Me Personally, despite the bugs, I thought Episode 3 was awesome, and probably the best episode so far. I loved every bit of it. The puzzles were great, story was great, and to me felt very much like king's quest. Compared to the other episodes, I found myself stuck quite a few times. So do you agree it's been the best episode yet? :)
Looking at each chapter compared to the others, chapter 3 has the superior puzzles/freedom/adventure game feel. It is much more complex than the other chapters. Chapter 1 was just an introduction and in my opinion can't be in the discussion for best so far. Chapter two had a couple puzzles, but was lacking depth. From a gaming standpoint, 3 is by far the best of the three.
The big issue that I had with chapter 3 comes from my personal opinions on the story. I am not so fond with the storyline going where it is, but I have to remind myself that this is fan fiction and not canon. When I can do that I am more ok with what is going on. But it doesn't feel like KQ to me.
The other issue I have with chapter 3 is the bugs. My game crashes every 10 or so minutes. I know some people did not experience this, but for me, it was a pain. It made me almost not want to finish it until the bug issues were resolved. Once they are, I can jump on and say it is the best, but for now, I almost have to go with episode 2 because it was playable. Once the bugs are worked out, I will gladly agree that 3 has been the best.
Uh well I felt many of the puzzles were far to obtuse, there were times I completely felt clueless from the limited hint given in a riddle or what not (and had no idea where to go). Mainly it's the vagueness of that spell scroll. It also suffers :suffer: from far to much backtracking for my tastes.
I'm also not particularly impressed or interested with the story direction, it seems far to complicated and contrived for a KQ story, I'm not to fond of how it's reinterpreting the old game and how it is trying to connect everything into one overgrown inbred family. I think sometime simple is better.
That being said if I look at it as just a game, and not as a KQ game I have found it entertaining. I've enjoyed most of the music, and artwork. Though the quality of the latter doesn't always seem consistent in every screen (some of the models seem to be of extreme low poly count and look deformed.
QuoteI am not so fond with the storyline going where it is, but I have to remind myself that this is fan fiction and not canon. When I can do that I am more ok with what is going on. But it doesn't feel like KQ to me.
Ya, but i'm not even sure its "good fan fiction". It's seems to be bordline the mary/gary stuisms...
Quote from: Baggins on March 03, 2011, 09:28:18 AM
...some of the models seem to be of extreme low poly count and look deformed.
Yeah, on that point, when Valanice is lying in bed, something is seriously wrong with her neck. Her figure seems to be horribly gaunt in general.
(http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/7929/tslvalaniceneck.png) (http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/7929/tslvalaniceneck.png)
To be fair it probably doesn't help that TSL has been progressively buggier on my system, crashing more often with each additional episode. I don't know when it'll happen, but its usually when traveling between islands...
It's literally getting up there with crashes in MOE, and that's not generally something to be proud of... :p
I agree with you Baggins about the story. I am an old school sierra gamer, and I love the less intuitive puzzles. It makes things much more rewarding to solve. But yeah, the story isn't great, but I do love the puzzles.
The thing is I remember most of the old sierra puzzles being more intuitive than this (not counting strange logic like "throwing cheese into the machine")...
There were a couple of annoyingly frustrating ones in the old Sierra games, but this game I feel at times like I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing, where I'm supposed to be going. Like I solve a puzzle, an then have no clue that something has appeared on another island to push the plot along to the next puzzle. This episode was filled with kind of thing... Let's say I must have attempted to knock on the door to the Pawn Shop two dozen times, before I had solved enough that event of him returning happened.
I never had this much cluelessness with the earlier KQ games. There was always enough going on to point out that a puzzle had to be solved, somethign needed to be passed. At points in Episode 3 I didn't even know something was associated with a puzzle. I simply overlooked it without knowing it.
I always found many of the Lucasarts games, and such as some of the later monkey island games, such as Escape from Monkey Island to have the least intuitive puzzles in the history of adventure games... Having little logic, and just stumble across the answer. It made matters worse when you had "combine items", sometimes the items needed to be combined didn't seem to have any relation to each other.
In general, I didn't think the puzzles were that obtuse, though that could be because I was playing through the game as they were being implemented. I think the zodiac puzzle was the only place I got stuck, and that was because I didn't realize the symbols had elements associated with them. Once I re-read the Four Winds, it became pretty evident.
I liked the fact that there were more difficult puzzles. I get the sense that people (myself included) are less patient with puzzles than they were when the original games came out. I remember being stuck for days or weeks with some of those games. A lot of times, I would be stuck on a particular puzzle, go to bed, and have the answer the next day. Then I would get stuck again. :suffer:
I didn't find it that bad. The puzzles all had explainations. The books in the library were a huge help. I got stumped with finding the info on the four-winds poster but that was it. The checkerboard had a pattern which wasn't too bad. The guillitine needed something to prevent it from falling (go everywhere, pick up everything). The butterfly needed to be rescued....etc. The puzzles tied together pretty well. The puzzles in KQ6 were just as bad (especially if you don't read manuals). It felt more like classic sierra to not be spoon fed your way through the game.
Quote from: snabbott on March 03, 2011, 12:17:20 PM
In general, I didn't think the puzzles were that obtuse, though that could be because I was playing through the game as they were being implemented. I think the zodiac puzzle was the only place I got stuck, and that was because I didn't realize the symbols had elements associated with them. Once I re-read the Four Winds, it became pretty evident.
I liked the fact that there were more difficult puzzles. I get the sense that people (myself included) are less patient with puzzles than they were when the original games came out. I remember being stuck for days or weeks with some of those games. A lot of times, I would be stuck on a particular puzzle, go to bed, and have the answer the next day. Then I would get stuck again. :suffer:
My problem wasn't the elements- I got that easily. What I didn't get was that I had to use all three candles of each element. I died many times at first there T.T
Quote from: chucklas on March 03, 2011, 12:21:47 PMI got stumped with finding the info on the four-winds poster but that was it.
I actually liked that puzzle quite a bit because it tied in to real life. I didn't solve it with The Four Winds; I solved it by Googling the Zodiac.
I honestly didn't think the puzzles were too obtuse either. Some I figured out easily and some took a little more thinking, which is pretty much how lots of the Sierra games I've played have gone. There were no truly weird puzzles, like the cheese in KQV or the snake bridle in KQII. The only puzzle that I thought was a little strange was the one involving freezing the Baby's Tears' tear, because it wasn't really a crystal, just a salty, teardrop-shaped ice cube. All of the others seemed fine to me.
Like I said the only puzzles I found obtuse were the one related to the spell ingredients. I still haven't figured out if there is a way. Its possible I overlooked clues somewhere.
Quote from: kindofdoon on March 03, 2011, 09:38:35 AM
Quote from: Baggins on March 03, 2011, 09:28:18 AM
...some of the models seem to be of extreme low poly count and look deformed.
Yeah, on that point, when Valanice is lying in bed, something is seriously wrong with her neck. Her figure seems to be horribly gaunt in general.
(http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/7929/tslvalaniceneck.png) (http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/7929/tslvalaniceneck.png)
That's because Graham snapped her neck!
Saladin: Sire, what is wrong with the queen?!
Graham: uh... uh... She's just sleeping... Make sure she isn't disturbed!
Quote from: Baggins on March 03, 2011, 01:04:14 PMI still haven't figured out if there is a way.
A way...for what? ???
I meant if I overlooked clues, that would have made the spell ingredient riddles, less cryptic.
There was some narration that suggested that the "scroll could be used point the way", but I don't think that is quite literal?
Oh.
Well, one of the ingredients is a male subject's strength, and I think that is pretty clearly spelled out in the Samson and Delilah retelling in the bookstore. Same with the female subject's voice, though slightly less obvious and in the Persephone legend and the Princess and the Pea story.
The reason I thought to use the shell was because of Disney's The Little Mermaid more than anything, though, so I guess if someone hasn't seen that movie that might be a little strange, but then again people hold conch shells to their ears all the time to hear "the sea" inside, as if the sound was trapped in there.
As for enchanting the objects, I noticed the Zodiac symbols in the druid's hut (and that the Archdruid was gone), and I acted on a hunch when looking for connections between the Zodiac and the four elements on Google.
Once you get to the emerald tree and the narrator points out the moon-shaped emerald, one might easily assume that it has something to do with the silver moon ingredient, and when the candle melted into a lump of wax I almost immediately put two and two together.
The salt gave me a little trouble, but that was because for some reason I thought I had some kind of special water in the cup already and I didn't want to pour it out. But once I did, it didn't take me long before I realized how to boil it away without hurting the cup (too badly).
So there were no really blatant clues for the last two, some good, old-fashioned brainstorming was needed there, but I see that as a strength rather than a weakness. And all of the solutions make sense, so it's not like you have to try really weird things in the hopes that they will work.
Well I did read those books back in Episode 2, and completely forgot about them, and didn't bother to read them again in episode 3. So didn't really remember they were there, let alone that they offered clues to the spells ingredients.
Ah. See, I was the opposite; I read them in Episode 2, but remembered that the information in them hadn't been used in that Episode, so I reviewed them for Episode 3 in case they would be useful then.
Quote from: Baggins on March 03, 2011, 07:51:44 PM
Well I did read those books back in Episode 2, and completely forgot about them, and didn't bother to read them again in episode 3. So didn't really remember they were there, let alone that they offered clues to the spells ingredients.
Toegoff figured it out without needing the books easy enough. I remembered them too. As soon as it said female's voice, I remembered the nightshade and re read the books then went 'HURR MAKES SENSE NAOW'
I read those books back in episode 2, and I memorized the information in them, thinking that it would come in handy - and it did!
The puzzles really made me think, particularly the "freshly shaken salt" one. Those who take science class will know how salt is made... because think about it, where is the best place to get salt in this game? [spoiler]The water from the ocean. And when ocean water is exposed to intense heat, you get salt. Hooray for science![/spoiler]
I also liked the sequence where Graham enters Valanice's nightmare, because it's a clever recreation of the whole Graham-rescuing-Valanice-from-the-tower sequence from KQ2... only it's darker and more epic and involves horseback riding and not one, but TWO menacing dragons! How's THAT for a Nostalgia Level?
Kitty Edit: added spoiler tags...I now have learned how to get the salt before we got to that point :(
I agree Episode 3 is the best episode so far. Technical issues notwithstanding, of course (but I know those will be worked out.) Take it from me.... Cez, Katie, and the rest of the gang at Phoenix Online Studios are very serious about doing TSL right and making it the best game they can.... and while it's easy for us to take for granted what they are doing, we must all remember that most of the people who are making this game have no game industry experience.
If this was a product that was being put out by an established company, I would be the first to say the technical issues should not be there. After all, established companies have established QA methods and put their products through pretty exhaustive test phases.
TSL is not the product of an established company, however. It's the product of regular people just like you (the person reading this post) who came together and created something truly remarkable. It's not without it's flaws and issues... but for a non-commercial product, it's exceptional for it's quality and it's depth. The technical issues that it does suffer from are things that I am willing to chock up to inexperience. These people are learning as they go.
And in the end, that's what really matters.