Thread title, and if so, what are your examples? Show your work, credit will not be given if you do not show your work. Since this is your final exam and worth 70% of your grade, I recommend you show your work.
Context: some friends bought Godfall on Epic Game Store and I was like YOLO sure let's play together (since we're basically done with MonHun World and that was our big multiplayer game). Godfall itself is...ya know, fine? Let's break it down.
- It's nominally a 3rd person action game with a ton of flashy effects and attacks. It looks great, but there's lots of technical issues (with the PC release at least) that hamper that (lots of frame drops and freezing and stuttering). The environments themselves look fantastic, but there's only (again, impressive looking) three areas and missions just have you go to small sections of each larger region. Think Twilight Princess' overworld areas and imagine selecting a mission from a menu that just has you explore one particular corner, and maybe that's a close approximation. tl;dr: looks great, but with technical issues and limited scale and scope.
- The story is a complete afterthought; it's the magical space future and hey; you're some guy in a lion robot suit. Your brother is another guy in a robot dog suit, and he's doing...uh...stuff that's bad so he can do space magic and become a God. You walk through a level that looks like it was ripped from Warframe and find Female Zordon and she's like hey we gotta go...like...fight the bad guy. And that's it. There's one line of dialogue mid-mission that is "You are walking through an old ruin." And that's it. Nothing before or after that. Like...no shit, I knew that? tl;dr: the story is an afterthought, only there because something has to glue everything together. There is dialogue and the voice actors are fine and everything is competent, but there's literally only 2 NPCs in the entire game so it just adds up to not really much of anything.
- The game is a "looter slasher", in other words a loot driven game like Destiny or...that Tom Clancy game? The Division? The one about Washington DC getting blown up that Ubisoft said "wasn't political". That one. Anyway. It's a loot driven game, and the way gear interacts with one another is satisfying. Uh, except for when you pick up a piece that's completely useless or gives a minor buff in an insanely specific circumstance and it's like...why does this exist. There's also skill trees (that can mercifully be changed for free at any time...more games should do this!) and augments you can equip that give you bonuses. Lastly there's 12 different suits to pick from...but the suits themselves are all mostly the same, only offering slight differences between how you would play (most suits just give you a 10% chance to inflict a particular status effect and that's it...and all status effects are just DoT effects and nothing else, so you basically pick a suit that matches your weapon's element damage and that's it). tl;dr: there's a lot of progression systems, and most are satisfying, but some are just complete blunders and there are some suits and mods that feel completely inconsequential.
- Lastly the combat is fun and actually kinda deep once you get all the special moves unlocked. There's a lot of things to keep track of; fighting multiple enemies, with blue power attacks that need to be parried and red ones that need to be dodged or interrupted with one SPECIFIC move that requires a gauge to build up...a gauge that also powers multiple other attacks too. There's also weapon techniques that are powered by one or two other gauges depending on the weapon class, a Devil Trigger style power up, special attacks that require proper input timing, dodge attacks, parries (with super generous timing) and blocks, a powered up state based on attacking non-stop, a way to power up your shield that you can use to power up certain attacks (and lose the buff in the process)...it's all just...a lot to take in, but pretty fun! ...that said, the game is easy even on "Hard", and I haven't gotten to the true end game yet but I'm not 100% sure it'll keep my attention for long. Which is fine; it's not a live service game and not meant to last forever. But the combat feels good enough that they maybe could've squeezed some more out of it and just...didn't. tl;dr the combat is great but there's kinda just...like, not a lot to DO with it. The story is short and the endgame is one of two modes that have limited lifespan.
So! I submit to you all: Godfall is a triple B game.
It looks great, but has technical problems. The levels are gorgeous, but small and repetitive. The combat is great, but the game is short and it's over before you can fully realize it's potential. The progression systems are fun, except for the (major) ones that are nearly irrelevant. The story/presentation is competent but completely inconsequential. The game LOOKS (dare I say it) "next gen" at first glance, but if you stick around for even a few minutes you immediately begin to see cracks in the facade. It LOOKS like a big triple AAA polished experience, and since it's a launch PS5 title is was pushed to be that by the marketing guys...but it clearly is a smaller scope game made by a small team that has maybe or maybe not pulled it off.
FWIW I'm having fun with it, but I just keep coming back to the idea of it being a "triple B game". It's something I called it completely off the cuff and I can't help but feel like it makes complete sense. Am I crazy? Is this a thing? Are there other triple B games?!
Last word: if nothing else, this game has two innovations that I love. The aforementioned free respecing of your skill tree at any time, and unskippable cutscenes...that you can open the (now slightly opaque so you can still see the cutscene) menu during and fuss about with your inventory during. If you're gonna have unskippable cutscenes, this is the way to do it. Let me play inventory Tetris while Zordon talks about...I dunno, crystals.
Context: some friends bought Godfall on Epic Game Store and I was like YOLO sure let's play together (since we're basically done with MonHun World and that was our big multiplayer game). Godfall itself is...ya know, fine? Let's break it down.
- It's nominally a 3rd person action game with a ton of flashy effects and attacks. It looks great, but there's lots of technical issues (with the PC release at least) that hamper that (lots of frame drops and freezing and stuttering). The environments themselves look fantastic, but there's only (again, impressive looking) three areas and missions just have you go to small sections of each larger region. Think Twilight Princess' overworld areas and imagine selecting a mission from a menu that just has you explore one particular corner, and maybe that's a close approximation. tl;dr: looks great, but with technical issues and limited scale and scope.
- The story is a complete afterthought; it's the magical space future and hey; you're some guy in a lion robot suit. Your brother is another guy in a robot dog suit, and he's doing...uh...stuff that's bad so he can do space magic and become a God. You walk through a level that looks like it was ripped from Warframe and find Female Zordon and she's like hey we gotta go...like...fight the bad guy. And that's it. There's one line of dialogue mid-mission that is "You are walking through an old ruin." And that's it. Nothing before or after that. Like...no shit, I knew that? tl;dr: the story is an afterthought, only there because something has to glue everything together. There is dialogue and the voice actors are fine and everything is competent, but there's literally only 2 NPCs in the entire game so it just adds up to not really much of anything.
- The game is a "looter slasher", in other words a loot driven game like Destiny or...that Tom Clancy game? The Division? The one about Washington DC getting blown up that Ubisoft said "wasn't political". That one. Anyway. It's a loot driven game, and the way gear interacts with one another is satisfying. Uh, except for when you pick up a piece that's completely useless or gives a minor buff in an insanely specific circumstance and it's like...why does this exist. There's also skill trees (that can mercifully be changed for free at any time...more games should do this!) and augments you can equip that give you bonuses. Lastly there's 12 different suits to pick from...but the suits themselves are all mostly the same, only offering slight differences between how you would play (most suits just give you a 10% chance to inflict a particular status effect and that's it...and all status effects are just DoT effects and nothing else, so you basically pick a suit that matches your weapon's element damage and that's it). tl;dr: there's a lot of progression systems, and most are satisfying, but some are just complete blunders and there are some suits and mods that feel completely inconsequential.
- Lastly the combat is fun and actually kinda deep once you get all the special moves unlocked. There's a lot of things to keep track of; fighting multiple enemies, with blue power attacks that need to be parried and red ones that need to be dodged or interrupted with one SPECIFIC move that requires a gauge to build up...a gauge that also powers multiple other attacks too. There's also weapon techniques that are powered by one or two other gauges depending on the weapon class, a Devil Trigger style power up, special attacks that require proper input timing, dodge attacks, parries (with super generous timing) and blocks, a powered up state based on attacking non-stop, a way to power up your shield that you can use to power up certain attacks (and lose the buff in the process)...it's all just...a lot to take in, but pretty fun! ...that said, the game is easy even on "Hard", and I haven't gotten to the true end game yet but I'm not 100% sure it'll keep my attention for long. Which is fine; it's not a live service game and not meant to last forever. But the combat feels good enough that they maybe could've squeezed some more out of it and just...didn't. tl;dr the combat is great but there's kinda just...like, not a lot to DO with it. The story is short and the endgame is one of two modes that have limited lifespan.
So! I submit to you all: Godfall is a triple B game.
It looks great, but has technical problems. The levels are gorgeous, but small and repetitive. The combat is great, but the game is short and it's over before you can fully realize it's potential. The progression systems are fun, except for the (major) ones that are nearly irrelevant. The story/presentation is competent but completely inconsequential. The game LOOKS (dare I say it) "next gen" at first glance, but if you stick around for even a few minutes you immediately begin to see cracks in the facade. It LOOKS like a big triple AAA polished experience, and since it's a launch PS5 title is was pushed to be that by the marketing guys...but it clearly is a smaller scope game made by a small team that has maybe or maybe not pulled it off.
FWIW I'm having fun with it, but I just keep coming back to the idea of it being a "triple B game". It's something I called it completely off the cuff and I can't help but feel like it makes complete sense. Am I crazy? Is this a thing? Are there other triple B games?!
Last word: if nothing else, this game has two innovations that I love. The aforementioned free respecing of your skill tree at any time, and unskippable cutscenes...that you can open the (now slightly opaque so you can still see the cutscene) menu during and fuss about with your inventory during. If you're gonna have unskippable cutscenes, this is the way to do it. Let me play inventory Tetris while Zordon talks about...I dunno, crystals.