also perform an Overdive Kill on an enemy if you hit it with enough force (which is different from dealing a certain amount of damage), although its name isn't entirely accurate as it's not guaranteed to kill the target, but it will do quite a bit of damage.
- The game also has weapon customizing, and while not as freeform and versatile as the customization in the first PE, it's a lot better than PE2 which simply had some M16 attachments and maybe a couple different types of ammo for each type of weapon. This time, Aya's skill in each weapon type levels up as she uses it, and gaining a level up for a weapon type unlocks new weapons of that type and new equipment for each weapon. The different equipment includes things like stabilizers to make her shots more accurate and different kinds of ammo. Some ammo does more damage, some ammo has more impact. More damage reduces the target's HP faster, while more impact makes them become susceptible to an Overdive Kill faster.
There is one gameplay element that doesn't work very well, though, and unfortunately it's an important one when it comes to increasing Aya's abilities: The DNA board. This is a 3x3 grid that you can install chips on to give Aya new abilities, like recovering health after performing an Overdive, recovering ammo after performing an Overdive (yeah, she modifies her DNA and it makes ammo appear out of nowhere - at least I can forgive this one for being a gameplay element rather than a plot element), creating a shockwave to repel enemies after performing an Overdive, becoming invincible temporarily after taking damage, and more. Each unit on the grid has one ability, and each unit can have a level from 1 to 25. Multiple units can have the same ability to increase its effect, too, although I'm not sure if this can be used to break the level 25 cap.
Everything sounds good so far, right? Well, there's one more aspect of it - you can stack chips. When you stack chips, if they are the same ability, it has the potential to increase that ability's level. If they are different abilities, it could become either of those abilities, or it could mutate into a new ability. The thing is, you don't know what the result of combining chips will be until you try it, and there is a very random element to it. If you have two high level abilities and you place a two-ability chip on top of them, it could add the levels from the new chip to the old abilities, or it could dramatically reduce the levels of the existing abilities, there's really no way to tell. However, they completely negate the randomization element by allowing you to retry if you don't like the outcome of adding a chip. However, you can only view one result at a time, and if you liked a previous result that you had, you just have to keep retrying until that result comes up again, making the entire process tedious and annoying. I can see the point of randomizing it so beneficial mutations aren't ridiculously easy to obtain, but simply adding levels becomes a complete pain in the ass. If they simply showed more than one result of the randomization process and allowed you to select the one you wanted, it would be vastly superior to what we have now.
The main action gets kind of samey, too. The enemies behave differently, sure, but it still pretty much boils down to lock onto target, shoot a bunch, Overdive Kill, dodge when necessary, hide behind cover when necessary, maybe throw a grenade from time to time. Sometimes they change it up, but it's not really varied enough to keep from getting stale. In one mission you take control of a sniper so now you have to manually aim from a distance. In another you get access to a satellite cannon, which is kind of the same thing only now you have to wait for it to charge and the projectile is fired from the sky instead of you. In another you get to mount tanks and use their heavy artillery to fire at enemies, which again is kind of the same thing because the tanks can't move. In another you're in a helicopter firing at enemies clinging to the outside of a building, but it's on-rails so you only get to move around the screen as the camera follows its pre-defined path.
Also, the last boss is complete bullshit. There's another ability you have called Liberation, and it becomes available to you when the Liberation gauge is full. With Liberation enabled, your shots become more powerful, you move around a lot faster, and you essentially become invincible, but it only lasts for a few seconds. Except during the last boss, where it lasts for minutes. So any challenge that the last boss might have been is negated because you're invincible for the entire fight. Maybe this changes at higher difficulties, I don't know, my rage hasn't subsided enough for me to want to play the game any more.
Anyway, there's some more plot garbage that I wanted to rant about, so here I go!
First, Aya's line, "Why did you... put me up against the High Ones?" (Yes, that pause is there in the game, and it sounds even more unnatural than it probably does as you're reading it. I know it's because they matched the animation to Japanese speaking, then dubbed the English to match the animation, but it just sounds awkward.) She says this to Hyde when she meets him in the Grand Babel.
To begin with "High Ones" is a term that Maeda coined, so I find it odd that Hyde even knows what she's talking about, but he does. Also, there's no indication that he put her up against them.
In episode 1, even though it's not explicitly stated, I can see how maybe he planned for her to encounter one of the High Ones at the dance club.
In episode 2, Hyde sends her back 3 days to rescue Cray. When she saves Cray, she radios back to inform them of their status (seems kind of pointless since they can see and hear her through their time-spanning monitoring device, but whatever) and reaches Boss instead. He explains that Gabrielle's signal was lost and directs Aya to the location of Gabrielle's last transmission. Of course as he's saying his lines, he's saying them in an obvious "lying asshole" voice that in-game characters are always oblivious to and she ends up in an open area with nobody around. Cut back to the present and we see that Boss gassed everybody and he's the only one left conscious. Aya then fights a High One which turns out to be Gabrielle. Once she's defeated, we cut back to the present where we watch Gabrielle, who somehow survived the gassing and regained consciousness, disintegrates because she was killed in the past. So it was Boss that sent her there, not Hyde. BUT, to know to send Aya there, he would have had to have known that there was a High One attack there, and for him to have known that there was an attack there there would have had to have been an attack there which can't be the case if Gabrielle's still human in the present, which she was. Until she was killed in the past. But they show it as if the past and present are happening in parallel, and the changes in the present correspond with the changes in the past in relation to how long they took after Aya use the Overdive device, so when Boss directed Aya to the open area, Gabrielle was still human, meaning she hadn't transformed in the past.
In episode 3, Aya recalls a message she received from Kyle at the end of episode 2 in which he told her to meet him "at the Babel in the red fog." So she goes back to Operation Red Fog to meet him. She runs into Cray while she's there, which I ranted about plenty in the previous journal. Apparently he's a High One as well, but he doesn't transform, he just disappears into an orb on the Babel, she dives into the orb after him, his soul talks to her a bit and then disappears. In any case, Hyde didn't put her up against Cray, she went there on her own. Although the High Ones are able to Overdive, so I suppose Hyde could have sent Cray there at some point in the past, which would explain why the timeline suddenly changed with no explanation. But if Cray was there in the past, then he wouldn't be there in the present, unless it wasn't the same Cray. But it WAS the same Cray, because when he was killed in the past, he disappeared in the present. Also, while he was disappearing, he starts saying, "You did it, Aya. You saved Manhattan." How does he know this? The Cray in the present wasn't there at Operation Red Fog. The Cray at Operation Red Fog killed the whole squad and I don't see how he'd get anything less than the death penalty for that. Assuming he stayed human, anyway, because apparently he transformed back then. But if he transformed back then, he wouldn't be human now.
I could keep ranting but I need to go. Before I do, I leave you with a motivational speech from Maeda.
"Listen to me, Aya. You're here. You're real. If you're hurt, it's okay to cry. I mean it. Letting your emotions out will help heal your wounds. Ahh... I know it will... Ha ha ha ha... How sweet your tears must taste..."
