I know Ajna is going to have a hub world inside her own head that she can access at anytime. But I was wondering if it would be a good idea to restrict that ability during certain points in the game? To sorta give a stress effect on a player and to make things a bit more diverse. like while inside a more dangerous and risky labyrinth, or during a game changing event.
I am curious why it is people seem to think we don't think of anything. :^P
Yes, it will be restricted when in "high stress" situations, and obviously not cutscenes etc.
Since we're on the topic of magic: I've seen people ask whether special attacks are going to cut into a "cinematic" like
here or largely stay the way they are in the prototype, any info on that?
I personally dislike cinematics. VP contributed a lot to that, as did FF7/SF4/Xrd/etc. They look cool once or twice, they take a huge amount of effort to make, and after those few views you really just want to skip them. Something over 50% of most fights in VP is watching the same cinematics over and over.
Wild ARMs 4 did amazingly with both all the critical attack animations and Yulie's summons, where there is an alternate "short" version if you skip it.
But at that point, as a developer, why waste time making a long one?
None of this means no cinematics, since it's not just my opinion that matters. But if it's up to me, creating something player are just going to want to skip means you should look for an alternate solution.
I'd rather do them like (non-cinematic) supers in fighting games: Some unique stuff happens but you can still attack with other characters in the meantime, and you are not locked out of doing anything else. I mean we can do backgrounds and effects and stuff, but the goal would be something you don't feel you're just waiting through again and again...which is why the supers in the prototype are the way they are, animation reuse notwithstanding.
To illustrate my point, Belenus' Finishing Strike
and Argrim's
These are 11-12 seconds long. They look cool as heck. Arngrim's feels pretty snazzy and Belenus' is very classy.
They are both EXCRUCIATING later on in the game.
Don't get me started on Nibelung Valesti III or Meteor Swarm. You end up using Meteor Swarm instead of Celestial Star even though it does less damage, just because it's faster.
Look how long this takes. Now imagine doing that full sequence multiple times per boss fight for the last 40% of the game.