JonB wrote:

hylian_elf wrote:

Will give it a read. But all it needed was a temp save option like you get on some Mario games. As soon as you restart the temp save file it vanishes. So there’s no reloading saves to retry a bit you died on etc.

Yeah, I'm arguing against even that. Sort of.

I mean, I know it's important, but not having any kind of save is also important to what the game is trying to do.

I can understand that, I just also realise that loads of us don't always have an hour to do a single run through. I think the game maker should be given the freedom to tell their narrative in whatever way they choose. One of the reasons I argued against button mapping in games, as it affects how you interact with the game, which is another tool that the game maker can use to communicate with you

Really good article, by the way. And I know what you mean. But it’s trying to tell my boy he can’t play Astro which kinda annoyed me. Would matter not at all if I was just playing.

Actually read the piece this time, really good. I've not played the game, but it sounds like it would prompt memories of my 8bit days. SuperMarioLand was one where by the time I'd first seen the aeroplanes in World 4, I knew every single secret and shortcut in World 1, just because that's how we had to play games back then

I found my argument against button mapping in my sent emails from 2011, jeez, and funnily enough I use save states as a comparison

years ago I wrote:

Following a conversation about left and right handedness, the age old debate about user customisable controls came up. I was surprised at how many people thought it a good idea, so wanted to redress the balance.

Fully customisable control mapping? No way, bad idea. The developer decides how you interact with their vision. If a dev wants to let you change things around then fine. Vs fighters a good example where allowing full mapping works, but in many games it can encourage game breaking behaviour, either through busting immersion or allowing exploits. As much as one may claim to be an "honourable" gamer, the temptation to use save states when emulating is strong

We can quite rightly berate developers for implementing clunky or unwieldy controls, and along with other gameplay factors let that inform your buying decision. But a developer giving the user the freedom to do the wrong thing is just as bad as doing it themselves. We blame Bethesda for buggy missions, never the player for doing things in the wrong order

If we expect developers to predict what the player will do and accommodate even the strangest actions and motivations, then we can't tie their hands by removing one of the biggest tools they have. The pad is the most direct communication between dev and player, don't let the player dictate that conversation

C Beard

b0r1s wrote:

Loved this boss, probably the easiest in the game, but such a great setting and score.

https://blog.playstation.com/2021/05/28/returnal-the-making-of-that-unforgettable-hyperion-fight/

This was a great read, thanks - and yeah, like you, thought it was the easiest boss but also absolutely stunning.

Nice article Jon, I hadn't really thought about it like that

Your thought about what is happening to Selene is similar to what I thought, though in my mind I think she died and she’s in the in between state between life and death and this is how she has to pass on. 

Out of interest, what would you score it?

b0r1s wrote:

Your thought about what is happening to Selene is similar to what I thought, though in my mind I think she died and she’s in the in between state between life and death and this is how she has to pass on.  Out of interest, what would you score it?

7 I think. If it was a bit shorter (ha if I was better) or a bit longer with wilder variety I think I'd give it more.

I think there is something to be said for an actual cosmic horror element - that there is an Atropos where people are taken at these moments of dying guilt and stuck in a loop. But it changes based on the individual and their particular psychological hang ups. Without that, the sense of an eternal cycle is less chilling. Especially what happens at the end of act 1, where she actually returns home and lives a full life, only to end up back there.

I've finally got round to unlocking the secret ending - though if anything it's made me even more uncertain about what's going on.  One of the things I enjoy about the game is that ambiguity.  There's a perfectly good reading that says Selene's in a fucked time loop on a mysterious alien planet, or there's the "trapped in purgatory" interpretation, a dream of a dying woman, a VR nightmare, and probably a million others. Hell, I'm still not 100% sure whether Helios is her son or her brother, or whether that's really her Mum, or a metaphor for the death of her own status as mother.  Still, here's the one I've settled on for now...  (Warning, I can't find a way to describe this without it sounding pretentious and pompous.)

Fundamentally I think it's a game about grief, guilt and healing. 

Selene's spent much of her life trying to be the astronaut her mother wanted her to be in her stead, trying to emerge from the shadow of that big white suit. (Mum was supposed to be an astronaut, but was paralysed in a car crash that Selene survived.) She's studied and worked at the expense of actually spending any time with her son. One night driving him home she is exhausted and distracted - the music on the radio reminds her of her mother, she thinks she sees something on the road, and crashes into the lake.  She survives, Helios doesn't.

The survival at the expense of her son is almost too much to bear, and so she attempts to suppress the memory rather than come to terms with it.  Pretty much the entire game is that internal battle. She is literally at war with her own sentience.  (The Sentients are, ultimately, all just her.) She has built mechanisms within her own mind designed to keep her out. Much of it is framed within elements of her and Helios's life. From his beloved squid toy, through to the framing within the videogame he used to play.

By the midpoint of the game some semblance of acceptance has kicked in.  She accepts that she will always have this sense of  guilt for the rest of her life (hence we see it, or a version of it, played out), and that attempting to suppress it is pointless - it will always return.  Rather than suppress if further she opts to instead face it in earnest, and try to examine everything that she has hitherto avoided and repressed. It means revisiting it all again, but now with different eyes.  She is stronger, but the task is harder too.  She has to unearth everything that she has so carefully hidden from herself.  She starts by accepting that her feelings are created by her, and the loop is of her making.  (She shoots down her own ship).

She starts to explore the triggers for her trauma, musical and visual cues, and starts to gradually unlock key parts of her mind - each more painful than the one before.  It is frequently too much to bear, but she keeps going, and it gets slightly easier each time.  Ultimately she finds she is able to, finally, revisit the moment of the crash.  To remember what had happened and still continue. That's the regular ending.

There's something more she needs to do though.  Firstly she needs to come to peace with her relationship with her mother, to fully accept, but also reject her, and become her own person.  Then, more difficult still, she needs to come to peace with herself.  Until now she has refused to accept the thing that is most painful of all to her.  That it was her that was responsible for the crash. Having previously blamed her mother (the astronaut figure), she finally accepts that she is responsible for the choices that led to that night.

This is a huge breakthrough, but it's not the end.  As she has already learned, it's not something that simply stops. It is a process that you have to work through repeatedly, for as long as you live, but each time, hopefully, with more confidence and more certainty than the last.

She keeps going.


Like I say, that's just today's version.  There are bits that don't quite work, and tomorrow I may decide that, actually, I prefer the cool, convoluted time looping SciFi explanation I cooked up.  But at the moment, this is the version I like -  Selene remains every bit as awesome, but her act of heroism is one we all manage to some degree - just getting through another day.

Nice, Tin.

Really enjoyed that. Won't have time for a little while, but I'm getting the urge to replay Returnal.

It's definitely interesting to see how various studios are trying to write for the videogame reality of constantly dying and retrying instead of just trying to write in spite of it.

mistercrayon wrote:

What channel is that video from? I still can’t see video links on this phone.

Jacob Geller.

EDIT:

Maybe this will help - it's the newest vid. 

https://www.youtube.com/c/JacobGeller/videos

Thanks both

Is it full of spoilers?