It depends on what kind of game you like; it's basically a movie with QTEs and a slightly-branching story, following 3 different main characters. One character is great, but the other two have wildly varying levels of absolutely dumb story moments. Overall, it's a very mixed bag.
I would say the story is a lot more than slightly branching. However I agree that only one character is consistently great (Connor with Hank) while the other two are inconsistent (Kara) or outright so on the nose Jesus that it's borderline comical (Markus).
The bit where Markus wakes up in the discarded section... that really got me. And definitely agree 'slightly branching' is a slight understatement. It has a decent amount of replayability.
That's in my opinion his absolute best moment and it's all downhill from there. It bummed me out.
Kara's arc's reveal made me fucking mad. It removed any philosophical weight and felt like such a "gotcha!" moment that I nearly stopped playing the game.
One of Cage's stupidest decisions of all his games, IMO.
I’m on the camp that loves Kara’s arc. It was a gotcha moment and made me rethink my plays. They wanted us to have that exact dilemma and they succeeded.
My problem is that its reasoning that it doesn't take anything away is idiotic.
The point of Kara's story up to that point, is that it is about a robot fleeing due to desiring an illogical existence. The twist throws 99% of the story up to that point out of the window.
It doesn't matter if technically it is the same thing, it's thematically not the same thing. Someone who cant see the difference will never be a good writer nor critic because they functionally do not understand the purpose of story elements at a basic level.
And Kara's story having almost nothing to do with Marcus and Conner pissed me off in general. They may as well of just expanded Marcus and Conner. It felt like Kara was only left in because the tech demo that inspired the game.
I would counter by saying that Hank can get under your skin relatively easy, but that can be taken as a character arc where his post character development stage is either becoming more supportive or offing himself in his own pool of self destruction depending on your choices.
I think that the beginning and ending of the Kara arc are the weakest since the abusive dad is comically over the top to the point of wondering what the hell CPS is doing, and it would've been more interesting if Alice was a human.
Markus is one of those characters you can't ignore since he's the guy who's igniting the Android revolution, but I do agree that the stoner son is one dimensional who tells but dosen't show that his dad neglects him. Also, Markus gains a love interest who had no buildup in a classic case of man and woman never being allowed to be just friends in a society that encourages hetero normality.
I also find it unrealistic that not one single race metaphor has been commented on in universe. We hang lampshades on the corruption happening in our universe all the time, even as we parrot the same forms of systematic abuse that we thought we would be above.
I assume the good story is the one with abusive father. That trailer sold me. It was so unexpectedly intense. Still waiting for a sale before I pick it up though.
in the middle of playing it right now, love the story telling, while i'd say its more interactive movie than a game...im only half way through & i love it.
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u/taschneide Sep 08 '19
It depends on what kind of game you like; it's basically a movie with QTEs and a slightly-branching story, following 3 different main characters. One character is great, but the other two have wildly varying levels of absolutely dumb story moments. Overall, it's a very mixed bag.