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Episode 2 objective review (MAJOR SPOILERS)

Started by Lambonius, September 21, 2010, 03:25:47 AM

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Lambonius

So I just finished episode 2 about an hour ago, and I had initially planned on writing a review immediately, but after the ending, which I found supremely aggravating, by the way (I'll explain in a bit), I decided I needed some time to cool off before going back and critiquing the episode objectively.  :)

I'll start by saying that overall, I quite enjoyed this episode, despite a few blemishes (and one MAJOR negative plot moment at the very end.)  For the most part, it captured the feel of Graham-as-stalwart-adventurer which was sorely lacking from the first Episode (which mostly featured Graham-as-whiny-crybaby.)

From a gameplay standpoint, pretty much every tweak made since Episode 1 improved the overall experience.  I actually opted to play with the regular longer narrations On, just so that I could compare them to the short versions on a second playthrough, but then I ended up finding that they weren't as intrusive this time around, and with just a few exceptions (looking at the tomatoes in the Isle of Wonder garden comes to mind) weren't nearly as overly long and wrought with unnecessary back story as they were in the first episode.  Of course, I also didn't go out of my way to click on everything, so I may have missed some doozies.  :)

The art in this Episode, for whatever reason (someone mentioned the brighter daytime color palette), seems to surpass the first Episode quite a bit.  Being able to play in super high resolution widescreen on my iMac as opposed to my s***ty old laptop probably had a lot to do with it as well.  (Thanks for the Wine help, atec!)  I love, love, LOVE, the painterly texturing to many of the backgrounds, particularly some of the foliage and the wall and gate textures on the Isle of Wonder.  I was also happy to see that several of the missing details from the earlier screenshot of that area were added.  It really completed the scene and made it come alive, especially with all the little movements (and the cool Isle of Wonder garden ambient music/sounds.)  Overall, brighter colors plus nifty texturing = art win.  Very well done.

The character models are less impressive, but for the most part look pretty good, and it looks like many of the odd animation quirks (excluding Graham's walk cycle, which we all know for a fact was changed) were cleaned up for this episode--or at least, they weren't as prevalent this time around.  Speaking of Graham's walk cycle, it looks much MUCH better--though to be honest, still not quite natural.  But it's darn close, and I wouldn't spend any more time messing with it.  :)

I've already spoken a bit about the voice acting at length in another thread, but I'll recap a bit here, too, and add some more now that I've seen the full episode.

I'd say the voice acting is a pretty evenly mixed bag.  There are some stand-out awesome performances, but they are balanced by an almost equal amount of stand-out bad ones.  Again, this episode is better off than episode 1 in this department as well, if for no other reason than some of the better acted parts are characters with whom Graham interacts repeatedly.  Graham is a high point--great voice, nails the tone and feel of the character from the original series while adding a fresh new take on him.  Hassan is pretty good.  Jollo is amazingly good.  As is the lampseller.  The Ranger (is that what we're calling him?) was good.  Manannan was great.  The rest of the characters are okay.  I already pinpointed the stand-out low points elsewhere, so I won't reiterate them here.  

I have to respectfully disagree with a lot of people here about the voice of Alexander though.  I could deal with him not sounding like soft-spoken Robbie Benson if it weren't also for the fact that the performance is way way WAY over-acted.  It's clear that the actor was a theater actor, because the entire performance just absolutely SCREAMS Broadway.  There is nothing natural about it at all, and when compared to Graham (who consistently sounds like a real person genuinely thinking, talking, and reacting) it sounds even more ridiculous and overblown.  That said, it IS better than the earlier clips of Alexander that were posted.  And perhaps it's just that one scene that's so overdone.  I'll wait and see.  The voice of Manannan in that sequence is utterly awesome though--and sounds way more natural than Alex in the same scene(which is ironic given the fact that usually it's the villians that are overblown and theatrical.)  Manannan's voice doesn't sound quite as old as I would imagine an aged wizard with a long white beard would sound, but the voice reminds me a lot of the actor who played Faramir in LOTR, who is awesome, btw, so I can look past it.  :)

The music is awesome--there's really not much to find fault with there.  My standout favorite piece is probably the ambient sounds/music from the Isle of Wonder Garden.  Which is kind of ironic, since it's probably the least "musical" musical piece.  But the rest of the more standard orchestrated pieces are nice, too.

The puzzles were well-thought-out and executed, in my opinion.  The druid's list was a nice way to keep track of everything--my only complaint with it was that the animation for putting it away always seemed to take FOREVER.  Some have said the puzzles were a little easy, but I didn't mind them.  I wasn't ever stuck at any point, but I did have to stop and think and go back and reread the library books and such in one or two cases before I figured out the right solution.  For a careful adventure game player who is used to the format, they'll probably breeze through them, but I think more casual players will find them challenging enough.  Hopefully each episode will get a little more complex and tricky in terms of puzzles, but these were fine I think for Episode 2 of a 5 part series.  Most importantly though, the game really felt like it had some meat on its bones this time around, and by the end, I felt like I'd actually accomplished something more than just walking from point A to point B and hearing exposition.  ;)

Really, I think the main negative is the dialog, which is very unfortunate in a game that relies so heavily on story.  There were numerous places where I noticed incorrect grammar and/or awkward wording in various spoken lines, which was quite distracting.  I'd have to go back and play it again to find the specific spots, but there were at least 3 or 4 lines that I stumbled upon just following along the basic story path that had sentences ending in prepositions (dangling participles, ironically) and other grammatical inconsistencies that shot me right out of the story and had me wondering who proofread the script before sending it out to the actors.  In other spots, the dialog was very wooden, and not written in such a way that it sounded like natural speech.  It's a common stumbling block in scriptwriting where the dialog will sound one way on paper and then entirely different coming out of an actor's mouth.  It's forgivable in an amateur production such as this, but definitely was noticeable enough to be immersion-breaking in spots.  In some cases, decent lines were marred by poor delivery, and in others, decent acting was marred by a badly written line.  A fairly even balance.  Overall though, I'd say the dialog in this episode was a far cry better than in the first, if for no other reason than it actually focused on fleshing out an adventure game instead of telling a sob story.

Speaking of which: the game's tone...

...was a LOT better in this episode.  ;)  For the most part, it had the same light-hearted feel that fans have come to expect from a King's Quest game.  I can't stress enough how much of an improvement the majority of this episode was over the first when it came to overall tone.  Wandering around the Isle of Wonder in particular (especially the Magnet and key bit) was great.  The Hole-in-the-Wall was another highlight, as was the bickering Chess Knights.  Jollo was amazing on the Isle of the Crown, and a lot of Hassan's random commentary (particularly in the Sea Nymph area) was just the right kind of quirky, light-heartedness that the first Episode was so blatantly missing.  

There were a couple of melodramatic moments that were overly sappy--the Graham/Edgar conversation sticks out as a distinct negative.  It divulged some interesting (though already blatantly obvious to anyone familiar with the series) backstory, but the emotional interplay was very heavy-handed, and ended up coming across as extremely contrived.  I would liken it to making yourself a great homemade waffle and then dumping an entire bottle of maple syrup on it.  Sticky, gooey, sickingly sweet, and just totally, totally unnecessary, marring an otherwise good experience.

But like I said, in general, the tone of this episode was great, and the moments of unnecessary melodrama few and far between.

Unfortunately, it was this general improvement in tone that made the ending of the game so utterly disappointing.  I'm not referring to the part in Alexander's nightmare--that was actually pretty cool (over-acting and all), and I'm quite interested in seeing where that ends up going.  There seems to be a whole time-running-in-reverse theme that is hinted at in this episode (the new maps fading, but the old ones are still okay, Manannan is suddenly not a cat, etc.)  Not sure if the two are related, but it's a neat idea.  Anyway.

My main beef is with suicidal psycho Valanice.  

What. The. Heck.

Come on, seriously.  Valanice--a woman who has been through hellish quests and persevered--experienced the constant peril of her family and lived as a prisoner but remained stalwart--a woman who has almost experienced her husband's death on multiple occasions, and was strong enough to deal with the loss of her son for 15+ years.  

This woman would commit suicide because things were a little grim??  

That is just so completely out of character it boggles my mind.  Even if you introduce some truly terrible back story, you can't just suddenly say that Valanice, a woman renowned for her strength and character throughout the entire series, is going to do something as reckless or weak-willed as suicide.  Especially not while her family is still in danger.

Wow.  Just...wow.

Here's hoping she was supposed to be under some spell, I guess.  Jeez.

Anyway--this episode was mostly pretty good, despite my above tirade.  :)  Here's hoping the others are more like the meat of this episode, and less like its ending, with Valanice's appalling psychotic display.

Cez

Thanks for the great review, Jason!

Yes, Valanice is a very strong woman. She wouldn't go crazy over what's happened. We know that :) You'll have to wait and see...


Cesar Bittar
CEO
Phoenix Online
cesar.bittar@postudios.com

KQIX-Team

Quote from: Lambonius on September 21, 2010, 03:25:47 AM
Even if you introduce some truly terrible back story, you can't just suddenly say that Valanice, a woman renowned for her strength and character throughout the entire series, is going to do something as reckless or weak-willed as suicide.

Nobody knows the reasons yet. It could be an evil spell, a curse, a bad fan game...
Btw.: I've just read Klytos' review. Epic.  :o

snabbott

Some of the team had issues with Valanice's reaction. Cez explained what's going on, and there is a very good reason - something you haven't seen yet. That's all I'm saying. :)

Steve Abbott | Beta Tester | The Silver Lining

KQIX-Team

@all
Good news.
I have the original, uncensored version of the review.  ;D
Just PM me.  :)

Enchantermon

Quote from: Lambonius on September 21, 2010, 03:25:47 AMThere were a couple of melodramatic moments that were overly sappy--the Graham/Edgar conversation sticks out as a distinct negative.  It divulged some interesting (though already blatantly obvious to anyone familiar with the series) backstory, but the emotional interplay was very heavy-handed, and ended up coming across as extremely contrived.  I would liken it to making yourself a great homemade waffle and then dumping an entire bottle of maple syrup on it.  Sticky, gooey, sickingly sweet, and just totally, totally unnecessary, marring an otherwise good experience.
I have to completely disagree with this. I very much enjoyed their father-in-law/son-in-law heart-to-heart. But then, I regularly enjoy emotional stuff like that; I think it adds depth to the story and makes you feel that the characters are real, because they feel love, hate, hurt and have doubts just like we do. I thought that scene was great.
So what if I am, huh? Anyways, I work better when I'm drunk. It makes me fearless! If I see a bad guy, I'll just point my sword at him and saaaaaaaaaay, "Hey! Bad guy! You're not s'posed to be here! Go home or I'll stick you with my sword 'til you go, 'Ouch! I'm dead!' Ah-ha-ha!" Ha-ha. *hic* See? Ain't no one gonna be messin' wit' ol', Benny!

KatieHal

I personally like it because we've never really gotten a chance to know Edgar, and I liked finally getting to do that. I can see how some might find it sappy, but as they say, Your Mileage May Very. Heck, I cracked up when another team member jokingly called it the 'after school special' conversation. :)

Thank you for review and thoughts, Lambonius!

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

wilco64256

I'll add here that there was actually a long-standing discussion about whether they looked each other in the eye enough during this conversation - it actually went through a number of modifications anywhere from both of them staring at the ground the whole time to WAY too much eye contact.  Finally settled things where they are now and I agree that I do like this conversation as well.  It's entirely optional but does add some interesting depth to Edgar in particular.
Weldon Hathaway

Eryeal

Quote from: Lambonius on September 21, 2010, 03:25:47 AM
Really, I think the main negative is the dialog, which is very unfortunate in a game that relies so heavily on story.  There were numerous places where I noticed incorrect grammar and/or awkward wording in various spoken lines, which was quite distracting.  I'd have to go back and play it again to find the specific spots, but there were at least 3 or 4 lines that I stumbled upon just following along the basic story path that had sentences ending in prepositions (dangling participles, ironically) and other grammatical inconsistencies that shot me right out of the story and had me wondering who proofread the script before sending it out to the actors.

First - very nice and detailed review!  I enjoyed reading it.

I must thoroughly disagree with the above quoted part.  This is not an English paper, nor is it a novel or book - this is meant to be how people speak normally in real life.   Unless this is a game about royal English professors, it makes no sense to have absolutely flawless English because that's not how people speak.

wilco64256

Excellent point Eryeal, and welcome to the forums!  We do actually make a good effort to write things properly, but then at the same time we don't want the voice actors to just sound like they're reading so sometimes things do end up sounding a little gramatically odd.  But as you said, the characters aren't all English professors (and neither are we for that matter).
Weldon Hathaway

KQIX-Team

Quote from: wilco64256 on September 21, 2010, 10:23:38 AM
Excellent point Eryeal, and welcome to the forums!
Yeah, excellent! Welcome to the forums!  :suffer:

threej_lc

The only thing that really bugged me about the conversation with Graham and Edgar was how Graham addresses him.  "I hope you are doing well, my son."  Or whatever he says.  Honestly?  Who talks like that?  "My son?"   Maybe one of the old monks from King's Quest 2[no, no the werewolf ones in 2+] could get away with that, but not Graham.

Lambonius

#12
Quote from: wilco64256 on September 21, 2010, 08:39:31 AM
I'll add here that there was actually a long-standing discussion about whether they looked each other in the eye enough during this conversation - it actually went through a number of modifications anywhere from both of them staring at the ground the whole time to WAY too much eye contact.  Finally settled things where they are now and I agree that I do like this conversation as well.  It's entirely optional but does add some interesting depth to Edgar in particular.

Graham and Edgar should have slowly brought their faces closer and closer together, eyes slowly closing, lips slowly parting, closer, closer, CLOSER...

At least, that's what I kept picturing during their talk.   ;D

In all seriousness, it just really struck me as WAY more sensitivity and emotion than two grown men who honestly don't know each other that well would realistically share.  Even as father/son-in-law.  I understand where the sentiment was coming from, I just think it was a little much. 

Big C from Cauney island

Good review.  The whole Valanice scene was pretty scary.  But when I thought about it, I figured she might be under a spell of some sort.  I highly doubt it was a pure Valanice suicide intention.  Alexander was still able to walk all the way to his room and upstairs in the intro.  This "curse" can probably make people do a lot of things. At least thats my impression. 

Enchantermon

Quote from: threej_lc on September 21, 2010, 10:32:21 AMThe only thing that really bugged me about the conversation with Graham and Edgar was how Graham addresses him.  "I hope you are doing well, my son."  Or whatever he says.  Honestly?  Who talks like that?
Keep in mind the time period in which TSL (and the entire King's Quest series) is set. Expressions like that were not uncommon, even though they sound weird to us today.
So what if I am, huh? Anyways, I work better when I'm drunk. It makes me fearless! If I see a bad guy, I'll just point my sword at him and saaaaaaaaaay, "Hey! Bad guy! You're not s'posed to be here! Go home or I'll stick you with my sword 'til you go, 'Ouch! I'm dead!' Ah-ha-ha!" Ha-ha. *hic* See? Ain't no one gonna be messin' wit' ol', Benny!

Fierce Deity

Nice review, Lambonius! Very detailed, and I share a lot of the same opinions that you have exhibited. I want to go through the game one more time before I write my review, but I already have a somewhat organized array of thoughts that I want to tackle. I'm just hoping that any criticism I have to deliver won't come off as 'offensive' across the board by the fans of the project. As Phoenix has exclaimed that they "can't please everyone", I'm just preparing myself for the same thing.  ::)
Freudian Slip - "When you say one thing, but mean your mother."

snabbott

I think if you write an honest review, people can be mature enough to respect your opinion even if it differs from their own. :)

Steve Abbott | Beta Tester | The Silver Lining

MangoMercury

I agree totally with Snabbott, which is why I respect this thread; it's nice to see people making objective posts as opposed to flat out attacking, just the way everything should be!
~RESIDENT MANGO~
The sanest forum-dweller of all!


Countess of Tyrol and Maid of Honour to the Queen

Cez

Quote from: Eryeal on September 21, 2010, 09:03:34 AM
Quote from: Lambonius on September 21, 2010, 03:25:47 AM
Really, I think the main negative is the dialog, which is very unfortunate in a game that relies so heavily on story.  There were numerous places where I noticed incorrect grammar and/or awkward wording in various spoken lines, which was quite distracting.  I'd have to go back and play it again to find the specific spots, but there were at least 3 or 4 lines that I stumbled upon just following along the basic story path that had sentences ending in prepositions (dangling participles, ironically) and other grammatical inconsistencies that shot me right out of the story and had me wondering who proofread the script before sending it out to the actors.

First - very nice and detailed review!  I enjoyed reading it.

I must thoroughly disagree with the above quoted part.  This is not an English paper, nor is it a novel or book - this is meant to be how people speak normally in real life.   Unless this is a game about royal English professors, it makes no sense to have absolutely flawless English because that's not how people speak.

Yeah, I've said this before. When I write, I take an effort to NOT be grammatically correct with speaking characters, because, no one speaks perfectly.

If it was a narration, then yes, probably something either slipped from us or we had to patch it to fix something else, but in the spoken dialog, I'm sure there are many "grammatical mistakes", and those are there "on purpose". They add realism to the dialog.


Cesar Bittar
CEO
Phoenix Online
cesar.bittar@postudios.com

Cez

Quote from: MangoMercury on September 21, 2010, 01:55:05 PM
I agree totally with Snabbott, which is why I respect this thread; it's nice to see people making objective posts as opposed to flat out attacking, just the way everything should be!

yep, Jason's review is the best example of how you should criticize a game in my opinion. You don't have to like everything, but make sure to mention what you love together with what you hated.


Cesar Bittar
CEO
Phoenix Online
cesar.bittar@postudios.com