danbruno
Moderator
Registered: 07/14/08
Posts: 155
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| Posted 10/30/08 at 01:06 AM | Reply with quote #1 |
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| When you've finished this part of the game, post your thoughts in this thread. (Note that you may not play the sections in the order that they're numbered here.) |
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indstr
Registered: 10/23/08
Posts: 20
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| Posted 11/07/08 at 02:20 PM | Reply with quote #2 |
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There are some ingenious puzzles in this area indeed, and the game has finally started to captivate my interest. The most fascinating thing so far is the area after you get the little dinosaur you can ride, you are required to take him several screens up in order to make the jump... But you don't know that at first.. So my first try or two, I abandoned him, thinking that he couldn't go up the elevator. But I got to the wide jump gap, and realized I would need the dinosaur's jumping abilities... So then I brought him up, only to be killed by the enemy after the elevator. Realized I had to "park" him on the screen before that, so I could rid the next screen of the enemy, go back and get him... But of course, then there was the honey/bees to handle. ....
I didn't think I would like this game, but parts like this are warming me up to it and making me smile with their ingenuity 
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Pots_Talos
Registered: 10/24/08
Posts: 29
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| Posted 11/09/08 at 06:10 AM | Reply with quote #3 |
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Well this sucks, like i said about Monsaic I can't imitate the other guys so now I'm stuck cause i have to do it to open a door i think.
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indstr
Registered: 10/23/08
Posts: 20
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| Posted 11/09/08 at 09:44 AM | Reply with quote #4 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by Pots_TalosWell this sucks, like i said about Monsaic I can't imitate the other guys so now I'm stuck cause i have to do it to open a door i think.
I wonder what's wrong with your configuration? Are you playing it in an PSX emulator or the PC version? Anybody else playing it PC and having this problem?
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Karkacabra
Registered: 10/24/08
Posts: 29
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| Posted 11/09/08 at 03:15 PM | Reply with quote #5 |
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Already said this in the Monsaic thread, but you have to start imitating them after they've finished the sequence, not during it.
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Pots_Talos
Registered: 10/24/08
Posts: 29
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| Posted 11/09/08 at 07:12 PM | Reply with quote #6 |
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You mean they do like whistle, whistle, fart, ect, ect. Then after its over I repeat the pattern? I thought it was they do one you do one. Damn if that's the case now i have to wait till Thursday to try it out since I installed the game at work.
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"Everyone has two cents, but it's only worth taking from very few people. Most people just swallowed a couple pennies and expect you not to mind when they come out covered in sh*t." -Azaroth |
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indstr
Registered: 10/23/08
Posts: 20
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| Posted 11/09/08 at 08:02 PM | Reply with quote #7 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by Pots_TalosYou mean they do like whistle, whistle, fart, ect, ect. Then after its over I repeat the pattern? I thought it was they do one you do one. Damn if that's the case now i have to wait till Thursday to try it out since I installed the game at work.
 Yeah, you definitely have to wait until they finish the sequence before you copy it. They usually end with a fart
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zackman
Registered: 10/21/08
Posts: 43
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| Posted 11/09/08 at 11:24 PM | Reply with quote #8 |
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It's kind of quiet, but if you start repeating before the other guy is done, he'll say "uh-uh" and stop. I wish you could just key in the sequence because I had to repeat the first elevator password several several times before I figured out how to get past the slig at the top.
Speaking of that sequence, I think I'm closer to figuring out when Oddysee annoys me and when it doesn't. That particular sequence was more annoying than the rest of Paramonia because there were several short puzzles stuck in between a single check point. I had to whistle a password, sneak up on a slig*, dodge some bees, disarm a bomb and jump a chasm or two. None were hard--as puzzles--but the bee-dodging and chasm-jumping gave me some trouble (1) because of the sloppy controls and (2) because I don't have the best reflexes to begin with.
Yet later on I died almost as much on one big inter-connected puzzle (the one with a pipe that shoots you all the way to the top of the puzzle) and I actually enjoyed it. But it was all one puzzle, not a series of short ones. There weren't any dead spaces where I was just going up elevators or something, so progress to the point where I died was a lot faster each time. I think structuring the area between checkpoints as one big puzzle makes the designers create a tighter experience that's more fun. This could be why the game gets more fun as it goes on, because the designers switch to real, multi-screen puzzles.
(Also also, I got to possess a slig and shoot other sligs. I am really starting to wish I could do direct violence to those things.) |
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Karkacabra
Registered: 10/24/08
Posts: 29
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| Posted 11/10/08 at 12:51 AM | Reply with quote #9 |
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I just powered through to the final area of Paramonia, and I just don't have the nerves right now to deal with that level of intensity  Back when I first played this game, a video of someone playing that area gave me nightmares.
Paramites have incredible personality. Leading you into corners then getting mad when you get too close, trying to trick you into leading it to a friend, following you around with their little pug-like gait. They're such a combination of adorable and creepy and threatening.
The really interesting thing I've noticed is that all the AI in this game is incredibly simple and yet so full of personality. They all just follow a small number of rules, and really engaging behavior emerges.
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megamanny
Registered: 11/02/08
Posts: 6
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| Posted 11/10/08 at 10:05 AM | Reply with quote #10 |
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I can't remember now and am being lazy about looking to see who it was that mentioned Dragon's Lair with respect to how Oddysee plays. While I think that was a tad unfair at the time, the final section of Paramonia is very close to that. There is very little option as to how to time your advancement through the area. Fortunately, there are a few spots where you can pause to gather yourself, but there is no checkpoint. It's just one long gauntlet. It's very Aliens. I keep expecting them to launch for Abe's face. All they're missing is the tails to wrap around his neck. It's funny to find myself feeling nervous playing such an old game on a 2 inch screen.
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indstr
Registered: 10/23/08
Posts: 20
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| Posted 11/10/08 at 12:11 PM | Reply with quote #11 |
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I didn't play the game all weekend and now I've already forgotten what the key combination is to enter a bird portal myself. Can anybody tell me? |
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megamanny
Registered: 11/02/08
Posts: 6
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| Posted 11/10/08 at 01:01 PM | Reply with quote #12 |
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It's any two shoulder buttons i.e. L1-R1, L1-R2 etc.
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Karkacabra
Registered: 10/24/08
Posts: 29
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| Posted 11/10/08 at 02:26 PM | Reply with quote #13 |
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On the PC it's just one button to do everything (number keys for GameSpeak, 0 for chant, etc.). The only bad thing is that my controls keep getting reset to default when I close out of the game, which wouldn't be so bad if the default controls had Use mapped to something.
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indstr
Registered: 10/23/08
Posts: 20
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| Posted 11/10/08 at 02:30 PM | Reply with quote #14 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by megamanny
It's any two shoulder buttons i.e. L1-R1, L1-R2 etc.
That's not working for me. I know I was able to enter the portal at least one time - after it told me how to. Now whenever I am pressing any combination of shoulder buttons, it is chanting, no matter what. I have tried every combination. Even stuff like R1 and R2, even though they operate seperately as sneak & run, when I press them together, it is chanting, and not letting me walk while chanting.  I am playing on my PSP, so maybe that has something to do with it (using the analogue nub for some of the shoulder buttons), but still I know I used it before once.
I am now at a place in paramonia where it appears the only thing you can do is go into the portal. The first screen, you are up on a ledge and below you, there is a row of mines and an enemy that can be possessed. I chanted to possess the enemy, run him into the mines, and went through the little tube to get to the next screen. There is some kind of tall tower in the background, and the screen ends. The only thing there is a bird portal... And I can't get through it. 
May have to export my save and import it on a psx emulator on PC. I don't know
Edit: I just consulted the controls section on a walkthrough, apparently any 2 shoulder buttons is supposed to just chant.. Which means there are different types of portals I guess? And it appears this one is not one that can be walked through... Which means there must be another solution I am missing
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Karkacabra
Registered: 10/24/08
Posts: 29
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| Posted 11/10/08 at 05:10 PM | Reply with quote #15 |
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Just finished Paramonia. I have to say, now that I've gotten used to the grid-system I'm really grateful for it. As long as you keep your head on it's very easy to get through areas you know the solution to. The small time cushion that the locked-in animations afford you makes precision a lot easier to attain.
Now on to Scrabania!
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TheDiscoKing
Registered: 10/20/08
Posts: 14
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| Posted 11/10/08 at 07:54 PM | Reply with quote #16 |
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I'm up to this area now. Just wanted to vent some frustration.
i love the look of the game and the variety of the visuals. Paramonia is probably the prettiest area so far. It's just a shame that the gameplay is so annoying. It's like the designers are giving me a middle finger every time I do something they interpret as wrong. Surely games should reward exploration and experimentation instead of punishing you harshly for making small mistakes?
I've completely given up on any secret areas and have been playing the last few puzzles with a walkthrough just so that I know what I'm supposed to do to avoid replaying bit over and over again.
Not sure how much longer I can make it through playing the same bits over and over.
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zackman
Registered: 10/21/08
Posts: 43
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| Posted 11/11/08 at 10:45 AM | Reply with quote #17 |
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Notes about Paramonian Temple:
The art is still excellent. The creepy spider's-lair atmosphere is introduced so gradually that I wouldn't have noticed it except that I was stuck and looking at the scenery instead.
The Gauntlet at the end was actually kind of fun, once I remembered that this is an action-puzzle game. Design-wise, the sequence might be a little heavy-handed: "this is an action-puzzle game! you will have ACTION and it will be PUZZLING!". But it was fun nonetheless. I had to remember the puzzle part, because a pure action approach usually doesn't get past the second screen.
Has anybody else been brute-forcing the passwords? The sequences are nothing compared to Wonder Boy 3's musical locks, which had 3 notes to choose from and no clues whatsoever. In fact I broke a couple of passwords before I realised that there were stones to tell you the tune directly.
Here is a small spoiler to make the longest Trial more bearable. In it you have to roll a stone over some paramites. Once you're done with that, walk past where the stone was to a hidden screen. Chant to open the bird portal, go in there and die (or rescue the Mudokons, not likely for me). The game will save here. It nicely divides the longest Trial into two pieces. I guess they were feeling nice.
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sharc
Registered: 10/24/08
Posts: 81
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| Posted 11/11/08 at 11:55 AM | Reply with quote #18 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by zackman
Speaking of that sequence, I think I'm closer to figuring out when Oddysee annoys me and when it doesn't. That particular sequence was more annoying than the rest of Paramonia because there were several short puzzles stuck in between a single check point.
this is actually what made me quit on my first attempt at playing oddysee. there are several things you can do that will get you instantly killed just by the slig at the landmine. walk onscreen or forget to sneak? killed. forget to make your mount wait onthe screen before? dead. botch the rock trajectory - which you probably will, at least once - and you're done for. nail the right arc for the rock but fail to rerealize you're in the explosive range, and the puzzle kills you after you solved it.
realizing that every time i wanted to restart this sequence meant redoing that password was what did it for me. power switch off, goodnight oddworld. it's a little more tolerable on the return, but the game is still full of sequences where you are pretty much destined to be instantly killed the moment you walk on a screen because you don't know what to do, or where you'll be killed by after-effects of a puzzle.
that said - i like paramonia proper quite a bit. the paramites are a lot easier to deal with than sligs, in that they're not immediately hostile and have to actually chase you down. if you mess up here, you get a warning first (that hissing is surprisingly scary) and then have a chance to run for safety. only given the paramites stumpy little legs you might actually make it. while the potential to recover from mistakes rather than being instantly killed isn't tremendous, it is actually there.
Quote: Originally Posted by megamanny
I can't remember now and am being lazy about looking to see who it was that mentioned Dragon's Lair with respect to how Oddysee plays. While I think that was a tad unfair at the time, the final section of Paramonia is very close to that. There is very little option as to how to time your advancement through the area
that was me. it's not so much that oddysee really is nothing but a glorified fmv game, but at its more frustrating times it definitely sinks into a sequence of pretty screens where you input commands with mechanical precision or die. hopefully that will lessen as the game goes on but i kind of doubt it.
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StolenName
Registered: 08/26/08
Posts: 34
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| Posted 11/12/08 at 11:15 PM | Reply with quote #19 |
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Ahh, I love Elum. He's just as goofy as Abe, bloody annoying, smells bad (apparently) but at the same time, he's just SO DAMN LOVEABLE.
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Daniel Purvis
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davidcarlton
Moderator
Registered: 07/15/08
Posts: 548
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| Posted 11/16/08 at 12:26 PM | Reply with quote #20 |
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I finished this section last night; in a weird sort of split personality, I'm fairly sure that I would have given up by now if I weren't playing it with y'all (indeed, would still give it up now), but I'm also really appreciating the puzzle design.
Sometimes, the puzzle design is just screwed up in its determination to guide you along one path. There was one puzzle near the start of this where there was a mine with a guard next to it; if you hadn't seen the screen with them mine and blindly threw a rock at it, it wouldn't go off. If you had seen the screen and then went out of the screen and threw a rock, it would go off, but the guard would be left standing right next to it unscathed. So you actually had to be on the screen to watch the carnage for it all to work right.
Also, the bats were gratuitous. Fortunately, they didn't show up very often, but still...
But then there were sections where you only die on each screen a couple of times, where you can make it past a given screen pretty reliably once you've figured out what to do, where there are a reasonable number of screens between each save point, and where you figure out a new technique as part of solving the level; those, I liked a lot more. Except for its length, the final part of the temple actually wasn't that bad an example of this: it didn't take me too long to figure out the "hang from ledge while angry paramite leaps over you" technique, and once I had that, it didn't take too much experimentation to figure out a way to deal with each group of them.
Still, I spent too much time replaying stuff that I'd already figured out how to do, and too much time in fiddly chase puzzles; I don't particularly enjoy this.
And I also think the good points of the game are overstated. Yes, the cut scenes are funny; there aren't very many of them, though. I like the idea of using rhyming poetry for comedic effect, but the writing in the poems is pretty bad. (I'm not sure it's any worse than in a normal video game - maybe the ambition of doing it in poetry is showing off the writers' weaknesses more.) I'm definitely not finding it the case that "Every time you die, it will be funny" - most deaths are simply feedback about you and the game world, nothing more, and the good deaths are ones that teach you something, the bad ones are ones that don't.
Other random notes:
* The idea that this was planned to be a five-part series boggles my mind: who would look at this game and see it as part of an epic?
* Speaking of epics, I'm vaguely annoyed by the title: if you're going to refer to a work of art in your title, I'd like to see some references in the body of the work as well...
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10rdBen
Registered: 07/15/08
Posts: 79
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| Posted 11/16/08 at 09:34 PM | Reply with quote #21 |
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David - great comments. I find myself nodding along to all of them - even the ones about giving up! If I hadn't already beaten all of these puzzles in the past, working out the solution would definitely be more effort than it's worth.
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Read about my Thesis on music in videogames at: http://drgamelove.blogspot.com |
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jaimilee
Registered: 10/19/09
Posts: 2
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| Posted 10/19/09 at 11:10 PM | Reply with quote #22 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by indstrThere are some ingenious puzzles in this area indeed, and the game has finally started to captivate my interest. The most fascinating thing so far is the area after you get the little dinosaur you can ride, you are required to take him several screens up in order to make the jump... But you don't know that at first.. So my first try or two, I abandoned him, thinking that he couldn't go up the elevator. But I got to the wide jump gap, and realized I would need the dinosaur's jumping abilities... So then I brought him up, only to be killed by the enemy after the elevator. Realized I had to "park" him on the screen before that, so I could rid the next screen of the enemy, go back and get him... But of course, then there was the honey/bees to handle. .... I didn't think I would like this game, but parts like this are warming me up to it and making me smile with their ingenuity well the so called little dinosaur is actually known as elum, from the sites ive looked up about this creature they dont know if its its name or its species.. this game is damn good, u just go with it flowing. |
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jaimilee
Registered: 10/19/09
Posts: 2
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| Posted 10/19/09 at 11:19 PM | Reply with quote #23 |
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do u mean the test part in paramonia where u hav to get the switch in all areas then the big door opens? i love that level, its the best! and i love paramites, i always wished i could hav a real pet one it mite of eaten me tho! heheheh im silly |
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