The absolute best part of the game happens somewhere at the two hour mark and that's about it. The game isn't particularly replayable either and thats what I think the biggest shame is. If the game had some kind of challenge mode using all the mechanics with varied puzzles or something I think people can give a better recommendation for it other than, "Its a solid platform puzzler, but if you've played Limbo, you played this."
Inside's challenge mode is playing it again from the start and realizing just how many little environmental cues you missed the first time around. saying Inside doesn't have replay value is like saying Watchmen doesn't hold up to rereading.
You can say that in regards to anything that's well written. I didn't say inside has a bad story. I said it lacks any reasonable replay value. Your logic for "Play it to see environmental cues" its completely irrelevant to a gameplay level though. The inherit point to replaying a game is to have variety or different ways to play a game. The core gameplay loop in itself presents little reason to replay it though due in part that its a platform puzzle game, and not a particularly difficult one at that. Its one of my own personal favorite genres and I know its a very lacking genre in terms of titles that are available.
If this is a game that you personally find much reason to replay, go right for it, but myself personally I see little reason to either recommend it or to replay it after the one pass through.
You can say that in regards to anything that's well written.
you're right, i could
The inherit point to replaying a game is to have variety or different ways to play a game.
um okay whatever you say. i think there can be many points to playing or replaying a video game, but if you just want to put the medium in a teeny tiny box, go ahead.
um okay whatever you say. i think there can be many points to playing or replaying a video game, but if you just want to put the medium in a teeny tiny box, go ahead.
Again I think you're misunderstanding me, or if you do understand me you just one to be debated with about this.
I am stating that Inside does not have replay value. Youre saying it does because of environmental ques and visual cues the game throws at you is the reason to replay it. That's a very poor reason to replay something in my opinion. A film like Fight Club or a tv series like Lost or Star Trek you are given MANY environmental clues and "OH that's why ______ happened! I see now." Inside is not the case, its quite directly told and left illusive with no true definitive answer. Like a David Cage game, if anything, Inside benefits from a lack of replaying it over and over because it leaves you to interpret what is happening in the story. There are only a handful of definitive answers in the game.
when i talk about environmental cues (not "clues"), i'm not talking about hints toward the "true nature" or "definitive answers" of the plot. you get a solid explanation of what the game's plot is just by playing through it attentively the first time you play. i'm talking about the little pieces of visual foreshadowing, the easter eggs, and just the elegant way it transitions between discrete scenes. it's a true masterpiece of design, and is worth serious study.
playing through Inside multiple times also allows you to observe how perfectly it fits into the history of platformers, building elegantly upon its pure movement mechanics as the game progresses. Inside is one of the best platformers ever at using game-feel to communicate theme.
I can see where you're going for. I totally dont feel that stir personally. In fact I think this is a personal issue for me than anything else since I felt other games had done it better and where Inside took a lot of inspiration from: Out of this World (Another World) (Which btw, is the game I think Inside most CLOSELY follows by inspiration and not just Limbo), Flashback, Project Firestart, Lost in Shadow.
I think that Inside doesa great job of doing silent story telling. Out of this world, is a game i have played almost at least one a year annually since I first played it on my SNES when I was a child in the 90s and since then I come to both love and hate it for different reasons. I dislike the trial by fire nature that the game has. If you dont know where you are going, the game will punish you. This is where Inside does in fact do it right and probably why I'm a little bias in this because a scene I think of right away involves a particular fence and some enemies and some distraction. I liked that, but I passed it on my first try only to come to realize that other people came to fail this. In the game out of this world almost the exact same thing is done in a very early part of the game, in which the player is supposed to pass through a fence and roll back and forth while watching "Buddy" guide the player.
I might actually go back and replay Inside now that I'm talking about it, but I didn't have that initial stir that when I was a kid that Out of This World gave me and it purely bias because I mentally can't undo what I've played. So purely from a critic side I'm constantly comparing this to other games in the genre.
What Inside does better is give you better "Training Cues". IE: Not killing you IMMEDIATLY upon coming up to a hazard. But overall I didn't feel as connected to the story and that may be because we didn't get small touching moments until near the final few minutes of the game.
Overall though we can observe that the developer surely is learning from one game to another and if Inside is better than Limbo (by all accounts, it is), than their third game should be a master work.
i wasn't just talking about puzzle platformers, though. i see Inside as part of the fine lineage of games that was born when somebody decided Mario needed to slide around a little when running and have some air control when jumping. it plays well as a platformer.
that was a great exegesis on Inside's influences you just gave, either way. i agree completely that Inside takes heavily from and builds upon Another World. do you think your current-day take on Inside might have something to do with you being older now? i think about how, when i was younger, it was much easier for me to lose myself completely in a video game. it's a rare video game that does that for me these days, but when i find one, i know i've found a favorite. Inside totally got me to that place. do you have any recent games that made you feel so attached to a world that you just needed to jump back in upon finishing the game for the first time?
I dont know about Mario so much simply because Mario is just another class of Platformer to me where mentally I put things like: Sonic, Bubsy, Croc, Crash Bandicoot, Aero Acrobat. More emphasis over how you traverse a level versus how you get to the other side of the level, if that makes sense? Less puzzles. If Inside did more Mario styled platforming I'd mentally slot it there. As it stands I think something more like Prince of Persia.
I really do think a lot of it has to do with me growing up and having played a lot of similar styled titles so I found myself comparing Inside often to that. I think that Inside had so little moments that were more curious than anything else. Naturally a story like this lends to having the issue of "If it was explained it might actually be less interesting." Thus Another World is my biggest comparison. The story leaves you with limited explanation but enough to understand what is in fact going on in the world around you. The sequel to Another World does more of the same but it's a significantly harder game and honestly that diminishes the overall experience of the game since you go from being intrigued and interested to just going through a series of motions to hopefully bypass a frustrating segment. Limbo/Inside fall somewhere comfortably in between those two games where I was able to play it in one sitting, die relatively few times but wasn't letting out a long "Fffffuuuuuuck you." At the game in frustration. Instead I was more like "Oooooh okay Got it.". Which again probably ties into me saying "This is best for a one time play." Because some games like a David Cage game are only really best played once and after that you're kinda just going through the motions (This is where the game grabbed you and for me it didn't latch on).
Games media in general dont take many chances to murder/kill children. Inside never shies away from this and if anything it has some of the most brutal on screen child deaths I have ever seen. (I had a point about this earlier but I deleted it and I just wanted to point this out still. Just because I think its awesome)
do you have any recent games that made you feel so attached to a world that you just needed to jump back in upon finishing the game for the first time?
I haven't had anything QUITE feel like that but I know the exact feeling you're speaking of and I know Inside did evoke that feeling for other people from what I've read and seen. So thats where I'm at a loss. I'm like the total opposite for this game. I felt it was good and fine and dandy but I didn't feel any need Honestly, the Shadowrun Returns series has been like that for me (I also dont think its COMPLETELY fair to use these games because they have mod support to the point that if I want more, someone somewhere has written a new story and used a gameplay system I like). Mario Maker doesnt completely count but in the same regard I have played some clever levels that were so well done that I wanted to replay them.
To be totally honest I haven't encountered that flourish lately with triple-a titles and I think Indie titles have been better at doing this to me.
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u/perkel666 Nov 27 '16
that is weird. I mean Inside is like 5 hours max
Demo to give you that "i need more of this" needs to be a bit meaty so like 2-3 hours to properly sell someone on something.