Topic: Cursed Mountain

[ShyGuy]

Apparently I'm waiting to hear Pro's impressions. Apparently he will give them sometime this week.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

In an alarming turn of events, I've acquired the game.

I will load said game into my Wii console and sample its introductory phase and play mechanics.

But first, I must have my dinner and watch Mask of Zorro.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Hot damn what great movie that was.  A kind of Batman Begins long before Batman Began, with an Indiana Jones sense of flare that makes me forget Dr. Jones was raped so ruthlessly, or almost forget.  Absolute entertainment.

huh?  a gaming forum?

[ShyGuy]

I prefer Tyrone Powers.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I've spent about an hour and half on it so far, most of it just advancing forward, with a brief instance of backtracking towards the end of my session.  I am in a deserted town of claustrophobic alleyways and maze-like linear progression.  It reminds of those crazy Romanian or Hong Kong towns I see in movies with high walls and a random sense of building planning (buildings crammed wherever they could fit cuz space is scarce), especially like the town in Gymkata, making me expect crazy villagers to pop out the windows and chase me with knives.  Every forward step has shown me unique walkway design and building architecture continuously varies.  Saving so far has been handled by walking past unmarked checkpoints, and the file-writing instance doesn't stutter the framerate.

I have a melee weapon that doubles as a spiritual projectile weapon that isn't lame like the StarFox Adventures combat staff.  Melee has up to a 3-hit combo, and the projectile has a slow rate of fire like a bolt-action rifle delay; it's a flare gun that defeats ghosts, and melee also works on ghosts.  Break big clay pots with melee attacks to uncover freebie items.  Like Eternal Darkness, swinging your weapon at a wall will usually (not 100% implemented on every itty bitty piece of surface) make it bounce and deflect your attack.

The game falls neatly into the horror genre, with a couple scripted scares so far, a moody audio-visual atmosphere, and supernatural threats as opposed to the familiar undead type of enemies.  The controls are directly inspired by RE4 Wii Edition and the game is mostly experienced in an over-the-shoulder view.  Walking has been encouraged over running unless you wish to alert nearby ghosts.  The narrow paths between tall walls contribute to the "unknown" as you approach obvious corners or intersections.  Like ED, the camera will occasionally relocate to a scripted cinematic position, either to show off the stage or suprise your senses to make you uneasy with stepping forward.  In a nice touch, the screen colors desaturate and the camera tilts a couple degrees in a disturbed fashion at specific spots, highlighting a potential crazy-moment for you as if you might've crossed an otherworldly pocket of space; the nice part is it might not have a definitive consequence, so it's kept me guessing and building anticipationg for SOMETHING each time so far.  The initial pacing is slow and nervously steady, with isolation being emphasized; that's mostly been my doing, as I tend to stop and look around/listen often.

It's nice to experience the game in a quiet setting so that the audio of the isolation setting can envelop you.  Music has been saved for the action bits so far; most of the time I only heard the loud silence of the dead city (water running, wind creeping through dusty stoney alleys) and a constant single chord being played to purposely induce an unsettling feeling.

The framerate is solid and the controls are mostly solid as an RE4 setup (I'm GLAD some game maker has made some attempt at this kind of action/adventure mold; Capcom just isn't cutting it these days and you'd think there'd be MOAR copycats).  The game's non-zombie aesthetic is definitely its own and doesn't feel like a strict copy of other well-known game environments.  It hasn't been the blockbuster gore masterpiece RE4 has conditioned us for, but it's satisfying as a dedicated solo horror adventure, something I haven't seen beyond the likes of RE4 (Dead Risings and On Rails Chronicles and super-old GameCube remakes don't cut it).  The interface and content have shown promise and I wish I had more time to trek further.

I'll cover details in specific categories next time.

[holy ****, i've spent an hour and a half typing this while periodically dozing off in my chair]

[BlackNMild2k1]

The framerate is solid and the controls are mostly solid as an RE4 setup (I'm GLAD some game maker has made some attempt at this kind of action/adventure mold; Capcom just isn't cutting it these days and you'd think there'd be MOAR copycats).  The game's non-zombie aesthetic is definitely its own and doesn't feel like a strict copy of other well-known game environments.  It hasn't been the blockbuster gore masterpiece RE4 has conditioned us for, but it's satisfying as a dedicated solo horror adventure, something I haven't seen beyond the likes of RE4 (Dead Risings and On Rails Chronicles and super-old GameCube remakes don't cut it).  The interface and content have shown promise and I wish I had more time to trek further.

This is why I showed such interest in this game to begin with.

[Stratos]

Thanks for the impressions, Pro. I like the sounds of the game and I think I'll grab this soon once payday comes.

Also, Mask of Zorro is awesome. I need to watch it again. I saw the sequel once, (Legend of Zorro?) and remember not being terribly impressed with it.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Thanks for the impressions, Pro. I like the sounds of the game and I think I'll grab this soon once payday comes.

Also, Mask of Zorro is awesome. I need to watch it again. I saw the sequel once, (Legend of Zorro?) and remember not being terribly impressed with it.

Buy a copy for me while your at it.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Controls

- Stick:  walk around RE4 style.  While aiming weapon, allows camera look/pan independent of cursor, RE4: Wii Edition style.
- quirk:  directly holding Down makes you walk backwards; holding Left/Right to turn, then immediately holding Down just makes you turn in-place.
- Z trigger:  hold Z to run.
- quirk:  no 180-degree quick-turn available.
- C button:  hold C to ready/aim the projectile weapon with the on-screen cursor, independent of camera pan.  No moving/strafing allowed, standing your ground in classic horror gaming fashion.  This camera is positioned more like "behind the elbow" rather than "over the shoulder".
- B button:  tap B to swing melee weapon during normal traversal; while C-aiming, tap B to fire projectile.  Melee actions can collide with environment surfaces.
- Firing your weapon:  it's like firing a flare gun, the projectile doesn't move very fast.  The delay between shots is actually similar to the plain shotgun in RE4.
- D-pad Down:  over the shoulder first-person look, forcing you to be stationary.
- Motion gestures:  mostly diagonal swings and a forward-chopping swing (overhand) for both Remote and Nunchuk; used to perform specific ritual actions.  Medium swing speed is sufficient, the speed not as necessarily fast as No More Heroes; going too fast might go unrecognized.
- Walking is a relaxed normal-people pace, so it's slow by gaming's stupid standards; by its animation it looks appropriate tho.  Running is actually a jog, and that feels surprisingly slow.
- Pause Menu and item viewing is controlled with the IR Pointer.

Visuals

- Widescreen support, all screen borders are filled up.
- Framerate has so far been a solid 30fps.
- Textures aren't as sharp as Capcom's various Wii efforts, but definitely do a better job than House of the Dead: Overkill.  Good texture variety and balance is exercised in the town environments, when opportunities for variety are present (ie. a snow-capped hillside won't present a whole lot, especially when the weather is meant to obstruct your vision).  Objects won't be super-detailed over others, so there is an even level of detail distributed for the environments (and I guess it helps allow for the nice draw distance).  The town is filthy and unpleasant.  The mountain is clean with snow but harsh on visitors.
- A light grain filter helps the scene look grimey.
- Town traversal/progression has been completely seamless with no loading/checkpoint interruptions in walking or framerate.  Indoor-outdoor transitions are seamless.  You can hear the Wii drive go MAD NUTS.
- None of the trailers/videos I've seen have done the game's framerate and textures justice, which I'll attribute to bad video capturing.
- Nice application of particle effects blowing threw the scene, like snow scatter, dusty winds, "ghost world" dusty winds, and rolling fog that's knee-high or completely surrounds you.
- Animations are OK, more work could've been done to make the character more seamless between various actions.  Ghosts and NPCs animate better, cuz they don't have to do as much as the protaganist, so they just look freaky and call it a day.
- Talkie-talk cutscenes have been motion still-art FMV sequences; video scaling doesn't look great.
- The mystical aesthetic is unique and is providing me an alternative to the vibe I got from Eternal Darkness's slimey gods and ghostly heroes (in every other game it's FLESHY UNDEAD MONSTER THINGIE).

Audio

- Audio is probably the most robust package of the game (less to mess up?).  Much of the effects sound original (I might attribute that to the original setting), so I haven't been hearing the immortal stock sound clips that have been used throughout Resident Evil's 30-year history.  A good thing.
- Ambient noises are appropriate for the environments and constantly heard.  Some noises play from certain directions to cause alarm/nervousness.
- Music has only seemed to pickup during combat; any other time it's just environmental noises fear-inducing notes to make you anxiously listen for the unknown.
- Voice acting has been solid.
- quirk:  No Dolby Pro Logic II surround support (what gives?  it's annoying when a 3rd party includes many expected features, yet leaves out something DUR OBVIOUS.  Tenchu4 and MadWorld don't have progressive scan)


I'm curious how the wider open areas handle scare tactics.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

In the 2nd Chapter now, things are shaping up even better, level-wise.

Night time in a rural village now, carved into the mountainside, no more semi-urban buildings and confined alleys.  Area is about 2-3 times larger than the "Village" in RE4, in terms of foot traffic.  It's an open, continuous region, and there's several doors to different buildings I have to unlock -- I'M FREE TO INVESTIGATE AND DO SOME ADVENTURING.  Draw distance is lovely.  Had more opportunities to use the simple motion gestures during combat -- they work fine.  Picked up quite a few letters/notes thus far, reading them provides some refreshment over other horror titles, focusing on the Buddhist cultural/religious background setting up the game's plot as opposed to some "I-will-give-birth-to-the-devil" diary entries and the classic scientific notes on T-virus experiments.

Deep Silver did their graphics homework.  The stage doesn't feel like a big rectangular hall that you could piece together in an FPS level editor and end up with The Conduit.  The RE4 approach to texturing is evident, with texture variety and "junk" objects used to make decent transitions between surfaces that meet at some corner/seam; it avoids that empty feeling you get from seeing plain rectangular surfaces (with super clean, well-lit textures) meet other plain surfaces at 90 degrees.  But unlike RE4, when it's dark, everything is dark, so the protaganist never has some "camera crew" spotlight shining on his back like Leon always seemed to have.  And I forgot to mention yesterday, bloom lighting is utilized in choice spots, and thankfully it's not overused.

Ghosts wisp by and exit your view around corners, prompting you to follow them =D
It's a different feeling from most action titles where, once you've encountered zombies/mutants/aliens/in-laws, you're already attacking each other.

The game hinted at TANTRIC SEX RITUALS.

[ShyGuy]

My frothing demand increases.

[GoldenPhoenix]

I'm interested, though I need to decide whether I should get this or Little King's Story.

[NWR_Neal]

The game hinted at TANTRIC SEX RITUALS.

When I played it at an event a few weeks back, the guy showing it off emphasized that.

I'm still not enjoying it all too much. The sound's good. I think it gets too dark.
I just get a lot of that "rookie developer" vibe, kind of like The Conduit. It's not terrible. It's just not great.

[GoldenPhoenix]

The game hinted at TANTRIC SEX RITUALS.

When I played it at an event a few weeks back, the guy showing it off emphasized that.

I'm still not enjoying it all too much. The sound's good. I think it gets too dark.
I just get a lot of that "rookie developer" vibe, kind of like The Conduit. It's not terrible. It's just not great.

So you would recommend Little Kings Story?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

LKS will probably end up on PS3/360, since there's nothing Wii-specific about it.

In a dashing reminder of reality, it's the rookie developers that have been stepping forward on Wii rather than the veteran publishers and their veteran developers.

Don't like it?  Sell your Wii and all your games.  You'll find better value in gardening.

EDIT:  I think it's amazing that Wii, as a platform, has been attracting rookie projects that have gotten a lot of elements RIGHT (as opposed to veteran dev + Big $$$ budget = 6 hour action game "RIGHT").  The rookie projects that ended up on GameCube often resulted in the likes of Ubisoft's The Sum of All Fears GCN port.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"When I played it at an event a few weeks back, the guy showing it off emphasized that."

Did he demonstrate them in front of you?  It may have been a cheap attempt to appeal to mature non-casuals, but I think he has issues.

[NWR_Neal]

I'm glad rookie developers are getting their chance on Wii, but I find myself not enjoying their initial games as much as I look forward to their sophomore efforts.

[ShyGuy]

Rookie

EDIT:  I think it's amazing that Wii, as a platform, has been attracting rookie projects that have gotten a lot of elements RIGHT (as opposed to veteran dev + Big $$$ budget = 6 hour action game "RIGHT").  The rookie projects that ended up on GameCube often resulted in the likes of Ubisoft's The Sum of All Fears GCN port.

What rookie games did the Gamecube get? Killer7, Geist.... Thirteen maybe?

[GoldenPhoenix]

Rookie

EDIT:  I think it's amazing that Wii, as a platform, has been attracting rookie projects that have gotten a lot of elements RIGHT (as opposed to veteran dev + Big $$$ budget = 6 hour action game "RIGHT").  The rookie projects that ended up on GameCube often resulted in the likes of Ubisoft's The Sum of All Fears GCN port.

What rookie games did the Gamecube get? Killer7, Geist.... Thirteen maybe?

Killer7 was developed by a poor developer, not a rookie one. Geist would probably fall in there though.

[Peachylala]

DAMN.

Saw this today at EB Games, but since I haven't heard any good stuff about yet, decided to wait and see.

DAMMIT PRO, YOU MAKE MY WALLET HURT YOU DAISY GOD/GODDESS/TROLL. D8<

$60 CAN, hope you have a nice place in debit hell.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Rookie

EDIT:  I think it's amazing that Wii, as a platform, has been attracting rookie projects that have gotten a lot of elements RIGHT (as opposed to veteran dev + Big $$$ budget = 6 hour action game "RIGHT").  The rookie projects that ended up on GameCube often resulted in the likes of Ubisoft's The Sum of All Fears GCN port.

What rookie games did the Gamecube get? Killer7, Geist.... Thirteen maybe?

Killer7 was developed by a poor developer, not a rookie one. Geist would probably fall in there though.

Killer7: great game.  Grasshopper: poor developer, they don't get a lot of money, so all their projects are relatively low-budget.  Despite that, they're quite successful at finding work and surviving, unlike the makers of Bionic Crapmando HD.

Come back when you can play games properly before judging them.  If you're having trouble with analog aiming, the shooting gallery in Kakariko Village is open until sunset.  Or make an inquiry with that one talking fish.  If you're having difficulty finding your way around an on-rails game, live consultants are available at GameFaqs.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

OK, the game has fake surround sound.  It's not true DPLII support, but some audio does spread to the rear speakers if you have DPLII.

In the 4th chapter now, been past 1 boss, ghost/combat frequency has ramped up steadily, and the game has been consistent in its personality: it doesn't care to provide a sense of comfort for the main character.  When it's dark, it's REALLY dark, when it's foggy, it's SNOW-WHITE foggy with ~20ft of visibility, and since the combat doesn't involve conventional ammo, there's no overwhelming sense of firepower to be had; automatic saves mean no typerwriter "safe spots", and you're still vulnerable to damage while trying to replenish health at a Healing Shrine (which takes time).

General combat has been easy as long as I kept my cool, but it's not without pressure.  Ghosts have sway to their steps which can cause missed shots (i've been relying too much on my GHOST GUN that I forget to use melee attacks at close-range), they like to teleport around you, and I've seen up to 3 attack at once, even in cramped spaces.

Two standout flaws I've encountered are the lack of a quick-turn (minor), and the overall inability to run/evade quickly (major).  A problem during the boss fight, running to dodge the "fast" attack only worked if I was far away enough to buy me some time.  He runs about as fast as the out-of-breath characters in Eternal Darkness.  Aside from that, there was no hint of being capable to dodge fast-moving attacks.  My best method for surviving was to perfect my offense rather than relying on escape-regrouping.  Quick-turns would be helpful when dealing with teleporting ghosts.

Story has been interesting, filled with bad omens and certain doom spelled for the main character, learning background bits along the way.  No end-of-the-world or world-domination conspiracies, thankfully.  Looking forward to seeing more boss/monster designs and strange architecture.

EDIT:  If I pace myself properly, I see my "project" as a nice way to pass the time until Silent Hill comes out in a couple months.  It still feels like August is just around the corner.

[Peachylala]

Pro, Killer7 was good because Clover helped out.

Oh, and I finally found the game (Cursed Mountain) at Future Shop. I have extreme doubts of this game not seller well. Why? 98% OF THE STORES I VISITED DIDN'T HAVE THE DAMN GAME.

[DAaaMan64]

I was surprised this wasn't at PAX. :/ Damn

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Cursed Retail