The following is from my own personal experiences and opinions and you might agree or might not. But that's great, as a varied opinion can make this game even better. It's also constructive criticism, even if it verges on ranting in some cases, but if I rant, it's from a place of passion and love.
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I've just finished Wanderer, which was surprisingly lengthy. While I thought I would be playing for three-hours, I ended up playing it for seven. But a lengthy portion of the game was what I needed, after watching this come together piece-by-piece. But we're not quite there yet, as you'll see. I ended up creating two pages worth of notes, which I've condensed into two sections: thoughts and health/combat.
For Cris, who I am sure is lurking on here, his nails bit down to the skin, this is a great game. I'm greatly humbled to be apart of this development, even as a tester. I want to take this opportunity to say that I have faith in you and your team, and your honesty is refreshing.
So, let's get started, shall we?
Disclaimer: I'm going from beginning to end in this order, just in case you're wondering. Oh, and this will be long. Sorry about that!
THOUGHTS / MISC:
- Even though there is a command section in the options area at the menu, I was stumped for a few seconds at the beginning as I had no idea how to move. Now the only PC/Mac game I've played since was Half-Life, so when I finally realized the commands were W,A,S,D, I was in familiar grounds, but I still feel like a tutorial needs to be added at the beginning. A simple command saying "MOVE WITH [W,A,S,D]" would suffice.
- I felt like the dialogue boxes at the start before the first "fight" went a little too soon. Could just have been me though, as I wasn't expecting it.
- There's a slight "freeze" between transitions. This is normal, but I still feel like a loading symbol could be needed.
- During the part at the beginning where McKenzie is with Boyd and his goons, apart of the dialogue says "vacant gazing"? Shouldn't this be just "vacant gaze"?
- One of the things that confused the hell out of me was when I first died by the prisoner. I thought as if I had done something wrong and felt it was unfair. I didn't expect to die, which made it quite jarring. Whether or not this can be changed or helped, I'm not sure, but I thought I would let you know.
- I've seen a post already about this, but I feel like hand-holding might be needed during the first stage. I'll get more into this later, but remember, you're creating a game that no one but yourself (Cris and team) have seen. I don't think we need hand-holding for long, though, but up until the part where Rook is in the med-pod (coffin?), we need some kind of hand-holding. By this, I mean less damage, more hints. That sort of thing. Case in point, I wasn't sure what button I needed to press when I got to the part where I had to pick up the jagged glass. A command clearly seen saying "PRESS (E) FOR INTERACTION" would have been helpful. Yes, there's command hints throughout, but for some reason they didn't show up when I first got to the jagged glass area. Again, take this as you will.
- There should be an options menu when I pause the game. When I needed to change commands, etc, I had to save and quit the game to get to the options, which makes no sense to me. Perhaps this is something that can be added later on, but right now it was a little annoying.
- Now onto some good news! I love love the battle music. Guys, this is awesome stuff and I couldn't help moving to the beat as I was pummeling robots and Boyd. Speaking of Boyd, he may be short lived but I liked him. I also like the humor in the game, and especially Jin. In a short amount of time, I ended up falling in love with not just this world, and its atmosphere and story, but the characters. Replacing questions after questions is good writing, guys, and Wanderer does that really well!
- I nearly killed McKenzie due to a choice I wasn't aware was a "bad choice". Thus, I think color-coding "good vs bad" choices might be in order. Obviously, our minds are wired so that red = bad, and perhaps green = good. However, adding "deception/intellect" is fine.
- Speaking of choices, I feel like the dialogue choices should differ to that is being said. I felt it was a little, I don't know... just reading the choice I had just picked felt like a bit of a waste. Maybe make the actual dialogue spoken different, but still in tone to what was chosen. I believe Dragon Age and Mass Effect do this. Thoughts?
- Now onto objectives. It took me a while to realize "Q" displayed UI, simply because the options menu wasn't readily available and I would keep forgetting what command did what. Thus, I feel like the objectives should appear when I pause the game.
- I thought the ladder part in the Cell Block was pretty fun. And tricky. I admit I was frustrated at first as I wasn't sure what to do, and it wasn't until I realized I needed to readjust the cell height to reach the ladder that I was happy.
- Typo: "Consider the consider" is a spoken dialogue in the cell block that I think Guard Ryes says (I forget now), but yeah. Consider the consider the hot knife.
- Someone made a post about this already, but there were instances where swear words were bleeped out and other times where the characters like Rook would say "Fuckin' polite" (on route to the cargo bay I believe). I'm not sure who your demographic is, but if it's 18+, maybe just un-bleep them.
- Another typo: a convict at the cargo bay says "a esper", which in fact be "AN esper".
- Goals aren't very self-explanatory, namely the cargo bay. I already made a topic about this, but I spent a good 50 minutes trying to figure that part out. In the end, it turned out I had to shoot a pipe to progress. If the game had a hint system, that would be welcome.
HEALTH / COMBAT:
HEALTH IN GAME:
There are two areas in this game that I have a bone to pick with, and that is health and combat. The health part and the combat are interlinked, so I'll end up jumping between the two (or using health often when I'm speaking about combat), but the bottom line is this:
Health is scarce.
So scarce, in fact, that it drove me absolutely mad.
First, let's cast our minds back to the beginning. When we're getting out of the medical pod and investigate the lockers, we're given two Rushes. Now up to this point, our health is low, so naturally we'll want to use both those potions to get our health back to 100% (or thereabouts, I believe it's 90%).
But those are the only two Rush potions in the entire game! Yes, we can gain our health back when we save the game, but even still! When we're in combat, we have nothing to fall back on. This proved to a major problem and nearly made the game unplayable. I'll touch on health again in just a sec', but let me get to the other issue:
THE COMBAT:
The combat in this game is... while there are plenty of words I could use, I need to remain constructive in my criticism, but know that the combat was a major issue I had with this game. So let me start and break down why it's such a problem, and the areas I felt like I wanted to throw my computer out the window.
- It wasn't until near the end of the game that I realized that the enemies were color-coded; purple for quick, blue for fierce, and I didn't know that they were color-coded for both guard and dodge either. If this is mentioned in the beginning tutorial for Boyd, I apologize, but to my mind I don't believe it is.
- There are going to be those who, I feel, fought the robots in the cell block fairly easily and without any problem. But I wasn't one of them. First of all, I felt like ranged combat was far too "advanced" for what I felt was an area too early in the game. Perhaps if ranged combat, and its rules, were introduced at the beginning with Boyd (without any real danger) I might have gotten a hang of it, but here I was, dropped into a combat with two robots and without any real idea how combat - specifically ranged combat - really worked.
- I spent fifty minutes on this segment and now that I recall the moment, I feel like it wasn't as difficult as it should have been, but it was. In my notes, I kept using the word "too advanced" over and over again, but I don't feel like it's the mechanics themselves that is "advanced", but more because the combat in this game is purely luck-based and that the cell block section was a difficulty spike I wasn't prepared for.
- My main frustration with the combat comes down to the slider in the game, which is broken into three sections: red, amber and green. If you're quick enough (and lucky enough) to hit the green just perfectly, not only do you get a "perfect" but you narrowly avoid death. The problem is, is that when you miss, you get -2 health which is the source of my many frustrations with this game; that I was being punished too harshly for missing and punished for hitting amber (-1 health). A lose-lose situation. I feel like the green part needs to be extended slightly, that or make the amber smaller.
- No rewards. None. In a game that supposedly provides a "risk vs reward" system, I was never rewarded anything. I wasn't rewarded health, I wasn't rewarded focus. When I successfully blocked an attack or hit the green section in the slider, I wasn't rewarded anything. This is my beef with this version of this game - I wasn't rewarded health. This is where I come full circle, because one of the things that frustrated me the most was that I wasn't rewarded any health whatsoever. Those two Rush potions I mentioned above? Where were they? Are Rushes rare? Do they only come out at night? When I was in combat, I had a harder time staying alive than actually fighting off the enemies. Look, defeating enemies is challenging in this game - but I don't mind challenge, I don't mind wasting an hour of my life trying to get through a particularly difficult combat segment when I'm rewarded with health in return.
- Continued: the combat in this game is grueling because you're constantly fighting an uphill battle. I'd miss the slider and get dealt -2 health, then I'd get attacked, then I'd get dealt -2 health again because I missed the green part in the slider, and before I can have the enemy down to half-health, I'm already dead. I needed a reward. I needed to be rewarded health every time I hit the green section in the slider. I needed to feel like I was actually getting somewhere in combat. This is why the cell block segment was so tough because I kept missing the slider and having my health taken away. I would have to go into that combat segment nearly 20 times before I a) felt like I was beginning to get somewhere and b) I actually lucked out, hit the green section enough times and have enough remaining health to defeat both of them.
- Continued: this is also why I felt the fight with the robots in the cargo bay was so exhausting. I wasn't being given any health in combat to give myself a standing chance. I would miss the slider, then the shielded robot would hit me for -3 health. Before you know it, I'm dead. Buddy would go first, mind you, but at least he had the ability to heal himself. If I had a health potion (Rush) available, I would have used it. Even if I was given one, I would still have taken the opportunity to use it when I felt like I really needed one. But as it stands, combat = no reward. When a battle could take minutes to defeat, I spent hours going back into battle over and over and over again. I was being punished too severely, and in doing so, I felt in two occasions I had to quit. I had enough. If I weren't so stubborn, I would have just given up and not touch the game.
- You're not recreating Dark Souls here. At least in Dark Souls you're provided with healing potions and bonfires, in this game, the two health potions you got were gone before you realized they had a much more strategic motive in play.
- Option to flee combat would be nice. There was an instance where I went into battle with half-health and had to load an early save point and re-do some stuff to get back to the area I was in.
- In a move that might sound like a contradiction, I did feel like I had a better idea of the combat in the end - I just had to spend nearly 3 hours repeatedly dying in combat and lucking out just at the right moment to appreciate it. But the theory of the combat is correct. In theory, the way it works is fine, I just feel like too much is thrown at us too soon. Just my two cents though.
TLDR;
- 1: A lack of reward in battle means I'm not being healed and I die often.
- 2: The slider punishes you for missing, dealing -2 health. Without much rewarded health, expect to die often.
- 3: Combat seems to have a difficulty spike at the cell block I, personally, wasn't expecting.
- 4: Combat sim is introduced too late. Make this apart of the tutorial.
- 5: Combat is extremely luck-driven (and not to mention unfair). If you're lucky enough to dodge and guard and hit every green section in the slider during combat, you'll win. You'll be on the verge of death but you'll win. This luck-driven system is grueling and unfulfilling.
THE END:
Despite my criticisms, which many might agree or disagree with, I had fun playing Wanderer. I was engrossed in the story and captivated by the atmosphere and the characters that populated it. In the approaching months and year, I feel like we're going to get somewhere. I'm humbled to be apart of this experience, and I hope that my criticisms will help the team in the future.
:)