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Indivisible: Lab Zero's Action-RPG! (General Discussion)

Isn't part of Portal 2 being 'easier' also a part of "thinking with portals"? We played the first one and so were already better at the second one by default? I actually didn't think the second was all that much easier, and I really don't think the first one was all that difficult. It was no Space Chem anyway.

Anyway, on to an earlier topic, my opinion on difficulties is 'easy', 'medium', 'hard' with a 'plus' mode that is just a bonus for those that really enjoyed the game.

Nothing more awful than having to play a game twice to get out of it that which you should have got the first time around. (Looking at you "Ghosts 'n Goblins" you son of a bitch...)
 
Vadsamoht said:
Playing devil's advocate here, the main problem I can see with this is that many people simply don't replay games at all

The lack of concern for replay is something that makes me sad these days.

Although I don't often replay a game from the start after immediately finishing it, my philosophy is that if a game/movie/book isn't good enough to be worth returning to eventually, it's not worth experiencing once.

Whenever I find out someone sells all their games after finishing them, I usually take it as evidence that that person is a cold hearted monster. Not serious.


Spencer said:
Nothing more awful than having to play a game twice to get out of it that which you should have got the first time around. (Looking at you "Ghosts 'n Goblins" you son of a bitch...)

Although the second game is one of my favorite titles of all time, I must admit that the "loop" is one of only two blotches on it (the other being that half the weapons are death traps). That being said, it's kind of forgivable in that games case since both loops are short enough to speed through quite thrillingly. More variety would have been nice though...


*edit*

I was just listening to Alundra's soundtrack, and since that game was also mentioned, I thought of another question (for the sake of discussion?): Will Indivisible have zelda/alundra-ish puzzles?
 
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Sorry, I'm far from an archery expert. But still, I'm pretty hype and can't wait to see him in action.

As for the incarnation thing, We don't know WHAT Anja's power is yet, maybe she can channel people's souls and transform into them? Depending on how many partners there are, it might make the screen a bit crowded with over 4 or so. Or it's like the Paper Mario RPG thing you can swap out partners.
 
Could be that, by various regions sending someone to Ajna-land (main game setting- do we have a name yet?), their representatives become "avatars," historical records that explorers/Ajnan channel in their quest to "learn the truth" (whatever that is). Sort of an Apocalyptic Log/Ghost of the Remnant thing going on. Though I've got to say, I'm getting major Avatar: the Last Airbender vibes, and I haven't even seen the series...
 
Well in the trailer Ajna was the only one character in full color while the other were blue-ish, so could it be that the smooth platform2battle transition mike mentioned is her summoning those incarnations as party members, maybe from different times?

We even saw someone wield a gun in the background of the trailer, so either she can also summon incarnations from the future (if said gunman is a possible party menber) or the game is set IN the distant future, which could be a plot twist.
 
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I'd rather not see anything about reincarnation or past lives or hear anything about Avatar to be honest.
I'd rather see these characters be alive and stand on their own as companions instead of just tools for the main character.
 
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Or maybe they're the other chakras (Ajna is the name of a chakra as stated by someone in this thread who also said there are 13 of them) and the incarnation could refer to them having something to do with the meaning of the other chakras?
 
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Fuckinnn I don't know then
 
The guy has a backstory, so for me is difficult to imagine that his existence or physical form is attached to Ajna somehow, but it is what the name incarnation implies.
 
Sotherius said:
The guy has a backstory, so for me is difficult to imagine that his existence or physical form is attached to Ajna somehow, but it is what the name incarnation implies.
Definition.PNG

Just a reminder to everyone that the word has two meanings.
 
That's the second time you point it out. Lay down the salt.
 
ArgonBern said:
That's the second time you point it out. Lay down the salt.
Reincarnation plots are just really boring man. It takes away the individuality of characters.
No, Avatar isn't a counter point. There are a lot of problems with that show.
 
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Speculation... could be that these characters are all lost in the maze/whatever Ajna's exploring, and she rescues/collects them along the way? Which is to say, the characters are her Metroid-style weapon upgrades? So, rescue Zebei, then you can call him from off-screen to shoot distant targets for you, and he'll also show up in RPG battle? (Strider had a similar bird and panther thing you could summon.) It'd be a rather sensible power-upgrade/party building structure, and would certainly lead to more reasonable de-powering than whatever happens to Samus's suit every Metroid game. "Oh, gee, why can't I shoot those far-away targets now?" "Uh... Zebei has a leg cramp. And indigestion. Yeah. Sorry about that."
 
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Denizen said:
Reincarnation plots are just really boring man. It takes away the individuality of characters.
Not necessarily.

Anyway neutral on speculation so far. Too little to go on.
 
Wait, Ajna with Stands, that seems, actually kinda interesting (for me, at least), if they referenced the Rollercoaster from Heritage to the Future, why not making a SM Jojo style game?, sounds awesome.
 
If you want a reincarnation story where each reincarnation is a completely different individual from the previous ones... look at Avatar as a reference (The Martial Arts one not the Space one).

Anyways I can't wait for LZ to show us what they have cooking... because I can't really guess anything based only on what they've shown so far.
 
Story concepts are like game mechanics. Very little (if anything?) is universally bad, or universally tends towards a certain type of gameplay/style/theme, it's more about how it's executed, how it works with the rest of the elements in place, or what kind of spin the creator puts on it.

I tend to dislike time travel stories, but there are some I like, and I can't honestly say "time travel stories suck because they tend to be about x". There's nothing set in stone about what the tone, theme, pace, etc. etc. etc. will be based on whether you use a certain concept or not. So X could be a million different things depending on the story (rendering the statement moot).

How you use something is just as important as what you use IMO.
 
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Hey Vulpes that wasn't cool. Though I do understand that Denizen did open up a derailing vein of off-topic conversation, there was no need. Please take any further off-topic conversations to PMs and let this thread stay on track.
 
Squire Grooktook said:
At least he didn't turn his opinion into a book.
Beautiful
Ktulu said:
Jumper objectively sucks. Though to be fair, I'm not sure if I hate it because it's actually bad or if it's because I was living in a hospital at the time and was super angry at everything.
My memory is a bit fuzzy since it's been years but read the book because it's greatly better than the movie which makes it's own plot up with the book's basic premise as a framework.

RE: Difficulty chat
In general I think Platinum (and formerly Clover Studios) get's difficulty "right", for the most part. Most noteworthy is God Hand's difficulty levels and the "subjective difficulty" meter used during gameplay. The subjective difficulty system is determined by player skill and the better you do the higher your lvl (lvl 1 - lvl 3 and then lvl die). Dealing damage increases the meter and taking damage decreases it but you get better rewards at the end of each stage for maintaining lvl die for as long as you can. And a higher lvl determines how aggressive enemies are, how many enemies will show up, and how much damage you'll take ; so keeping lvl die becomes a no hit run.

And the game uses the subjective difficulty well when mapping out it's primary difficulty settings. Easy caps the max lvl at 2, normal gives you all of them, and hard locks you on lvl Die. So easy mode doesn't mean less health for enemies or less damage from them, just that you don't get to see enemies at their most terrifying. Which is a better alternative to making easy mode a nice walk through the park on a sunday afternoon.

From what I've played of Valkyrie Chronicles (and my past with Super Metroid) I think a static difficulty setting from the outset would be preferable, but some form of subjective difficulty to give skilled players more challenge without relying on side-quests or player enforced conducts would be welcomed. Things like altering what enemies appear in random encounters or introducing slightly different behaviors from enemies.

So basically something like God Hand or what Broken Loose describes about SRW (which reminds me I haven't beaten OG yet)
 
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Reminds me of my Pitfall days. I miss those ruins.
 
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Oh. Zebei, huh? Neat. And he's called an Incarnation. Nice. I mentioned incarnations in an earlier post (though that post was probably WAY off). That word is usually used in Hinduism to refer to refer to the incarnations of Vishnu. I couldn't find anything that looks like it directly links to Zebei, so instead I'll just link an explanation of what avatars/incarnations are in Hinduism, since they obviously are important and will probably appear again.

I will take a guess that Zebei is not a past live of Anja. Like I said, I believe it refers to the Incarnations of Vishnu, and there were a lot of them, even outside of the Primary 10 (the Dashavatara). They could have either had Vishnu directly incarnated His soul (Primary Incarnations/Avatars), or grants an existing person some form of Divine ability (Secondary Incarnations/Avatars). The secondary incarnations are called Saktyaveshavatar, or just Avesha Avatars, and I'm guessing that Zebei is going to be one of those. You can think of them almost like Demi-Gods in Greek Mythology, with some divine power/attribute but not actually being divine.

There's not much else right now. Or, none that I can see.
 
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That's basically what I said but Mike shut me down.
I'm hoping that he's just bluffing so no one finds out

Also I'd like to see some clarification on what culture/religion Ajna is actually supposed to be representing because a lot of people are assuming Hinduism, which is fair considering her name, but the place Alex Ahad hails from is like 90% Buddhist, and although the two have their similarities they're still very different and it's worth asking this question.
Either way it's cool to see that representation in a protagonist.
 
Denizen said:
That's basically what I said but Mike shut me down.
I'm hoping that he's just bluffing so no one finds out
It looks like you guessed at some more specific things, you didn't just say "This is what incarnations are in Hinduism", so idk. Having them directly called incarnations is obviously important, but maybe they'll be implemented differently in game somehow. Either way, excited for more dev blogs to hold me over till September. I'm expecting at least two for the other two characters that appeared right next to Ajna in the trailer?
 
I'm not referring to your vastly superior knowledge of Hinduism, I'm talking about this
Zidiane said:
I will take a guess that Zebei is not a past live of Anja. Like I said, I believe it refers to the Incarnations of Vishnu. They could have either had Vishnu directly incarnated His soul, or grants an existing person some form of Divine ability.
I made the same guess. Not a past life, a manifestation of a god or a weilder of their power. Mine just wasn't based strictly on Hinduism, it was based on what the word means and how it's been used in religions all over the world.
 
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Yeah, and I can't see the reincarnation angle because, logically, how does one coexist in the same era with your past-life? Doesn't one of ya need to be dead to be a "past life"?

Anyways, since Zebei was revealed on August 7th, maybe we'll get another reveal this Friday. Kind of like how Koei gets into a routine reveal schedule for the overflowing cast of Dynasty Warriors/Samurai Warriors series.

Speaking of Zeibei,
Ino9D86.png
The design is fantastic. I like how his bow shares his asymmetrical look. The recurve bow and fur-lined attire makes me think of horse-riding Mongol archers.

Love the studded red padding armor, but I don't understand the purpose. I've seen archer armor like it in history books too. Does an archer's arm need extra protection? My knowledge of archery goes as far as a week of it in gym class. We wore plastic sheaths that protected the inner wrist and forearm of the arm that held the bow. I suppose it was defense against the arrow and string upon release. Perhaps Zebei's padded arm is because he is also a falconer?
 
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BallotBoxer said:
Does an archer's arm need extra protection? We wore plastic sheaths that protected the inner wrist and forearm of the arm that held the bow.
Yes to your question, and yes, inner wrist and forearm need most protecting. My thoughts on the inner wrist not being covered by the padding:
Looking at the glove that he's using to hold the bow, it looks like it's not just a glove, but an entire halfplate or something. It seems to be made of the same material and is the same color as the rest of his arm, so I'm assuming it's one big piece of armor. Leather perhaps. I assume that's what he's using to protect his arm from arrows. As for the red thing...
BallotBoxer said:
Perhaps Zebei's padded arm is because he is also a falconer?
Probably. There's what looks like metal sticking out of it, so I'm going to take a guess and say it's reinforced for even further protection.
Same material is on the bow handle as well. Interesting.
 
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BallotBoxer said:
Love the studded red padding armor, but I don't understand the purpose. I've seen archer armor like it in history books too. Does an archer's arm need extra protection? My knowledge of archery goes as far as a week of it in gym class. We wore plastic sheaths that protected the inner wrist and forearm of the arm that held the bow. I suppose it was defense against the arrow and string upon release. Perhaps Zebei's padded arm is because he is also a falconer?
Archers don't need (or really want) any armor, if they can help it. In the times when this kind of mobile archery was a relevant war technology, it could go through just about any armor, so trying to armor yourself against other archers was almost impossible.

The thing most people think is, "armor," is a combined chest guard + arm guard, which had been used a lot in video games to kind of imply an armored look, but mostly because it was made out of leather in the old days, and leather armor in RPGs is a widespread, universal idea. In reality, the chest guard is only there to ensure a smooth surface for your drawing action, and prevent snagging on loose material, and the arm guard is there to lessen fatigue on your arm (from contact). Ambidextrous shooters would wear a larger chest guard, which would even further confuse modern audiences into thinking it's armor.

Zebei's arm is clearly armored, but it's fantasy armor. That thing would be a nightmare to shoot with (although you can technically get used to anything). It looks cool, though, and this is a videogame :P
 
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Well, hopefully these discussions on religion and armor can be reminders about the challenges of being a good character designer. The original project brief can say "Create a cool fantasy world with archers and stuff," and suddenly the artists are expected to be at least rudimentary experts on mythology, fashion, and military history.

Oh yeah, and they need to be good artists too. Y'know, able to convey lighting, anatomy, texture, volume, expression...all that artsy stuff. No sweat! Certainly these skills couldn't be worth a significant part of a game's development budget, right?

Or I guess the artists could also just default to drawing every character as a 10-year old girl in a frilly lolita dress, but thankfully we're past that point already.
 
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KaboomKid said:
suddenly the artists are expected to be at least rudimentary experts on mythology, fashion, and military history.
I have a lot of admiration and respect for the art team at LZ, they have an incredible amount of talent between them. They are, though, what I would call inside people. Something tells me they're not that worried about portraying old war technology accurately, haha. Artists like to draw cool shit, you know? I mean, "because it's cool," is practically on Alex's business card. I think we're gonna see a lot of artistic liberties taken with blade length, balancing, weight, and the like. I'm not gonna expect any more accuracy in weaponry in Indivisible than I did with fighting styles in Skullgirls :P
 
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Kai said:
I'm not gonna expect any more accuracy in weaponry in Indivisible than I did with fighting styles in Skullgirls :P
Bella's shoe blades are a testament to that.

But here's to hoping the weapons will look freakin' ace.
 
Kai said:
the arm guard is there to lessen fatigue on your arm (from contact).
This implies something different to the reality, even if you didn't mean it. If you're not over-gripping any reasonably-made bow, there will not be any fatigue in the arm you're using to hold it even after extended periods of shooting. The 'contact' bit you mentioned is the real reason - occasionally even really experienced archers will find that on release the string will make contact with their inner forearm, and depending on the draw weight this will result in either taking several layers of skin off or leaving a massive bruise that turns all the pretty colours of the rainbow over the next few weeks.

Of course, as mentioned this has no effect on what needs to be drawn, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
 
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