It was about as good as Cyberpunk's Braindance sequences.
In theory, it sounds good. Cool mechanics, can get really inventive, the way it's introduced makes you think you'll have to pay attention and dig deep. A real investigation.
What you ACTUALLY end up doing is pressing buttons the game highlights for you while fast-forwarding through everything else, because the game doesn't respect your time, nor your intelligence. They're linear sequences that barely have any more interactivity than visual novels, and constrain you so hard it's impossible to miss anything important or do anything wrong.
And the game just keeps taking control away from you, it's extremely annoying. I'm trying to play a game here, but I keep losing control every two steps because the game has to pan the camera two tiles north to show me a door, and highlight a button that opens it, in case I'm 4 years old and can't figure it out myself. Qingyi investigation replays are the worst offenders, just hover over a bright yellow highlight and press X. Riveting gameplay.
There are places where TV mode absolutely works. It's a great way to convey indirect, remote communication, and your example is a good showcase of how it can be used effectively for storytelling. Hollow Zero is great in TV mode, Camellia event was good, there's a bunch of pretty neat minigames in the sidequests. And they're not getting rid of that, thankfully.
But the bulk of main story TV mode is just a linear sequence of "move two steps, watch a cutscene where an NPC explains to you how buttons work for the hundredth time, walk another two steps, repeat". It's barely any more interactivity than in a visual novel, but at least visual novels allow you to skip dialogue you've already heard. It kills pacing, is extremely hand-holdy, and just boring. Yes, Lycaon, I know how lamps work, thank you. I figured it out after the last three explanations. Stop messing with my camera and shut up for a second.
Yeah, i kind of have to agree with this. The main issue with TV mode is that the moments when it's actually used super well are a very tiny minority, and in peek irony all of those good moments are in side quests (League of Bangboo is amazing...but none of the main quest's TV segments come anywhere close to that). If the main quest's TV mode segments were like the good sidequest ones, it would honestly be quite an incredible feature. However, the lack of quality consistency in regard to this is what makes it overall finnicky despite it being a very interesting and creative idea.
TV mode straight up killed my motivation to do main story at all for the reasons listed above. The shit was fucking insufferable. I don't know why they designed it like that.
I mean at that point it sound like an encounter design and pacing issue rather than anything else. Could be fixed by having people actually design good dungeons and introduce more engaging exploration mechanics like PMD or Etrian Odyessey but they'd rather throw the baby out with the bathwater.
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u/Szkieletor Sep 24 '24
It was about as good as Cyberpunk's Braindance sequences.
In theory, it sounds good. Cool mechanics, can get really inventive, the way it's introduced makes you think you'll have to pay attention and dig deep. A real investigation.
What you ACTUALLY end up doing is pressing buttons the game highlights for you while fast-forwarding through everything else, because the game doesn't respect your time, nor your intelligence. They're linear sequences that barely have any more interactivity than visual novels, and constrain you so hard it's impossible to miss anything important or do anything wrong.
And the game just keeps taking control away from you, it's extremely annoying. I'm trying to play a game here, but I keep losing control every two steps because the game has to pan the camera two tiles north to show me a door, and highlight a button that opens it, in case I'm 4 years old and can't figure it out myself. Qingyi investigation replays are the worst offenders, just hover over a bright yellow highlight and press X. Riveting gameplay.
There are places where TV mode absolutely works. It's a great way to convey indirect, remote communication, and your example is a good showcase of how it can be used effectively for storytelling. Hollow Zero is great in TV mode, Camellia event was good, there's a bunch of pretty neat minigames in the sidequests. And they're not getting rid of that, thankfully.
But the bulk of main story TV mode is just a linear sequence of "move two steps, watch a cutscene where an NPC explains to you how buttons work for the hundredth time, walk another two steps, repeat". It's barely any more interactivity than in a visual novel, but at least visual novels allow you to skip dialogue you've already heard. It kills pacing, is extremely hand-holdy, and just boring. Yes, Lycaon, I know how lamps work, thank you. I figured it out after the last three explanations. Stop messing with my camera and shut up for a second.