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(SPOILERS) Gushing on Geneforge 1: Best Story Ever??

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So I was wondering if there's anyone else out there who really loves the Geneforge 1 plot, and I'm here to discuss why it is my favorite story ever. Planescape fans, dry your tears.

Why I Think It's the Best Story Ever
Not only does it start with a story of mystery and discovery, but that lonely adventurous discovery leads to a huge game of branching choices about the interplay of people's ability to control life itself, how life should react to that control, how that control can change your own humanity, and mankind's lust for power. All of the facets of the story are essentially an interplay on some idea of self-preservation or morality, and how that idea can be used for or against other political/moral goals. This allows the hero to decide whether to punish or use sentient creatures to an extreme to degree, at ultimate costs or benefits to their lives or general societies. Slavery, worship, rebellion, survival, and independence are all heavily represented in the factions which follow towards a story of not just one evil villain's madness, but two powerful beings who are pitted against each other in a vacuum of power. I've never seen in my life a story which has such a full web of ideologies combined with factions that mesh so exhaustively to question those ideologies.


Why do you love the story, and if it's not the best, what is and why?
 

Grimwulf

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Geneforge had original setting, and sorta moral dilemma setup. It didn't have much of a STORY tho. I think that Geneforge 1 actually has the least amount of text among all Spiderweb games.

But yeah, it was somewhat enjoyable.
 
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Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath
Geneforge story is original and well executed. Can't call it the best ever though. There are a lot of RPGs with good stories which I personally like more: Starflight, Betrayal at Krondor, Chrono Trigger, Anachronox to name a few.

Maybe I'm hackneyed, but story-wise PS:T is the best. And I'm not talking only and firstly about main plot, there are a lot of small details which make it truly great, e.g. Sensorium sensations, talking with O or meeting Adahn.
 
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Deuce Traveler

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Although I still prefer the story in Planescape: Torment, I still agree that the tale in Geneforge 1 is pretty solid. And the tale becomes a saga when you continue play through all five games. The fifth game concludes in an epic way, and so the story stays consistently good with logical paths despite a couple derp moments. You really should at least try the demo at the bottom of the following page if you are curious at all: http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/geneforge/
 

Crevice tab

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Amongst the best if not THE best I've seen (other contenders for that title include Planetscape: Torment and Betrayal at Krondor) and it mostly continues being good over the entire 5 game series which is exceedingly impressive. I especially like how the excellent C&C combines with the well written characters- you rarely get 'easy' or obvious choices.
 

Correct_Carlo

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The Geneforges' writing improves as the series progresses. G4 and G5 are my favorites of the series. G4 is a more limited game in terms of choices (only 3 factions), but it does political maneuvering sooooo well. G5 takes that and combines it with the more open world faction based play of G1, while also maintaining the politics and increased focus on re-occuring characters from G3 and G4.....it doesn't quite have the pressure or momentum of G4, though. So I like them both about equally.
 

Gozma

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It suffers from, "This exotic world is based on the fantasy element of shaping!" but then it's like, "Also there is regular throw a fireball magic too"
 

Crevice tab

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It suffers from, "This exotic world is based on the fantasy element of shaping!" but then it's like, "Also there is regular throw a fireball magic too"

Hardly. The fireball throwing magic is neatly explained in the first game

All magic is pretty much the same stuff. The Shapers began shaping by bombarding living things (usually their enemies) with large doses of magic. In time they wrecked their island, escaped to the mainland and learned more precise control though not necessarily in that order

Without magic only the Shaper class would truly be viable from a lore perspective.
 

NotAGolfer

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Shaping is a neat idea, and I liked the archeology vibe, ruins/facilities have a reasonable layout (at least parts of them) and the fluff text really helps building atmosphere.
What didn't help was all the grinding through too many maps full of trash mobs. Typical Vogel game in that regard, combat system seems not that deep either. I played a Shaper on torment (wasn't overly difficult except for some areas with lots of traps and constant damage dealing environments - which were a welcome diversion and some of them really hard
that cold storage area anyone?
or those fucking shaper crypts, couldn't figure out how to deactivate the spawn points ... maybe sth with the power core but I only found 3 of those crystals so I had to fight my way to the treasures in the shaper crypts. Great area to level up quickly btw. ^^
I specialized in magic shaping and fire shaping. The latter was a waste of points, got the good drayk variant far too late to make any difference, should have put everything in magic shaping instead, Terror Vlish and Ur-Glaahk ftw.
Decisions what equipment to take were pretty straight-forward and class-dependant, and there weren't any options regarding specialized builds afaik.
Leveling up creatures seemed completely pointless too, something feels very wrong about this whole stuff balance-wise.
I finished the game earlier today ... yesterday ... but it was not as much fun as I expected. What definitely helped were the oddities canisters and +attribute loot that motivated me to turn over every rock even in the grindiest areas.
And then there are the little bits and pieces of information about the ancient inhabitants destroying themselves in a civil war because of the shaping magic. Also a great help in fighting against the tedium, even though it didn't lead anywhere except maybe foreshadowing.
And I loved how the game allowed me to stick to the beliefs I chose at the beginning without making me feel bad because the designer thinks I'm evil. I played a Shaper so of course I supported the Obeyers and treated the serviles like slaves wherever I could. After all I am their god. +M Those worms have to know their place, amirite? :smug:
Was fun, enjoyed it.

At the end I had a very difficult time deciding if I want to become invincible or not. It seems Vogel liked the option to destroy the Geneforge without using it better, because the ending slides for that one were more detailed and except for Kazg everyone seemed to live happily ever after. Liked the other endings too though. Only part that fell a bit flat were the ending slides for the servile sects.

edit: replaced "magic casting" and "fire casting" with "shaping"
 
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BLOBERT

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BRO IHAVE WROTE BEFORE THAT ALL 5 GSAMES TOGETHER HAVE THE BEST STORY OF THE COURSE OF A GAME SERIESj
 

Hobo Elf

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I recently started playing the Geneforge games and I'm currently about 10 hours in to the 2nd game. So far the setting is really good and the story is pretty good. I feel that the game itself declined considerably when going from Geneforge 1 to 2. The pacing of the story and how you progress seems slower, I'm not too fond of the tweaks done to the stats, some of the factions are hidden away behind relatively high level areas (this ties in with pacing) and exploration feels a lot less exciting since there are less canisters to be found, which is understandable from a story POV, but I have less drive to explore all the maps in their entirety now. I only do so now so that I can pass through them via quick travel, and for XP. C&C is much more severe now which is great. I managed to piss off the Awakened instantly and so I have no merchants or trainers available from them and it took me a while before I could get to another town safely and access the resources I direly needed.

The best thing about Geneforge, however, is that the earlier games do not feel dated compared to the newer entries. :troll:
 

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