So I beat it at around 15 hours. I spent a bit of time doing senseless things like taking pics and messing around with stuff like this. The gifs don't have any story spoilers, but there are some of later levels in the game.
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From the beginning cutscenes you can pretty much tell RAD wanted to make a game where you controlled what looked like pre-rendered CG cutscenes, but were actually real-time, hence the QTEs. I think that's what was supposed to be the big draw to the "cinematic" gameplay, along with certain forced walks/gameplay segments where it had really nice cinematography that made it look like a cutscene, but you could actually control the character movements - i.e rappelling down the airship and stuff like this:
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Some people might hate this, but I thought it was implemented really well here considering what RAD is going for. The camera angle and movements, lighting set up with long shadows, subtle DOF, it was set up to basically show you controlling a cutscene. Had I not been moving Galahad I would have thought it was a spruced up in-engine cinematic, which wouldn't have been anything special to me. Which leads to the graphics, it is damn insane. The amount of lighting and shading fidelity they've reached, the texture and material detail. Almost every chapter where you get to play is pretty much a new looking environment with new details, and each level is as graphically consistent as the last. And it's not just a technical matter, the technical aspects in the end just works really well to support an awesome art style with great artwork. If there's one complaint it's specular aliasing. These are actually pretty difficult to get rid of and 4xMSAA won't fix them. The specular aliasing for the most part actually disappears when you move so the game is either adding some post-process temperal AA or the motion blur just helps hide them when moving. But if you're standing still, you'll notice them on thin specular highlights depending on the lighting set up. There many areas where they don't even show up. The game is incredibly clean with no jagged edges otherwise, it's just a nitpick. They did an incredible job visually though, I don't see any dev topping this one for a while and I'll probably replay the game just to admire the graphics more. Some of the later levels are really fantastic looking and very moody.
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The sound design is really great too, with some great music. Really like the oomph of the guns which had very good clarity and authenticity. The environments also have some lovely ambient sounds to them.
The gunplay is pretty awesome. I hated the feeling of shooting in the Uncharted games and the lack of enough feedback from the guns. Never found the gunfights in Uncharted to be captivating. Completely the opposite feeling I get in 1886. The did a great job designing the weapons and how it feels to shoot. Some people don't use blacksight much but it's been a real life saver for me in taking out guards quicker to save ammo for the armored guys, and it works great to detonate grenades. The AI isn't all that different from Uncharted. Basic, but they get the job done. The AI can flank you, run to cover, pop up and down like how they do in most TPS with cover, and sometimes they'll just run towards you or very slowly try to move away while shooting.
So back to the QTE's, I'm not a fan of QTEs in general but I can live with them. With RAD wanting to make interactive cutscenes that looked like pre-rendered CG, I can see their reasoning for them. But while there were some QTEs that were decently designed, there were other QTEs that were just lame or really annoying and downright bad. The cutscene QTEs aren't too bad (if you missed and died, it quickly restarts and there's not much waiting), but one of the Lycan fight requires you to dodge using QTEs with the analogue stick. The Lycan attacks too fast for you to even read the prompt, so I didn't even know if I had to use the right stick or the left stick. It was annoyling difficult to adjust to at first. There's also no sense of gratification in pulling it off. You press the direction the prompt says, and that's it, I didn't feel like I did much. I really would have preferred if the game relied less on QTEs for dodging (either for the Lycans, or for grenades), and instead just included a dodge mechanic mapped to a button, so I can dodge whenever I want. There's more interaction this way, you decide when and if you want to do it.
Leading in to my gripes. The game has button prompts
everywhere, and there's no way to turn them off. When you want to melee, the triangle button always shows up on top of enemies. It's the same button every time, not sure why the prompt even needs to be there after the first time you realize what button to push. Inspecting items, triangle button prompt. And the tip prompt during inspection mode that tells you how the controls work will appear every single time, as if you didn't know the left thumbstick moves the item around by the end of the game. Really takes you out of the "cinematic" aspect when you're inspecting the highly detailed item only to see a wall of text and buttons to the right. Inspecting items itself seems like a cool mechanic, but ultimately pointless. Would have been better if you inspected the items for clues that required some detective work of some sort.
Not being able to go into cover while holding a lamp is stupid.
The Lycan fights don't provide much of a thrill. I came into the game expecting so much more from the half-breeds considering RAD was so secretive about them and they're a huge draw to the game. They basically just run away then come back to give a one-hit attack, then run away. I was looking forward to a more intense/suspense fight with them, both with the lower and elder Lycans. Although these fights are pretty lame, they only happen twice throughout the whole game. RAD needs to rethink how half-breed fights work and happen if they can do a sequel though.
You don't even get to fight the
... Highly disappointing. I was imagining we would at least get some Resident Evil 5 Wesker-esque fights when they showed up.
I don't really have a problem with the pacing. I think for most of the cutscenes, individually, they don't drag on for too long. If there are long cutscene segments then it usually contains a variety of cutscenes that moves the story forward and isn't about just one thing (like MGS4's long ass Drebin introduction speech). The story itself starts slow but it did get more interesting near the end. The actual gameplay portion picks up a lot after Chapter 2. You'll also hit some chapters that are really visually moody and makes it seem like you're actually exploring and looking for stuff. The last few chapters go by
really quick though. Which leads to the ending; it's abrupt and provides no closure. The boss fight was disappointing too because it's basically an earlier fight you had. It seems like the end was rushed and with no closure as if they just ran out of budget, so they had to make due with what they had. The final ending scene was visually awesome though.
Really would love to see a sequel to let RAD flesh out the gameplay more, and re-do the half-breed fights, make it rely less on button prompts/QTEs, maybe even let us climb on top of them to attack like Dragon's Dogma. I really liked fighting the rebels, both with standard and Tesla's unique guns. Some of the later fights get really heated too. There were some suspense moments where you carry around a lamp in a hospital and the mood and atmosphere of exploring this area was great, didn't mind the slow pace aspect of this chapter at all.
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