Heart of Darkness

[Anonymous No.6333716]

This game is trash. Just an overrated platformer

[Anonymous No.6333734]

Welcome to the entirety of the "cinematic platformer" subgenre

[Anonymous No.6333739]

>>6333734
Limbo was great though.
The early Prince of Persia titles were as well.

[Anonymous No.6333760]

>>6333739
It's all basic bitch puzzles and subpar platforming. The games don't have good level design, the levels abandon depth in favor of difficulty but they're not even successful at that because they get easy fast due to a focus on knowledge over difficult timing or execution. They also don't have good movement mechanics, most have sluggish "realistic" movement while also ignoring the benefits of realism like complex physics interactions, instead the movement is both slow and simplistic, almost grid-like. They suck as platformers, they aren't fun to play and especially not to replay. All they have is a cinematic atmospheric feel and set pieces, more in common with shitty modern day movie games than actual platformers.

[Anonymous No.6333794]

>>6333760
>It's all basic bitch puzzles and subpar platforming
Agreed
>the levels abandon depth in favor of difficulty
Absolutely, in the best case it's something that happens in the last third of the game, in the worst case it occurs somewhere in the middle.
>They also don't have good movement mechanics
I gotta disagree here, I like the sluggish, "heavy hips" movement a lot of these titles which usually put emphasis on "physics" have. Might be a fetish from back when I was into flash games which put similar efforts into making movement appear more "realistic", or maybe It's the heavy dislike of 16-bit era platformers featuring vaulting and climbing animations, the torture of seeing those same movements play in front of my eyes, frame by frame, time after time.
>All they have is a cinematic atmospheric feel and set pieces, more in common with shitty modern day movie games than actual platformers
Well they are called "cinematic platformers" for those exact reasons, are they not?
For better or worse, those are the characteristics which define the genre, whether this is due to lack of creative thinking or simply a persistant case of catering to nostalgia.
The devs could make different games, they might even be capable to bring inovativnost into its stale formula, but with the territory comes the burden of its flock and soil.

[Anonymous No.6333820]

>this thread

[Anonymous No.6333823]

I agree, all games should be Mario.

[Anonymous No.6333847]

When does he get to the Congo?

[Anonymous No.6333850]

>>6333794
My problem is that they borrow the, in my opinion, worse aspects of realistic movement which is the slow pace, instant fall speed, fall damage and others, instead of the cool aspects like how detailed and variable it can be. For example, things like slopes affecting your speed, speed itself determining jump length, and other kinds of details that make movement dynamic. Traditional platformers like Sonic, Umihara Kawase and N go the opposite route and take the great aspects of realistic movement while keeping other aspects arcadey. It's a bit much to expect that from early games like Prince of Persia but by the PS1 days I feel like they should have put more of an effort into the game design, rather than just the visuals and sound.

[Anonymous No.6334052]

>>6333716
For a game that's been delayed on multiple consoles for almost a decade I agree. Saw the beta version on Sega Saturn and was glad that it wasn't finished. Should have been released at the first said date to avoid any outdated criticism at the least.

[Anonymous No.6335221]

>>6333734
*farts in your face*

[Anonymous No.6335332]

>>6333820
>hot-and-underage
based and cunnypilled

[Anonymous No.6335814]

>>6333716
Shut up Jirard

[Anonymous No.6336419]

>>6333716
I completely agree. It's been played off an an overlooked gem for so long, but it's completely pointless in the face of the far superior Oddoworld games.

>>6333794
>>6333850
>>6333734
This is true of the of most the genre, but Oddworld wouldn't be the same if it wasn't about carefully executing sequences of moves you've planned in order to cleverly solve a specific situation. It needs the grid system in order to achieve this and not be a fiddly mess, and the 'cinematic' aspect adds tons of atmosphere to the games. The existence of this sub-genre is justified specifically for these games.

[Anonymous No.6336779]

>>6333716
It has some great vore animations in it so it's at least a c+ from me. Yeah it's kind of short and not perfect but it's always exciting to see what's gonna happen next.

[Anonymous No.6336784]

Barely qualifies as a platformer. The greatest platformers are fast-paced games of skill. This is more of a well animated showcase for what interactive entertainment could do at the time. Heavier on adventure than action. I found the presentation to be excellent, but if I recall correctly the gameplay was rather frustrating.

[Anonymous No.6336838]

Worst thread I've seen in a while.

[Anonymous No.6338749]

>>6336838
/thread

[Anonymous No.6338795]

>>6336838
>>6338749
Can you guys give actual reasons defending the game then?

[Anonymous No.6338814]

>>6338795
All of the flaws given can just as easily be applied to the first Oddworld game but its fans like to act like they're not present. Oddysee was just as clunky and with similar level designs.
Criticism in this thread is either something that can be applied to the entire genre and are just nitpicks with how cinematic platformers are in general, or is insisting that Oddworld is better for no reason or justification given other than muh nostalgia.

[Anonymous No.6338891]

>>6338814
heart of darkness was made on a much bigger budget and looks/controls worse than abe's oddysee. compare the CGI cutscene quality between the two and let me know which is better. worth mentioning that the cutscene frame rate in HoD is way lower too which makes it even worse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MclIvXqkn8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=249vWCD2neQ

[Anonymous No.6338895]

>>6338891
Heart of Darkness was made by a much smaller team. Bigger budget what are you fucking on?

[Anonymous No.6338902]

>>6333716
Everyone knows it's trash. Its entire genre is dead and buried. In now way is it overrated.

[Anonymous No.6338906]

>>6338902
Quit bumping this fucking thread

[Anonymous No.6338909]

>>6338895
heart of darkness had a bigger budget, they just wasted most of it. this is from the wiki:
>Heart of Darkness suffered a protracted development cycle marked by numerous delays and changes in platform. Development began in 1992, with the PC as the lead platform. The game was not publicly unveiled until the March 1995 European Computer Trade Show, at which time the developers said it was near completion. A version for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer was announced, but the game spent so long in development that by the time it was finished, the 3DO (which was not even launched until a year after development on the game began) was no longer commercially viable. A version for the Amiga CD32 was also in development but never released. An Atari Jaguar CD version was also announced in July 1994, with internal documents from Virgin Interactive Entertainment stating that Amazing Studio showed interest in starting development on the conversion, but work on the port never moved forward beyond proposition. In 1996 Sega signed a deal for the console version to be a Sega Saturn exclusive, with the PC version to be held off until after the Saturn version was released. A release date of October 1996 was announced with the Saturn version, but as this date approached the publisher announced that the game would not be ready until late 1997. Sega Saturn Magazine commented at the time that "this is quickly becoming a joke of a situation. The game looked absolutely amazing when it was first sighted at an ECTS trade show a year or three ago, but unless it has radically changed from its sighting at E3 [in May 1996], it's going to be out-dated and out-quaffed by its contemporary software." With further delays, the Saturn was also no longer a commercially viable platform by the time Heart of Darkness was finished.

[Anonymous No.6338913]

>>6338909
>wikipedia
>says nothing about the budget
sure zoomer

[Anonymous No.6338917]

>>6338909
Imagine making a retarded cinematic platformer for almost a fucking decade.

[Anonymous No.6338920]

>>6338913
are you so dense that you don't understand development time=money? plus needing programmers and additional people to help port it to dead systems like amiga CD32 and jag CD. they burned most of their budget and it was reported as outdated in fucking 1996. if you check the wiki you can see sources for every sentence

[Anonymous No.6338923]

>>6338917
imagine crying about a twenty year old indie game on a chinese cartoon image board

[Anonymous No.6338924]

>>6333716
And to name it after one of the world's novels, too.

[Anonymous No.6338926]

>>6338920
they didn't hire additional people could you try to do research beyond the first page of google

[Anonymous No.6338929]

>>6338926
they need to take additional training to learn how to use new ecosystems though you pleb. you can't jump into different architecture and work at 100% efficiency, and it's not like unity where you can export to different platforms automatically. it would've had a significant impact on development to change platforms several times within two years.

[Anonymous No.6338931]

>>6338929
Yeah exactly my fucking point. It took 5 years because of it. Nobody would publish a game on the fucking 3DO

[Anonymous No.6338935]

>>6338923
My time and effort investment is negligible though.

[Anonymous No.6338936]

>>6338891
Weren't abe cutscenes outsourced though?

[Anonymous No.6338951]

>>6338814
>Oddysee was just as clunky and with similar level designs

But you're ignoring just how much more creative you can be with your abilities in Oddysee and how much more focused it is on letting you figure out secrets and find creative solutions to various situations. It's effectively a kind of 2D Tomb Raider in spirit. HoD is closer to being more or less a pure precision platformer, just with restricted movement options.

>muh nostalgia

I only played it last year and it completely blew me away how good it was. Now I outright consider it up there with the best PS1 games, it's easily in the top 5 of the system.

[Anonymous No.6338954]

>>6338951
the possession is good. Well done mechanic. I never said it was a bad game.
Getting into both without playing either growing up it's also much more frustrating in Oddysee early on. Secrets in the beginning are like accidental backtracking.

[Anonymous No.6338960]

>>6338951
and ironically, the oddworld games allow for a much higher level of precision due to the grid based movement system. you always know if you're able to make a jump before you try since you know abe's limits, whereas in heart of darkness there are times where you need to make jumps but there's less feedback on distancing and jump timing. obstacles in oddworld also tend to have specific timings that let you know you're good to move, but heart of darkness can be a less clear on that too which leads to trial and error. one isn't necessarily better, but oddworld feels like it was designed as a videogame instead of a 1992 tech demo

[Anonymous No.6338962]

>>6338954
look for barrels (or brew bottles in exoddus). all secrets in oddysee have barrels at the entrance. you're not forced to rely on random chance to find them, they're obvious once you know what to look for. admittedly a new player wouldn't know that, though.

[Anonymous No.6338968]

>>6338954
>Getting into both without playing either growing up it's also much more frustrating in Oddysee early on

This is precisely what made me love it so much. I spend hours messing around with stuff at the start of the game figuring out what was possible and replaying sections realizing how much crazy shit there is to discover. Someone could easily 'miss' this, but the amount of screwup-able secrets that you're meant to eventually figure out is kind of the whole point of the Abe games, in the same way that figuring out the NPC cycles is the point of Majora's Mask.

[Anonymous No.6339012]

>>6338968
i remember as a kid the moment the game clicked for me was when I was screwing around and discovered a secret by running into one of those pull cord floor traps in the first area.

[Anonymous No.6339145]

>>6333716
>game featuring a young boy
>pic related is the studio’s logo
WHAT DID THEY MEAN BY THIS?