The Backlog Check-in Vol. 278: 4/29/23: Redfall Edition

[canedaddy]

Interesting. I'll check it out.

[Phaseknox]

Hey phase:



https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10007382

I know you said you wanted to play it if it was available on PS.

Awesome! Is it worth $19.99, or should I wait to buy it when it’s on sale?

[isthatallyougot]

Awesome! Is it worth $19.99, or should I wait to buy it when it’s on sale?

Well, "value" is up to you. I can tell you it's one of my all-time favorite games, irrespective of genre, and I'd have been happy to pay full boxed-retail price, in retrospect. (I think I only paid $5 or $6 bucks though.)

It's such a unique work of art, undiluted by "group think", even though it takes inspiration from Lewis Carroll's Alice in many ways. It's a 2-person creation, and it just oozes personality, and the level of quality in terms of style / presentation and art/music is incredible, given the tiny number of creators. It's wonderfully nuanced, with plenty of narrative to bite into if you're interested in formulating your own ideas on what is actually happening. It's hard for me to offer a higher recommendation.

Edit: And it's probably a 6-10 hour game depending on how quick you are with the wonderfully balanced puzzles - whether you give in and look up solutions or not. I didn't, and I have to say that it added to my overall satisfaction with things. Puzzles are always tricky to find a nice balance of intriguing and challenging without being overly obtuse, and I think FB struck a beautiful balance.

[Phaseknox]

As you saw in The Haul Thread I bought Fran Bow, and I’ve really been enjoying it. It has a great art style, and the story is a mystery that I want to uncover. I’ve been figuring out the puzzles without getting stumped for too long which is good, because the fun of these types of games is figuring out the puzzles on my own. I hate getting stuck in games and having to look up the solutions, because it pulls me out of the experience. While the game has a cartoonish aesthetic, it’s dark and disturbing. As of right now I can’t make much sense of what’s going on, but hopefully things get explained as I play more instead of everything being left to my own interpretation because uncovering the mystery of the story is a big part of its appeal.

[jfissel]

Getting close to the end of the story in Burning Shores, but there is still plenty of side stuff to complete. Good times.

What about it couldn’t be done on PS4, because they said that it could only be done on PS5 which is why they didn’t release it for PS4 as well despite them releasing the main game for it.

I'm assuming the graphics as they were really playing up the clouds

Sorry for the late response, I went out of town for bourbon.

[argyle]

Getting close to the end of the story in Burning Shores, but there is still plenty of side stuff to complete. Good times.

What about it couldn’t be done on PS4, because they said that it could only be done on PS5 which is why they didn’t release it for PS4 as well despite them releasing the main game for it.

They couldn't make you buy a $500 console for it if it worked on the PS4.

[Phaseknox]

I’m on chapter 3 of Fran Bow, and I haven’t been enjoying it quite as much after chapter 1. It begins like a psychological horror game, but then it kind of goes in a different direction. I really like chapter 1 and it’s what I was expecting the entire game to be like, but it’s not.

I’m kind of losing interest in playing since the story is so confusing and convoluted at this point, it’s not hooking me like it originally did. I thought that it was going to be something more similar to Alice: Madness Returns, but it has somewhat switched gears and has become even harder to follow and understand.

In addition to the change in tone, a lot of the puzzles have become more difficult to figure out to the point where I sometimes have to look up the solutions which I dislike doing. I‘m still somewhat enjoying it and want to see where it goes, I just hope that the next chapters are more similar to the first.

[isthatallyougot]

I’m on chapter 3 of Fran Bow, and I haven’t been enjoying it quite as much after chapter 1. It begins like a psychological horror game, but then it kind of goes in a different direction. I really like chapter 1 and it’s what I was expecting the entire game to be like, but it’s not.

I’m kind of losing interest in playing since the story is so confusing and convoluted at this point, it’s not hooking me like it originally did. I thought that it was going to be something more similar to Alice: Madness Returns, but it has somewhat switched gears and has become even harder to follow and understand.

In addition to the change in tone, a lot of the puzzles have become more difficult to figure out to the point where I sometimes have to look up the solutions which I dislike doing. I‘m still somewhat enjoying it and want to see where it goes, I just hope that the next chapters are more similar to the first.

Sorry it's not clicking for you phase. I guess I owe you 20 bucks, huh?

[Phaseknox]

Sorry it's not clicking for you phase. I guess I owe you 20 bucks, huh?

Yes you do. Chapter 1 was pretty much exactly what I was expecting the game to be and I was really enjoying it, but it started to go in a somewhat different direction in Chapter 2 and especially in Chapter 3. Suffice it to say, I haven’t really liked the change in direction or tone after Chapter 1.

I completed Chapter 3 last night with the help of an online walkthrough, and I’m hoping to enjoy the next two chapters more. Chapters 2 and 3 were okay, I didn’t hate them. But I preferred the tone and structure of Chapter 1 more. I don’t really like point-and-click adventure games with big accessible open areas to explore, and lots of different items to collect. I prefer them to be more like how this game starts out, limited to where you can go until you’ve figured out the puzzles to move on. Based on Chapter 1 that’s how I thought that this entire game was going to be, but Chapters 2 and 3 were more big accessible open areas to explore with a lot of items to collect that weren’t very clear or obvious what I was supposed to do with them. Some of the puzzles that I looked up the solutions for in these chapters I wouldn’t have ever figured out on my own, and that’s part of why I disliked them more.

I’m still somewhat enjoying the game primarily due to its visuals which are the best aspect of it IMO. But the story has completely gone off the rails and based on some reviews that I’ve read nothing is ever really explained by the end, and that the entire game is meant to be left to the player’s own interpretation. I know that you like this type of storytelling in games and in general, but I don’t. That doesn’t mean that I want every single thing explained to me because I do like to put the pieces together myself, but the pieces need to make some sense and not be overly confusing, complex and convoluted.

[isthatallyougot]

I’m still somewhat enjoying the game primarily due to its visuals which are the best aspect of it IMO. But the story has completely gone off the rails and based on some reviews that I’ve read nothing is ever really explained by the end, and that the entire game is meant to be left to the player’s own interpretation. I know that you like this type of storytelling in games and in general, but I don’t. That doesn’t mean that I want every single thing explained to me because I do like to put the pieces together myself, but the pieces need to make some sense and not be overly confusing, complex and convoluted.

Well, in my opinion, ALL meaning is interpretive in nature. What does your own life mean, for example? Only you can give answer to that question, and whatever your answer, it is the truth.

But yes, I am at home with obscurity and uncertainty. I'm one of those people who *loves* it when I don't know the lyric to a song and will absolutely refuse to look it up because that means I can play with it. Maybe it's a made up word by the artist or purposefully garbled to give me a chance to intuit for myself.

There are as many meanings to things as there are those who experience a thing - even "straightforward", everything-is-explained types of experiences are *wide* open to interpretation. The "outer" is a reflection of the "inner". Fran Bow has tons of meaning, ideas and potential interpretations, but when the observer "phase" looks at it, the truth will "collapse" for you from your position as the watcher. You've decided it's nonsensical, and so it is.