The Witcher 2 Will Dodge Conventional RPG Morality
Posted by Amanda "l1pserv1ce" Kay on September 1st, 2010
Is morality a black and white issue? Senior Producer on The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, Tomasz Gop, clearly explains the game will not be heading down the conventional “good versus evil” path familiar to Mass Effect and will instead draw inspiration directly from award-winning Polish fantasy writer and short-story author of The Witcher, Andrzej Sapkowski; Geralt, the main character of The Witcher, operates on his own moral code in an ethically hazy universe or in “grey areas,” so to speak and Gop wants The Witcher 2 to closely resemble the novel in this regard. Also, The Witcher likes boobies.
The recent trailer released showcasing Deus Ex: Human Revolution was met with near-unanimous praise. It’s very well-done, showcases some of the great aspects of the game, and is cinematically gorgeous. What hadn’t been shown off until E3 was actual gameplay footage. Those of us lucky enough to land meetings with Square-Enix this past week were able to see the game in action, and I can allay any fears right now. This game has massive potential. Some of the combat options, both stealth and action, had me almost drooling on Square’s lovely booth carpet.
The Gothic series has long been a staple of RPG gaming for PC enthusiasts. The latest addition to this venerated series, however, seeks to change all that by not only moving away from longtime series developer Piranha Bytes, but also by releasing the 4th installment to 360s and PS3s alongside its PC rendition in an effort to create an AAA title. I’ve personally never dabbled in the Gothic landscape, surprisingly enough as for a long time I considered myself a PC gamer and an RPG nerd, but even the best games can sometimes slip by us.
Some guy once sang that “people are strange, when you’re a stranger.” He’s dead now, but the words are no less true. SMT: Strange Journey is indeed strange to players unfamiliar with its mechanics or its universe, but to those of us experienced with both, it’s not strange at all but rather a wonderful mesh of dungeon crawling, role playing, and Shin Megami Tensei. However, it’s called Strange Journey for a reason. The majority of the SMT games, of which Persona and Devil Summoner are prominent examples, are set in Japan and feature young people in desperate situations. The popular and constant attributes that just about every game carry over are the ability to summon or control demons, usually fuse those demons, and use their skills to exploit enemy weaknesses. Strange Journey keeps the latter but changes up the former by throwing characters from all over the world into the coldest reaches of Antarctica.
The area that our intrepid world-savers head into is dubbed the Schwartzveldt, and for players this becomes the massive dungeon that they will crawl through. It is layered into sectors, with each sector boasting multiple floors and intricacies that will make players wander around for hours just attempting to complete an entire map. As players progress down the dungeon, they encounter tougher enemies and more story. To anyone who has ever picked up an Etrian Odyssey game, the look and feel will be very familiar. The maps even look nearly identical with their grid-based structure that opens up as players walk around. However, Strange Journey does some things flat-out better than its peers. For one, maps are automatically drawn as the characters walk around, so none of that pesky “I have to draw this myself?” business. The protagonist’s suit of armor actually acts as a giant walking computer that records nearly everything seen, heard, or touched in the game. It’s called the Demonica, and though it never had the power to summon or control demons before it entered the Schwartzveldt, it picked up a few new tricks thanks to the trip.
Ah demons, you provide such a welcome staple of the Shin Megami series that it’s becoming hard and harder to…demonize you. The demons are always so friendly, even if at times it’s merely to sucker you into giving them health. Strange Journey adds a combat option, much like the original Persona did, to converse with demons. Talking to a demon instead of bitch-slapping it around can get players items, money (called macca), and most importantly, it can get them to join the team. How a demon reacts to a player’s dialogue is dependent on what answer a player gives from the little multiple choice list of options, as well as alignments. Alignments are a relatively unfamiliar addition to Shin Megami Tensei. There are three different main alignments, as well as some subgroups within each main vein. For any Dungeons and Dragons veterans, this is familiar business. One odd aspect about the game is that players never really know what alignment the main character is. Demons, the party members that share the spotlight in combat, are all color-coded and even have the title description of their alignment. My Jack Frost, for instance, is Chaotic Neutral. Players are color-coded, thankfully, but the subtle shifts are never known. What alignment does exactly is pretty interesting. In combat, if a player finds an enemy’s weakness and exploits it, every member of the party with the same alignment will team up to throw an attack on to that enemy. For instance, if I cast Bufu with my main character and it shows up as a weakness to what I’m fighting, I’ll then basically get an extra attack added on that increases in damage with every member of the party that shares my alignment. It’s a bit of a double-edged blade as building a party of like-aligned people will benefit players wis
hing to do well in battle, however, those of us with a Pokemon-like need to catch ‘em all (and use ‘em all) mentalities, will often be left with mismatched parties. There are benefits to leveling up every single demon in the game, so it’s not just a compulsive thing either. When demons reach a certain level, they’ll gift the protagonist with a source. The source can be used in other demon fusions to give created demons a chunk of skills. It adds an even deeper dimension to an already deep system, and it gives players a measure of control over just what their demon might inherit. No more trial and error at the fusion screen.
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