Daedalic Memoria

[Boleskine]

Still need to play Chains of Satinav, but I hope to get this one day when it's on GOG.

 

[Cool name]

So, I did just finish this one. Took me about... I don't know. Six hours? Eight hours? No walkthroughs, no combination aide, no hotspot detector. Short game.

The visuals are beautiful and impressive. The music is utterly forgettable. The game is stable and everythingie. The story is interesting and much better told than in that Night of the Rabbit abomination. But the puzzles? Oh, man, the puzzles are a crime against, uhm, puzzledom. In other words there are no puzzles. There are hurdles. The enviroments are small, there are few items, and there are few 'spells.' I.E: You have to solve this problem. How? With these three thingies you have here. Ooooh. So you did? Well, now you have to solve those two problems. And you will do so using... uhm... those four thingies! And there are only two screens, with three hotspots each! Hard, isn't it? Bleep you, game. An adventure game with bad puzzles is like a FPS with bad shooting, dood. It doesn't matter how beautiful your visuals and how cute your story, you still suck. And the puzzles in this game, uhm, SUCK BLUE BALLS.

Yet it's easily my favorite Daedalic game so far.



I'm deeply conflicted.

I just hope the ending means the next game in the series will be focused on the 'princess' girl and the staff, because if I have to play another game with dat dude and dat fairy I am going to be sooo pissed. Bleeping fairy, dood. Every single time she appears I want to slap the stupid out of her. And stop your whining, dude. Dat shit ain't cute. But at least memoria did do it right: Dat dude and dat fairy have almost no airtime and are surrounded by much more interesting people so, like, who cares about them? The princess, and the staff, and the battle mage were all cool. The relationship between 'princess' and the staff was also pretty cool. Cheesy and rushed, yeah, but it did still work. It was like dat dood and dat fairy, but done right. When the Princess+Staff ending did come I was, like, T_T Go STAFF DOOD, YOU CAN DO IT! YOU CAN GET A HAPPY ENDING! Totally there and involved and shit. When dat dood and dat fairy ending did come I was, like, Meh. You two did suck back in the previous game, and you two do still suck. Just leave the game already. I don't fucking care if fairy lost her memories, I don't fucking care if you luv her, I don't fucking care if fairy wants to see the sea. Fuck you two.

 

[FeelTheRads]

What's your take on the puzzles in the Deponia games? While maybe not difficult, they had some original stuff.
Took me longer to do that than the Myst puzzles which I know you love so much.

 

[Cool name]

I did really like the Deponia game I did play. The first part, the part in the city, had cool puzzles. It was open, you had several objectives to accomplish, lots of places to explore, and little to no hand holding on what to do and when to do it. The second and third parts were kind of meh in the puzzle department. They were linear and closed and with very clear objectives. The only trouble I had once I did leave the city was with...

Spoiler

... that part at the end in which you have to eat the stuffies by clicking the right mouse button on them...

... because by that point I was not even checking the items' descriptions, so I did knew what I had to do but as I did never right clicked on anything anymore I couldn't do it.

Which was more of 'your interface sucks' than 'good puzzle design.'

I guess that's the problem with the 'dat dood and dat fairy' games. They are utterly linear, and instead of having a lot of places to explore and a couple of vague objectives to accomplish you always have to DO THIS on these TWO SCREENS. It's kind of hard to make hard puzzles when you have two places to explore, five hotspots, and three items.

The part of Memoria that did really piss me off was that part where the princess girl is in the forest. You have this HUGE AND BEAUTIFUL AREA, dozens of screens to explore, yet there is... nothing. The forest is divided in three areas and there are two puzzles, one to get from area 1 to area 2 and other to get from area 2 to area 3. A total of, like, four items are involved, all very near of where you have to use it. That's it. And I was playing through it and I was, like, with all this empty forest and a few more locations this could be, like, the most beautiful Quest for Glory clone EVER, yet here I am... Wandering an empty forest and solving retard-level puzzles.

Inventory-based adventure games can't be LINEAR. They HAVE to be open. When you have, like, two hotspots and five items, well, there is no puzzle at all. Yet they went and did built this HUGE AREA and did put, uhm, two hotspots and three items on it. Oh, and a 'skip the maze' button in case OMG SOMEONE MAY GET LOST AND QUIT THE GAME.

Fuck it.

 

[FeelTheRads]

So I guess you played the first one? The second one is more open, I'd say. But that too gets smaller and smaller towards the end.

 

[Cool name]

Yeah. I did play a little bit of the second one but I did have a lot of problems with it so I did jump ship. I am currently, uhm, acquiring it again to try it on this machine. It's the only Daedalic game I have yet to play. Well, that and maybe finishing The Whispered World but I simply can't stomach that game. I was almost at the end (I was about to finish the castle part) when I just decided I did prefer to not know the end to listen to that total loser utter another line. God he's so annoying. At least the Deponia guy is funny and cute. Sadwick is a total waste of air. He is not even Beta. He is, like, I don't know... An Omega Male?

Oh, and I have to play the ones about the crazy girl and the bunny too.

 

[abnaxus]

Is this in any way comparable to Death Gate? You need to use spells to solve puzzles?

 

[FeelTheRads]

God he's so annoying.

Guess we'll never see eye to eye.

 

[Cool name]

Is this in any way comparable to Death Gate? You need to use spells to solve puzzles?

Yes, but there are just a few spells.

Dat dood has a spell to Break/Repair fragiles thingies and a spell to detect magic.

The princess girl gets a spell to Activate/Deactivate magical thingies, a spell to send visions and manipulate people's minds, and a spell to turn thingies into stone and back again.

The spell to send visions and manipulate people's minds is cool and fun to use, and there are some neat but easy puzzles with it as every now and then you have to control the actions or feelings of a character by picking what images you want to send them so that they feel differently about something or the like. The others aren't so interesting. There is a particular sequence using the break/repair spell on a wizard turned to stone that's simply epic because of how utterly sadistical it is, and a sequence at the begining of the game where you have to use the activate/deactivate spell a lot that was really fun and promising, but that's about it. The rest of the time its pretty straightforward. Nothing next to Loom or Quest for Glory or the like.

Edit: The princess technically gets a few more spells (a mind wipe spell and the ability to control weak elementals) but they are kind of single use: You just use them once and that's it, they never come up again.

Guess we'll never see eye to eye.

Wow, wait. Wait. He has fans?

Now I have seen everythingie.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I found him annoying at first, but by the end I thought he was hilarious. I don't think his whining was supposed to be taken seriously. As in, you were not supposed to be feel sorry about him, but laugh at him and his clumsiness. I mean... even his name. And he's a clown. I thought it was brilliant. But like I already said somewhere in this forum, I'm a Daedalic fanboy.*

* Did not actually like Satinav or that one with the time-traveling hippies.

 

[Cool name]

I think it was mostly his voice. I mean, he speaks a lot. And he speaks really, really slowly. And most of his comments are completely useless and not very funny. And his voice is grating. So by the middle point of the game I was like skipping everything he said because SHUT UP ALREADY. And by the end I was, like, I can't take it anymore. Please kill me. He was like a black hole of happiness and joy.

But then I did kind of like the time-traveling hippies one so I may have no taste at all. Satinav was kind of hit and miss for me. It was GORGEUS and I do enjoy Fantasy far more as an Adventure game than I do in RPGs but... dat dood, oh god. And dat fairy, one hundred percent manic pixie dream girl and straight out of a magical girlfriend anime. Ewww. It says something about how much your main characters suck when the end comes and I am rooting for the bad guy. At least he was trying to do something cool. -_-U

 

[abnaxus]

Yeah. I did play a little bit of the second one but I did have a lot of problems with it so I did jump ship. I am currently, uhm, acquiring it again to try it on this machine. It's the only Daedalic game I have yet to play. Well, that and maybe finishing The Whispered World but I simply can't stomach that game. I was almost at the end (I was about to finish the castle part) when I just decided I did prefer to not know the end to listen to that total loser utter another line. God he's so annoying. At least the Deponia guy is funny and cute. Sadwick is a total waste of air. He is not even Beta. He is, like, I don't know... An Omega Male?

Oh, and I have to play the ones about the crazy girl and the bunny too.

Keep in mind it is made by Germans. So characters will either be bland blocks of wood or whiny manchildren. It can't be any other way.

 

[evdk]

Nad now I find Black Cat dislikes Sadwick. So close to ignoring, hnng.

 

[Jaesun]

What is this thread about?

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Nad now I find Black Cat dislikes Sadwick. So close to ignoring, hnng.

I'd say the fact that she finds Rufus "funny and cute" is more worrisome.

 

[Boleskine]

What is this thread about?

The pros and cons of Daedalic games!

I like their adventures - great music, beautiful art, decent enough puzzles, nice storytelling.

 

[Bubbles]

But the puzzles? Oh, man, the puzzles are a crime against, uhm, puzzledom. In other words there are no puzzles. There are hurdles. The enviroments are small, there are few items, and there are few 'spells.' I.E: You have to solve this problem. How? With these three thingies you have here. Ooooh. So you did? Well, now you have to solve those two problems. And you will do so using... uhm... those four thingies! And there are only two screens, with three hotspots each! Hard, isn't it? Bleep you, game. An adventure game with bad puzzles is like a FPS with bad shooting, dood. It doesn't matter how beautiful your visuals and how cute your story, you still suck. And the puzzles in this game, uhm, SUCK BLUE BALLS.

You realize that the game was savaged in the major gaming press for having impossibly hard puzzles, right?

 

[FeelTheRads]

Yeah, the major gaming press is a fountain of wisdom.

 

[Boleskine]

Yeah, the major gaming press is a fountain of wisdom.

Especially when it comes to adventure games.

 

[JarlFrank]

I usually need a walkthrough for most adventure games but the puzzles in Memoria were super easy. There were only two instances where I got stuck and had to think for a while, but then the solution was just something simple and obvious I missed because it was *too* obvious.
Anyone who thinks this game has hard puzzles has to be mentally retarded, honestly.

Beautiful graphics and a good story, though. Loved that twist at the ending, really didn't see that coming!

 

[Darth Roxor]

Got Chains of Satinav yesterday.

It's p. cool as well

 

[Shadenuat]

Wow, the plot of the sequel outperformed plot of the original so much I don't see why they even bothered with Garen&Nuri at all in this game. Maybe they will have some final adventure in third game, where Nuri would be back again to her funny character instead of what she is in Memoria, and Garen won't be such a miserable twat.

 

[DalekFlay]

Memoria is live on GOG.

I'll get it someday, when I finish Satinav.

(Oh who the fuck am I kidding).

 

[suejak]

It's hilarious that the title of this forum refers to "the long-dead genre of adventure games" when there are easily 5 coming out a month.

 

[Visbhume]

The GOG version lacks german dialogues it seems. Does the Steam version have full german text/voice acting? I'm trying to learn the language and I was thinking of buying this.