Some vague spoilers for Jusant
Butch:
Hey! I actually played!
Finished chapter 3. Climbed a lot, probably missed a ton as I didn’t find any frescoes or altars or seashells. I don’t know how I’m missing stuff! I feel like I’m poking around in every nook and cranny. I certainly have found a ton of those cairns, which are totally uninteresting, but I’m missing the good stuff and I know I’m missing the good stuff. Grumble.
Anyway, got to the bit where I blew a horn in front of a bigassed wheel, saw a huge bug, saw what I think is a ballast in the air, went into a cave. As one does.
One inconsistency I’m seeing (granted, this is a hard one to get around when there’s no dialog) is whether our character knows what’s going on. Sometimes we see wide eyed surprise and hear little gasps, sometimes he just looks at huge spinning golden wheels that are activated by magical horns and is totally unfazed. The first time he saw a climby bug he was all “Ohhhhh!” (I know this as I restarted that checkpoint a dozen times), but he’s totally cool with this weird wheel?
I’m confused.
Also, kid, I just climbed up a bigassed wall, dealt with that fucking windmill, we found this wheel and we’re just going to not investigate it at all and go through a hole in the wall???
I’m confused.
I will say I noticed that the notes from the past here seem less resigned and more angry. We’re seeing some class divisions now, small farms not getting water and being angry that larger farms are. Seems all was not well in years past. Hmm.
Feminina:
Yeah, it’s not at all clear what this kid knows or doesn’t know. Are we astonished? Terrified? Doesn’t seem like it. Even the surprise is more a gentle sort of “ooh, cool!” than a “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT???!!!”
This is just a very chill kid.
Mellow vibes, man.
Butch:
He seems to know less than someone who was sent there to do a job would know, is the thing. There is no “Why yes, this is the golden wheel of Very Important Things. I know it from my training.”
Or maybe he does know all about it and knows it isn’t important at all or something. Dammit, I want to know what that fucking wheel is!
Feminina:
My kind of mental background story is that he was assigned to do a job (“go up the tower”) that no one has done before within the memory of whatever community he was a part of, so there’s no real instruction manual. So he’s kind of winging it, but also knows from ancient legends or whatever that there are a lot of weird things along the way, so when he runs into something weird he’s not that worked up about it.
Maybe the fact that he seems to be a kid is part of it too. Kids have limited experience and so they can accept wild stuff more casually than adults who might have their expectations shaped by a long period of being alive in a world without those weird things.
“Giant wheel, whatever—does it look like it will help me get further up the tower? No? Then hell with it.”
Butch:
Hm. He is a kid, that he is. He is certainly winging it as well.
That said, there must be something special about him because he has some degree of connection to the ballast. I’ve found letters that mention that the ballasts are mythical, so these aren’t things that just anyone has in their backpack, but the kid can put the ballast on his head and see useless circles.
NEW SENTENCE!
So he’s not just some random dude.
I’m so confused.
Feminina:
Yeah, he may well be a Chosen One – the only kid who can work with the ballast and accompany it on its mission to reach the top of the tower. Maybe this is why he glows!–although since we never see any other people, for all we know, everyone glows.
Butch:
It’s funny because Dontnod is usually known for rather fleshed out narratives. Even if the play styles differ, and they do, we don’t usually say “for all we know” more than the usual bananas that one gets in games. Things are usually pretty clear.
“Not to me. Why am I eating these rats?”
Fuck off, Johnathan.
Loothound:
Maybe the limited range of expressions is the company not wanting to have to animate a bunch of face stuff. Sort of like we said about the Visitors in Ghostwire, a financial decision can be disguised as an aesthetic decision. It’s fine, though.
Yeah, where did this kid come from? Is he a descendent of the people who fled the tower long ago? I started out thinking that the kid’s mission was to explore the tower, and the blob was just his companion. As I read more, though, I got to feeling that the blob was the point of the mission, and exploring the tower was just what was in the way. Ballasts are definitely part of the lore of these people. Being a chosen one definitely makes sense, otherwise it’s hard to imagine sending a kid to do this stuff.
Also, as far as the hard to find collectibles go, I have to keep reminding myself that you can set your first climbing anchor just about anywhere. Going through, it’s easy to identify the build in attachments points and you just sort of get used to going for those. You could start a rope climb just about anywhere, though, and I think that’s how you get to the more out of the way stuff. So sort of like, climb out as far as you can on something, do a double jump attach in mid air thing, then swing to your next fixed climb point to find the goodie. Given how tricky some of the story climbs are, that wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Butch:
Damn, you’re right. I keep forgetting that. I keep looking for fixed rope points and/or vines. I found a vine yesterday, and climbed it (as one does) thinking “This must be here for a reason,” found no reason and abandoned it. I bet I should’ve done as you say.
Damn.
Feminina:
Yes, that is a key point: you can start climbing from pretty much anywhere. Also about the budget and the aesthetic choices likely being related. It is surely cheaper to do a game with this level of animation, and no doubt that’s a factor in why it’s even possible to make something so relatively small and low-key.
And yet it also works just fine.
Butch:
I wish they had invested ten, twenty more bucks in the quest markers.
Just sayin’.
Feminina:
OK, if it’s quest markers or save points, which would you have preferred they splurge on? I would say save points.
Now I’m wondering what they did actually spend that money on…what is legitimately more important than save points and quest markers if you’re crunching the budget numbers?
Maybe an extra twist in the basic mechanics, just to keep things fresh.
Butch:
SAVE POINTS.
Fuck, letting me make manual saves.
Loothound:
Save points, save points, save points, add infinitum, and absurdum, as nauseum, all of the ad Latin things. Don’t the Naughty Dog games all auto save whenever you find a collectible. DO THAT! It’s already saving that you got the goodie, we can see the damn icon, so save the progress. DONE!
Cost point: no voices means no paying voice actors. They didn’t skimp on the physics and mechanics of swinging and climbing, that’s for sure.
Feminina:
Seriously, save points.
Feel free to overwrite all previous save data if you must in order to keep it under whatever limit you have! I don’t need to reload old saves here!
Butch:
I bet Baldur’s Gate has quest markers and save points.
I bet the new AC game spent all its money on markers.
Loothound:
Oh, yeah, AC Shadows. Finally got to check out the trailer, and I like the two character thing. It worked well in Syndicate (which brought me back into the franchise after being completely off the damn games), and I’m glad we’ll get to play as both a ninja and a samurai. I’d hate to have to choose. Looks like they made some interesting choices, but I really like the era they’ve chosen to set it in.
Butch:
Indeed. I’m in. Should be pretty, too, as it’s the first AC game that skipped PS4/X1. Even Mirage released for PS4.
Should be fun.
Play First. Talk Later. 