My episode 3 review - part 1 [spoilers]

[lyttol]

I've just finished episode 3 and wanted to share my reflections on it. I'm an avid Long Darker, and am coming from the perspective of many hours spent playing Deadman (well birchman, heh) so I appreciate that this is one perspective, and that the community of TLD players has many different parts to it. That said I am going to try to strike a balance between being both respectful but also direct. I will break the review down addressing visual enhancements, narrative, and gameplay mechanics, which will start off with the most positive reflections, and go frome there... 

Visual enhancements:

One of the joys for me of the long dark is the visual appeal of its game world, and the new update extends this in subtle and yet tremendous ways. From the cave behind the waterfall, to the stunning new sunsets with their myriad hues, to the revamped blizzard textures, its all just gorgeous, hats off, amazing. When I'm playing TLD, I feel like I get to live in a work of art... Oh, and... -> When I'm playing TLD, I feel like I get to live in a work of art. Also, nice job revamping the tree limbs, and, I think, some new tree textures? There was one that stood out before the bridge that crosses just below the Misty Falls picnic area. And the revamp of thomson's crossing, and the PV farmstead, I noticed and love it all.

Narrative elements:

From the start of episode 1 with its edgy heavily-laden dialogue between its two main protagonists, reunited after a long separation following the (implied) loss of a child. TLD struck me as taking a new approach to weaving more "real world stuff" into a video game, and I loved this from the beginning. I was curious about the slightly x-files twist that the aurora and the changes to nature created, but all the time felt nourished by the way the game world reflected the plot, exploitation of natural resources, industry over nature, all left abandoned, it felt amazing. 
Episode 3 continues these dark themes with Molly, the housewife/assasin, who is wonderfully real and clearly at least half-crazy. And Father Tom, whose sincere and... *kind* belief in God made me question my own doubts, that were wonderfully voiced by Astrid's halting responses to him. Its just so nice to see a game address these sort of human mysteries.

Okay, so that is pretty much all the good stuff, if you want to walk away feeling warm and fuzzy, stop reading now

Narrative elements that I was not so fond off...

How many crashed aeroplanes can one island take? Having seen timberwolf mountain's crash-site I was just confused to see yet another crashed airplane (that's 3 so far!). I get it, the electrical problems, the aurora, planes falling out of the sky... But its also a metaphor, for being "on track" in life, and things suddenly and unexpectedly going to shit. Its what prompts us to have to grieve the life before, or risk living a zombie life after. I get it. Its what Grey mother was struggling with for years with the loss of her daughter (climbing accident -right- things unexpectedly going to shit...), and we helped her along with her process by visiting the daughter's grave. That's the second loss of a child after Astrid and Mackenzie's kid. Okay, lot's of airplane crashes, both real and metaphorical, lots of unresolved grief...  Now in this episode, we have... another airplane crash... And lot's of grieving survivors we have to help, only this time its the other way round, we bring the "grief tokens" (ID cards) from the bodies back to the survivors rather than from Grey Mother to her daughter's body. And hearing Astrid say "I'm so sorry, I found *him/her, they didn't make it" ten times in a row is just repetitive, I felt like the army death notification guy... Which isn't soo bad, I mean, it must be a horrid job, cool to feel it firsthand. However...I get that delivering the IDs cards ends the uncertainty of not knowing, but its not the human part of helping with grief, the human part is sharing the survivor's memories of the dead loved ones, witnessing and being part of their grieving process, and that was absent from this episode. Also, three of the survivors asked us to go find out what happened since we couldn't find the bodies. If TLD wants to be all hearts and minds, (which I think it does and I agree with) a huge opportunity was missed in not seeing the reunion of the survivors with their loved ones whom we rescued by carrying half way across the map... And speaking of carrying 4 people half-way across the map, how much do we remember about the breathing lumps of meat we were carrying. I found myself straining to hear what they were muttering while I carried them, but I really never felt like I bonded with any of them... And that felt really sad because I think I would have bonded pretty powerfully with them while I cared and carried them, if only there was a bit more narrative material tucked in there. But I digress from my main point, which is that I feel that there was a LOT of repetition of plot elements throughout the story. Another thing that bugged me a lot was the way the landlines just popped up everywhere, ring ring, Molly here. I get that they needed someway to allow the relationship between Astrid and Molly to develop, but really... I found it hella-clunky. And while feeling chaffed by it when it rang in the burnt out hut =as I was carrying Gwen down from the crash site, I realised that it reminded me of how forced it felt when Methuselah kept on showing up in random places. So more repetition, this time of clunky plot devices. 
A final gripe that I have in terms of narrative is Astrid's monologue. How many times can I hear "I've never felt so cold in my life" while freezing again for the fourth time in one day, or "that doesn't sound good" as the wolves approach, or "its okay, we're going to make it", "we're making good progress" spurted out at random when I was carrying someone. Feeling engaged requires that you feel "in" the game world, and this sort of repetition rips me away from it. Or when you open a fridge, find a rancid piece of rabbit meat and hear Astrid enthusiastically proclaim "I'll take it!" or "This could come in handy!". Compared to the expense of the complex (and beautifully crafted) cutscenes, would it have cost too much to have say.. five times more way of Astrid telling us that she is cold, and that she doesn't like wolves... and personally, just once or twice hear her say while she's carrying a dude 4 miles across a frozen wasteland something akin too "Christ your one heavy son-of-a-b*tch!" And could we just have had a bit more logic to when she says things... why not wait and see if we accept an item we've searched before saying "I'll take it" for example? Or the impact of having her say something like "huh, freezing today, sucks as much as it did yesterday, who'd have guessed" *when you had actually been freezing the day before*... This sort of stuff for me is really important...

Okay, so if you've read this far, thanks for taking the rough with the smooth. I love this game, its my favourite game ever, which is why I care so much. Please try to respond constructively, if you feel I'm not being constructive, feel free to let me know that, I am trying to write in good faith.

This is already a huge post, I have at least as much to say about gameplay mechanics, I'll write it up in a bit!

with my very best wishes and deep gratitude to the team at hinterland who have to my mind, and I really mean this as mcuh as everything else I have written, created a masterpiece.

Thank you.

[MarrowStone]

@lyttolI agree with everything said here. Wonderfully done, Hinterland, but there's room for improvement.

I particularly like the idea of Bonding with the survivors you carried (I understand theyre in shock but theres nothing functionally different between each one other than one mentions a father vs. a mother), and maybe hearing more about the people you found the ID's for. We could have a couple other survivors maybe even recover and be found cooking for the others etc. 

[Blankshield]

I distinctly got the impression  that the crashed plane in this episode is meant to be the missing "front" from the plane on top of TWM.

 

[lyttol]

You know what @Blankshield that's a nice idea   I just hadn't  really connected those dots, especially given that there is also a tail section at the crash site in PV and two wings dotted around timberwolf mountain as well... 

 

[lyttol]

I hear you @Dum_Gen the devs are in a tough bind, with some people wanting more balancing and refinement and others wanting to get to finish the story !!! 

Given how many hours of wonderful gameplay I've had from the game already, I'd be totally willing to pay for it again twice over. Its already been worth that value to me, and it would give the devs the resources they need to continue the amazing work... But.. that's just me...

[The-Joko]

I am an OG player who have been grinding TLD since it’s release. I couldn’t agree more with your review of the narrative elements ( especially with the long wait ) . I believe a game of such realism should take more consideration with such details. 
 

however, Raph and the rest of the team came up with such an amazing original story to tell and such game mechanics that will actually make you lose sense of time while playing.

 

now for more points to add from my side and I really believe @lyttol hit most the points i was thinking about. The narrative elements of the game when presenting a lead such as the scene at the end of Episode 3 doesn’t actually gives the player a margin to create your own theory on what happened. It just gives you a glimpse of what the author or the narrator knows. I think this method of narrative disconnects the player from the game.

 

i hope I clarified my point.

-J

[BESt]

I totally agree with the points made here. I am not sure if I want the remaining 3 episodes that are made in a span of one year, but seeming to be unfinished, or to wait 3 years and have a very, very, very good narrative. To me, this episode seemed unfinished, but still having great potential. I've enjoyed the first two episodes (predux and redux) and they had a great story. But ep. 3 seemed to lack that. And I am afraid that remaking the episodes might become a tradition for Hinterland...