Tags
character, mechanics, music, romance, story, Stray Gods, voiceacting
Minor spoilers for some story in Stray Gods
Butch:
Got a song in! Lost Girls. I liked it!
I made choices and I immediately regret them all.
Mostly my thought is, how in the hell did they DO THIS? That would’ve been a good musical song had it been linear. I’m kind of in awe.
Loothound:
Yeah, once you get used to the song mechanic it’s pretty interesting stuff. I played last night and had a song battle with Persephone that was really interesting to navigate.
You’re right, Butch, so many choices in this game to regret. I’ve latched on to two core principles for my character so far:
1) I kick ass (chewing bubble gum optional)
2) Disregard Pan as much as possible
Oops, forgot one.
3) Try as hard as possible to romance that brooding sack of abs, Apollo.
Butch:
Is Apollo my type, though?
I’ve fallen into the same romantic trap I fall into in so many games. I want to romance myself.
Yeah, Pan (who is voiced by the dude who does Cyborg on Teen Titans Go!) is up to something. I chose to stick with Freddie and to go to the apartment (which I haven’t done yet) alone. That said, Pan could be helpful, him being a God and all.
With the mechanic, I’m trying to figure out if picking the colored but not locked choices in the songs matters. The red green blue thing obviously corresponds to charming, kick ass, clever, but they are all open as options in songs. Is that just telling us what is charming or clever? Or is there some meter we’re filling without knowing?
Also, a bit of a tangent, but I want to get the thought out before Friday makes me stupid. I think the art direction is making things, at least vocally, more realistic. Hear me out.
The voice acting in this is incredible, yes? Sure, they have some real heavy hitters doing it, and talent goes a long way. That said, I think the fact that the characters aren’t fully animated helps the actors. Even outside of the singing, there seems to be more subtlety, nuance and overall depth to the performances than one usually gets. That may well just be talent, sure, but I also think maybe there’s some technical aspect to it. Even with mocapped games, there must be some technical limitations to lining up voice to animation. We’re not (quite) at a point where we can just point a camera at an actor like a movie. I think, with this game, saying “Well, we’re not even going to try to line up voices with facial animations,” it frees up these talented actors to just let loose and do their proverbial thing. I do believe the game benefits from it.
Loothound:
<<Several seconds of blank eyed vacancy>>>
Huh? Oh, right. Yeah, the color coding on the options does seem to correspond to the general attributes of charming, clever, and kick-ass so that the option more or less reflects those attitudes. The restricted options look like they present as being the more intense versions of those attitudes that spring from your choice at the beginning. That’s really nice, because it allows you to kind of feel your way through the songs, rather than having to parse the words they present. Came in handy against Persephone.
You’re absolutely right that the simplified visuals allow the voice and song work to take center stage in the story. The drawing style feels intentionally very basic, and that’s may be why. It reminds me of what all cartoons looked like back when the public first got its hands on Macromedia Flash. The way the tools draw has a pretty distinctive look to it.
Which again begs the question, what the hell are they using Unreal Engine for in this game?
Butch:
Man, I don’t know. Technical this technical that. Maybe just familiarity. Everyone knows it. Hell, even Nugget has been messing around with it.
Feminina:
Seriously, what the hell? Did they just have it hanging around and figured it was easier than figuring out some other game engine, even though they’re using basically none of its lauded features? I mean, whatever, it’s obviously no skin off our noses, I know nothing about game engines, and I’m sure they have their reasons. It’s not like it’s a BAD thing. It’s just odd.
Also, I agree that the voices do seem a bit extra-intense, and yeah, not having to try to match animation might be part of this (although I also know nothing about acting). Maybe, also, it’s partly that we can focus more on the voices with the minimal nature of the animation? Our eyes aren’t watching for subtle changes in facial expression, and so our ears can really tune into the vocal expression? Either way, excellent work being done by the voices here.
Also, I regret none of my choices! But I’m making a bunch of different ones anyway.
Butch:
You know me. In every game I play, I make a choice and instantly regret it. Don’t even know what the consequences are. I just regret.
I can feel my therapist looking at me and she isn’t even here.
Feminina:
I think it’s the completionist urge. I always want to collect everything, if there are shards or animus fragments or moldy flags scattered around, and in a similar way I always want to know every decision outcome. Like collecting story branches.
Even when some of them just feel wrong…like playing Shepard as a jerk.
Loothound:
Yes, the simplified art and lack of a lot of motion really lets the voices shine, but it also requires a lot more patience for letting things unfold than most games do. Totally intentionally, on the designer’s part. None of the buttons seem to let you skip scenes or dialog like other games let you do.
Feminina:
Very true!
“We recorded this dialogue, and you’re damn well going to listen to it.”
But also, yes, it allows/forces you to pay attention to what’s being said and how the story is unfolding.
Let’s also note that, as a musical, it has a very compact set of environments like what you’d get in a stage production, and there’s no combat, which again means that the majority of what happens is verbal and musical rather than being ‘action’.
Butch:
It does have tight environments! Really, it’s all laid out as stage. Gym set. Apartment set. Office set. Change it back to apartment set.
I think, even the details are meant to evoke a stage set. Most of Grace’s posters are rather blurry. They have details, sure, (Mike Django! Live!) but they’re vague. It’s stage dressing. You go to see a play, and you get the dressing enough to know “She has rock posters on the wall,” but it’s not as precise as being able to walk up to the poster and stare at it like you can in a game like Cyberpunk. The art feels stage like. Cool.
Loothound:
That’s what everything was reminding me of, stage dressing! I was noticing the poster thing, too (and the refrigerator magnets) and thinking how generic it all felt.
The nice thing about a game without a fully modeled 3D environment is that you can draw every scene with a specific composition. That graphic novel feel really comes through.
Feminina:
Yeah, and no one really interacts with the backdrops in significant ways…characters sit and lean on things, but there really aren’t any objects that are particularly important to the story: no loot to collect, no equipment to upgrade. Everything is about the characters in the scenes.
Heck, you could use the game as a script/guide for actually staging this musical.
Butch:
It also feels almost intentionally amateurish, too. Maybe it’s because the characters are all young or I did too much stage design in high school, but it almost feels like the “dressing” was like the stage manager was all “OK, we need some posters. What do we have lying around in the shop?” Even in subtle ways, like, did you notice Grace’s couch was this rather pea soup green that didn’t really jibe with the pinks and oranges of the apartment? Almost like what we used to do in high school: “Well…we have this couch out back, and we have this paint left over from the last show and not enough money to buy more. Good enough.”
Even the “costumes!” A high school/college production would be all “OK, you’re Pan. You’re a god. How can we do that cheap and easy? Hmm. Here, smack these horns on your head.”
Maybe intentional? Hopefully. It certainly does give it a “you are watching a play” feel.
Feminina:
Oh, I think definitely intentional. The ‘musical’ vibe is strong. Though also, the fact that Grace’s couch doesn’t match the rest of the room suggests that she and Freddy are young and starting out and probably got the couch on Freecycle rather than spending a lot of time thinking about the aesthetics of the apartment, so there can be more than one reason it works.
In a sort of meta way, the fact that the Idols are all former ordinary humans who have been ‘cast’ in the role of gods also works with the idea of a stage production. Anyone could play these parts, but these are the people who were around at the right time and did well in the audition, or whatever.
And speaking of roles, and Pan, I actually like Pan, but I was thinking about him and his horns and his goat-pupiled eyes, and presumably he didn’t look like that when he first took on the role, right? If the last Pan died and passed on his eidolon, the way Calliope did with Grace – Grace still looks the same, so apparently this process of becoming an Idol normally doesn’t involve a physical transformation. And all the rest of the Idols look like humans.
So maybe it’s part of Pan’s power that he grows horns and weird eyes, like it’s the muse’s power to make people burst into song? Which is interesting because it suggests that part of his nature is this particular physical appearance, and his powers, whatever they may be (finding things out, moving behind the scenes), are tied into that…of course, traditionally most of the Greek gods are in fact presented as looking human while Pan is not, so they’re drawing on custom there, but I thought it was interesting that they retained the ‘animal’ features in this case where there are not really any examples of other supernatural physical qualities to the characters.
Hermes doesn’t have winged shoes, Apollo doesn’t have a sun chariot, etc. (Athena does have an owl!) Why does Pan have the horns, which seem to be physical objects growing out of his physical head in a way that is not at all normal for a human?
We shall probably never know, and we don’t really need to know, I was just wondering.
Butch:
Well, he does say “You see them because I let you see them,” so maybe everyone else is not letting us see other things. Except Apollo. He’s letting it all hang out.
Feminina:
This is true. There may be other visible things that are hidden by glamours…like Grace’s glowing eyes when she uses her powers. Maybe Hermes just doesn’t choose to reveal the heel wings.
Butch:
Well, when you’re a bike messenger, heel wings would probably get in the way of the pedals.
Feminina:
I’m just imagining little feathers getting caught in the chain…very uncomfortable.
Loothound:
Probably.
Another thing I noticed is the way that different characters appear in the scenes. It looks like the scenery artwork is set up so that the drawings of the characters you’re with can be inserted separately. Like, I had Apollo with me when I went to the club, and the way he was in a lot of the shots made it look like the artwork for whichever character I might have been siding with at the time. It could have been Pan, or anyone else, and the drawings would just be swapped.
Butch:
Ooo! Good point. I guess I’m at a point I could’ve been there with either Freddie or Pan.
Game has a lot going on for a little indie game.
Feminina:
Club…Freddie or Pan…OK, I’m getting mixed up on where people are. Butch, you were in Calliope’s apartment? Or you’re getting ready to go there?
But yeah, maybe you could go there with either Freddie or Pan depending on how that song turned out when Pan showed up. I sided with Freddie once, and once played it right down the middle “I’m not picking sides, do you two want to help me or not?!”
They both turned out the same way in that Pan did not accompany me to Calliope’s apartment, but maybe he would have if I’d leaned into his side of the song.
Butch:
Just about to go to calliope’s apartment. You could take someone. I think.
Feminina:
Ah, very good.
Yeah, if I play it again I will have to wholeheartedly side with Pan just to see what happens with various things. I have not done that because I don’t trust him (and also, Freddie is my best friend!), but I find his shtick mostly more entertaining than annoying, seemingly opposite to Loothound’s experience, so I could see going that way. And I bet different stuff will happen.
Loothound:
Yeah. I went to the apartment by myself, and there were definitely multiple different people I could have had with me at the nightclub. Who accompanies you on things is definitely a consequence of the choices you make at certain points. I really want to discuss the song choice thing again when everyone has met with Persephone.
Butch:
Because I am always interested when I get a trophy, I checked the one I got last night. It was for “Side with Freddy.” The breakdown in people who had them was about 60% Freddie, 20 each for Pan and alone. Of course, that counts multiple playthroughs, but there ya go. Freddie seems the popular choice.
Feminina:
I mean, from a role-playing perspective it makes sense. Freddie is your best friend, you’re in a band together, you share an apartment – siding with some random goat-horned dude you just met instead of her doesn’t make a lot of emotional sense.
Of course one can argue that he knows about the Idols and is therefore a much more useful ally for this particular situation than is Freddie, a mortal who knows even less than you do, so I think from a practical standpoint, it’s a reasonable choice to say “Freddie doesn’t know this world, so I’m going to go along with this guy and see if he can help.”
Still, not surprised most people don’t pick the purely practical in the middle of an intense sing-off.
Loothound:
See, that’s kind of how I ended up going alone. Don’t trust Pan, don’t want Freddie to get hurt if any idol violence were to occur. I know there’s not much violence in this game (except for a murder), but still…
Feminina:
Ha—yeah, I just said to the kids that “it’s not violent, you could play it if you wanted”…other than that bloody murder aspect…
But, you know, it’s graphic novel bloody murder. They’ve seen way worse.
I don’t think they were very interested anyway.
But that is definitely a logical approach as well. Don’t want to drag my best friend into it, don’t trust weird dude I just met.
Butch:
Yeah, I’m a little worried about Freddie. The Chorus ain’t fucking around.
Feminina:
Yeah, Pan was all “she’s not the mortal world, is she?” and that’s all very well for him to say, but is Athena going to be that chill about it?
Butch:
Unless…..
Nah, don’t spoil.
Feminina:
I’ll do my best.
Just be prepared for some bananas when Desmond Miles shows up as a Gray Warden who has Johnny Silverhand on a chip in his head and…I’ve said too much.
Butch:
Pfft, you’re not spoiling. Totally saw that coming.
Feminina:
Fair. There was some pretty obvious foreshadowing with that whole “I hope Desmond Miles doesn’t show up as a Gray Warden who has Johnny Silverhand on a chip in his head” musical number.
Butch:
Very unsubtle foreshadowing, that.
Though, must admit, I didn’t think they could pull off a tap dance routine to those lyrics and DAMN did they pull it off.
Loothound:
Yeah, totally saw it coming. Even the tap dance.
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