So that trigger warning at the beginning that mentioned “highly sensitive subjects” in the story? In this part, we find out that one of the sensitive subjects is the implication of rape and child molestation. Not sure why they didn’t just say it in the warning, but I guess I’ll fill that in for them.
Source
They really should've had this whole Thomas/Richard plot be separated from the Marianne/Sadness plot. Maybe have half the game follow Marianne and set up all the characters then have the other half be played as Thomas exploring the relationships between them. As it is I don't hate it but they really screwed up all the pacing by doing it in such a disjointed and awkward way.
Oh my god Marianne stop spelling out everything.
Oh no, that's a bad
Edgy ghost jogs awkwardly
Shut your mouth, Marianne
The whole supernatural involvement aside, why couldn’t they pick a tragedy and stick with it? It can’t just be about child molestation, they have to throw in rape, physical abuse, and the fricking Holocaust. It’s just so far over the top. If they wanted to make Richard sympathetic, piling on horrible things happening in his childhood does not do the trick.
in Bloober's defense, their handling of this material could have been so much worse. I'm almost relieved that it's just "badly sloppily written" and not "reprehensibly handled".
"This is getting tedious, haha. This is like a bad movie, haha! Could you please stop constantly fake jumpscaring into the camera, haha!" Please, can writers in general stop with this stuff? If there's an issue, "lampshading" it doesn't fix it, it's still there. It's like a cook at a restaurant burning your omelette and then serving it saying "it's burned, sorry!". It still tastes bad, it's still burned, I still payed full price for it.
This game had three writers by the way.
I hate that horror game developers feel the need to throw abuse into their games with all the finesse and sensitivity of a brick.
EDIT: I just got to the bit with Thomas. Man, I wish Marianne's spirit form was a separate character as well — then at least you wouldn't have her wisecracking to an empty room.
"Childeater: (angry roar)"
….Yeah aight.
I'm so glad the game spent a half hour trying to make us sympathize with a pedophile, thanks Bloober Team!
Y'know, having a parry segment while really bad things are going on in the background is
not in the best of tastes.
I felt like I jumped the gun on the first episode by saying this wasn't my jam and erased that comment but man. This ain't great. And I'm gonna bet we have another tedious Maw runstealth segment coming up too.
Its amazing with just how slow everything in this game is, when things actually happen it somehow gets worse.
The Medium: Trudging through old and tired videogame clichés, one subliminal message at a time. Don't forget to parry that swatting tentacle, on your way out the door.
EDIT: I suppose if this game were an object, viewed from the spirit world, it would be a font of anger to charge Thomas' power, right?
Aaaah, this game is… Rough. I feel like this is like someone has a promising draft that needs a lot of editing. Like, A LOT. It feels like Marianne has two personalities sometimes, her writing switches weirdly between fully blasé et fragile and empathetic.
And compartmentalization could have really helped with the passing. And why does Sadness knows that?
We didn't see that picture previously.
Not a fan of killing a child version of the person who wronged you terribly. I don't think it does the what the developers intended.
"Traumatized people's souls will become literal manifestations of demons that will make them molest children. Press RB to parry the trauma tentacle."
This has turned into low low budget senuas sacrifice. The voice still gives me the chills though
according to wikipedia this game had three writers and apparently none of them thought to say "hey this part where we introduce a child molester and spend a literal hour tragic backstorifying his life during the holocaust before immediately cutting him out of the game is a bit of a superfluous aside isn't it"
I guess I'm not as big of a critic as everyone else because so far the game is alright. Kinda bland in a lot of ways and very restrictive, but at least a bit more reigned in and more polished than NightCry or Remothered. The only major thing for me is not letting the player interpret literally anything for themselves and having Marianne constantly explaining everything. Thomas segment was needlessly long but at least his dialogue felt a little bit more natural. That and I feel that it must be important because otherwise it would have been far shorter, but I guess we'll see.
On the more touchy subjects, perhaps going as gamey as something like a parry was too much, however having something more engaging than your typical walking sim was important. Maybe they could have had some other mechanic that would be easy to find out on your own without on screen prompts, or Thomas saying something about it to clue the player in. As far as the vague warning goes, well, Killer7 is beloved by a lot of people and doesn't have anything in regards to abuse or rape it shows very blatantly, never mind all the gore. It should kinda be understood that stuff like this can be found in any M rated game.
Marianne saying "that picture is me!" feels like it's supposed to be a huge reveal but the pace is so glacial and boring I honestly don't remember that picture or who she's talking about…
SGF finally accepts the reality that he is playing a Bad Horror Game in which you charge up your spirit arm fungus using the grief and suffering of holocaust/child abuse victims in order to blast through tentacles and learn the tragic backstory of a child molester
Man, and I was kinda liking the game up till now, too
I'm already rewriting this story into my head to make it better, like the base idea fo a medium able to slip between worlds is good but they just kept on dumping onto it. Every possible tragedy and crime, with tedious game mechanics. It's a slow paced muddle of an idea and game. I wish I liked it more, I watch it because SGF is amazing and so funny.
Editing to add one good thing. Whoever worked on the camera angles is talented, cinematic and matches what the story they wanted to make.
Man, 2020 was not kind to Treebeard.
Two things: one: what was that Bolt cutters dialogue about? I mean are we supposed to chuckle it's so distant from the rest of the games tone like imagine James in silent hill 2 ( like this game would let you forget ) having a seinfield esq quip about " what's the deal with these holes" and second: Moths being an enemy just screams Remothered why are moths so common in these euro horror games did they eat the devs sweaters?
I honestly do enjoy watching this playthrough, I find a lot of things in this game interesting.
That being said, I must agree with pretty much everyone in the comments and SGF. Pick your battles and by Jove, try to do your story justice
So far this game has felt like a whole bunch of nothing tbh. The best aspect of it is me being able to talk at least little about living here in Poland in the comment section. Also the fact it’s so easy to forget the mechanics isn’t… good.
I’ll be honest, I don’t know what general knowledge of the Warsaw Uprising is abroad. I can’t imagine not knowing many gruesome details about it or it not being a big part of history and any talks related to literature. I guess I can pull out a short summary of it from wikipedia but it feels somehow… disrespectful? I dunno.
‘The Warsaw Uprising (Polish: powstanie warszawskie; German: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation, in the summer of 1944, by the Polish underground resistance, led by the Polish resistance Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa), to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. The uprising was timed to coincide with the retreat of the German forces from Poland ahead of the Soviet advance. While approaching the eastern suburbs of the city, the Red Army temporarily halted combat operations, enabling the Germans to regroup and defeat the Polish resistance and to destroy the city in retaliation. The Uprising was fought for 63 days with little outside support. It was the single largest military effort taken by any European resistance movement during World War II.’
Important thing to note is that Warszawa was so destroyed that people really didn’t knew if the city would be rebuilt but thanks to warsawians efforts it was- albeit it was not a 100% replica of what was there before. ,Kanał’ by Wajda is the first movie that dealt with the subject of the Warsaw Uprising, it is excellent but also, you know… Band Lao Che made an album titled ,Powstanie warszawskie’- I highly recommend checking it out, an amazing album (no idea if english translations for all the songs exist though).
I don’t think it bodes well for a story when I actually get interested in what’s going on in a scene is when we get a scene focused on Thomas. Like Marianne… they just didn’t write her well and I can barely care about her. And that sucks. She’s supposed to be the protagonist but something about her isn’t clicking and we spent all the time with her.
I real wonder who’s idea it was to make the Richard stuff and backstory so fuckin long, I do think this sorta peace would be good for the game overall, instead of walking around so much you forget what you were going to do, but it should be about literally anyone but this guy. Like stop dragging it on so much.
Until Dawn style instead, hold RT to cover bruises. Rotate the right analogue stick to apply concealer.
I want to like this game, but it's just SO boring 🙁
Edited to add I still love your play through because SGF makes anything fun to watch. And the skin doors are pretty good
Hey, SGF, I really do appreciate you throwing in the Actual Content Warning with regards to what the game is messing with. Like, genuinely! Thanks dude! You're good.
The visuals of this game alternate between astounding set pieces and the absolute laziest "Tell don't show" shit.
1:24:15 No, I don't even have to wait for the question, the answer is no.
I checked out after awhile and am completely lost on whats happening.
And why do so many horror game feel the need to throw rape and sexual abuse in everything with so little tact? This one in particular made worse, by how its introduced into the story.
I stick by this game having good ideas that are just badly executed. The idea of this woman being able to see ghost and a death dimension that helps her solve mysteries or aomething. Almost like Murdered Soul Suspect (another game that had good ideas, not so well executed) except more point and click/silent hillish. Also some earlier parts like the hotel hallways and day time areas outside had some pretty good atmosphere and at times looked very graphically pleasing. Its too bad as the game goes along it falls apart spectacularly with its pacing and well…the stuff revealed in this vid.
You know, Poland being Poland and all, they could have just had the trigger warning at the start of the game say "This game takes place in Poland" and everyone would understand that it revolves around horrible trauma, the exploitation of children, and untold suffering that will never heal. It's like that movie A Serbian Film, the American audience was like "This is sick and terrible!" while in eastern Europe it's considered a light-hearted slapstick comedy or whatever.
These are the dudes to be blamed for letting a child molestor off the hook: Grzegorz Like ; Andrzej Mądrzak; Marcin Wełnicki
Did…did the game REALLY just try to excuse pedos???