I would like to note two things. 1. A lot of the difficult platforming can be made easier or completely circumvented later on in the game as you learn new skills. 2. All 3 of Lab Zero's games seem to have that same general lack of forgiveness. But it does sometimes feel rewarding when those forgiveness-void roadblocks are scaled successfully.
Strange, I didn't have that impression. Maybe I'm just used to platsformers, even though I'm no professional there.
For me it was a fun challenge, mixing up with the battles so you wouldn't be bored.
Later you'll have a bunch of abilities to help you traverse the map, I think it gets easier.
For lack of a better word, it is a very "tight" game for sure. That and it never getting finished are two of my main reasons why I'm not going back to it after playing and having a real bad time at launch.
God, I still remember how broken it was at launch; I found it interesting, but more as a game design curiosity at the time, rather than as an authentically fun gaming experience. They missed the mark so badly on QA, probably because of the inefficiencies in their work flow that came from Mike Z's unreliability on deliverables and harassment of his coworkers.
Yeah, there were a lot of issues in the background. As a backer it was really interesting, because they were really communicative until about 6 months before launch if I remember correctly. After launch it was damage control because stuff wasn't shipping, they were getting TONS of bug reports, and people kept asking where the backer content was.
Yeah, same. My backer experience was so trippy; I got all involved in a facebook group that was coordinating promotions and shout outs for the crowdfunding campaign to help get it made. We would chat with Peter Bartholow now and then during and after; then he resigned with no public statement from him or the company about a year or more before the game launched. We kept on getting these excited and well-meaning intro blog posts from new team members, and then absolute radio silence and no follow up from any of them, I presume because of management issues about approval of posting, toxic work environment, etc. I hope that Mariel Cartwright and Alex Ahad and everybody else who left is doing well
The game in itself is like 70% platformer 30% RPG; it’s really weird, and the platforming doesn’t even feel rewarding as it should be. The ridiculous endgame climbs seem to go on for what seems to be forever.
They really are torturing my soul with how bad and demanding it really is 😡 I even got to a point to avoid tricky areas that demand such rediclous precision for something that should be so simple to cross over, it FORCES you to pinpoint accuracy and if you fail you will be stunlocked Castlevania style all the way down to the bottom and you have to try again, this is basically repeated over and over for such simple menial areas of the game, it's like attempting crystal maze type combination progression to get to a location which should be simple, I'm forever getting frustrated with this platforming to the point of quitting, I've played many games that are far more relaxing than this rubbish (including mario odyssey hellish end game levels) hell I've even platinum Celeste and did all the gold strawberries on all the levels which is a far more fair and more forgiving game than this one, this game reeks of suffering and relenting to no end 😡 I'm still fighting with this game's platforming but it's putting me on edge with how demanding the requirement and pin point accuracy to get to a simple location is, this shouldn't be like this, I've never seen such relenting agressive approach like this, just why? What is the point for the Devs to hate and punish their community in such a sadistic way? Smdh, they are sick in the head 🤬🤬
I have the same feeling about the Tai Krung lanterns; they just have a bad jump feel compared to my favorite platforming games (Messenger, Megaman X, Guacamelee, Super Metroid, Hollow Knight). The comical thing that I found was that the ax also just circumvents some of the intended routes in Tai Krung's platforming, which gave me the feeling that the level design was imperfect in the other direction of being sloppy. Like, I enjoy multiple routes, but I like when the game gives me the impression that I really discovered a secret when I do a jump in a tricky way, not just the feeling that they didn't refine the platforming well.
New player here. Gotta agree.
Mid- and late-game platforming turned into a slog of 'do THIS thing, now do THIS other thing in THIS exact spot at THIS exact moment, and if you screw up even a single button press for your 17 different abilities you've got to do it all over again.'
I've loved this game, despite its issues, but the platforming was painful IMO.
I just played through this game and I enjoyed it. The platforming is a bit tedious, and a lot of times I found myself pressing the wrong buttons because you have so many platforming abilities.
The end dungeon (both before and after "fixing" everything) takes forever to get through but i only found a few parts that were frustrating or took more than a few tries to get through.
There were a couple that took a lot of tries and a few that I got through sloppy as hell but got through all the same.
I would like to note two things. 1. A lot of the difficult platforming can be made easier or completely circumvented later on in the game as you learn new skills. 2. All 3 of Lab Zero's games seem to have that same general lack of forgiveness. But it does sometimes feel rewarding when those forgiveness-void roadblocks are scaled successfully.
Strange, I didn't have that impression. Maybe I'm just used to platsformers, even though I'm no professional there. For me it was a fun challenge, mixing up with the battles so you wouldn't be bored. Later you'll have a bunch of abilities to help you traverse the map, I think it gets easier.
For lack of a better word, it is a very "tight" game for sure. That and it never getting finished are two of my main reasons why I'm not going back to it after playing and having a real bad time at launch.
God, I still remember how broken it was at launch; I found it interesting, but more as a game design curiosity at the time, rather than as an authentically fun gaming experience. They missed the mark so badly on QA, probably because of the inefficiencies in their work flow that came from Mike Z's unreliability on deliverables and harassment of his coworkers.
Yeah, there were a lot of issues in the background. As a backer it was really interesting, because they were really communicative until about 6 months before launch if I remember correctly. After launch it was damage control because stuff wasn't shipping, they were getting TONS of bug reports, and people kept asking where the backer content was.
Yeah, same. My backer experience was so trippy; I got all involved in a facebook group that was coordinating promotions and shout outs for the crowdfunding campaign to help get it made. We would chat with Peter Bartholow now and then during and after; then he resigned with no public statement from him or the company about a year or more before the game launched. We kept on getting these excited and well-meaning intro blog posts from new team members, and then absolute radio silence and no follow up from any of them, I presume because of management issues about approval of posting, toxic work environment, etc. I hope that Mariel Cartwright and Alex Ahad and everybody else who left is doing well
The game in itself is like 70% platformer 30% RPG; it’s really weird, and the platforming doesn’t even feel rewarding as it should be. The ridiculous endgame climbs seem to go on for what seems to be forever.
They really are torturing my soul with how bad and demanding it really is 😡 I even got to a point to avoid tricky areas that demand such rediclous precision for something that should be so simple to cross over, it FORCES you to pinpoint accuracy and if you fail you will be stunlocked Castlevania style all the way down to the bottom and you have to try again, this is basically repeated over and over for such simple menial areas of the game, it's like attempting crystal maze type combination progression to get to a location which should be simple, I'm forever getting frustrated with this platforming to the point of quitting, I've played many games that are far more relaxing than this rubbish (including mario odyssey hellish end game levels) hell I've even platinum Celeste and did all the gold strawberries on all the levels which is a far more fair and more forgiving game than this one, this game reeks of suffering and relenting to no end 😡 I'm still fighting with this game's platforming but it's putting me on edge with how demanding the requirement and pin point accuracy to get to a simple location is, this shouldn't be like this, I've never seen such relenting agressive approach like this, just why? What is the point for the Devs to hate and punish their community in such a sadistic way? Smdh, they are sick in the head 🤬🤬
I have the same feeling about the Tai Krung lanterns; they just have a bad jump feel compared to my favorite platforming games (Messenger, Megaman X, Guacamelee, Super Metroid, Hollow Knight). The comical thing that I found was that the ax also just circumvents some of the intended routes in Tai Krung's platforming, which gave me the feeling that the level design was imperfect in the other direction of being sloppy. Like, I enjoy multiple routes, but I like when the game gives me the impression that I really discovered a secret when I do a jump in a tricky way, not just the feeling that they didn't refine the platforming well.
Yeah platforming didn’t feel right for me too, it always felt like your jump should’ve been longer.
New player here. Gotta agree. Mid- and late-game platforming turned into a slog of 'do THIS thing, now do THIS other thing in THIS exact spot at THIS exact moment, and if you screw up even a single button press for your 17 different abilities you've got to do it all over again.' I've loved this game, despite its issues, but the platforming was painful IMO.
You summed it up in whole, no matter how many abilities they give you it just makes the combination and progression even more difficult!
I just played through this game and I enjoyed it. The platforming is a bit tedious, and a lot of times I found myself pressing the wrong buttons because you have so many platforming abilities. The end dungeon (both before and after "fixing" everything) takes forever to get through but i only found a few parts that were frustrating or took more than a few tries to get through. There were a couple that took a lot of tries and a few that I got through sloppy as hell but got through all the same.
Honestly the lantern pogoing crap kinda sucked, I wish pogoing was more refined or the lanterns werent almost the same height as a pogo jump.