I only really started loving this game when I started listening to Ryoji Ikeda and speedy acid trance while playing it.
Deceptively repetitious, in that it gradually shifted from a game of endless grinding into something of a hypnotic trance state in the form of a game play loop. The effect of fully learning the initial flow of the game really lent to the unease I felt when in its late stages, it all of the sudden starts introducing new alien elements and stages and visuals. There is a striking effect to playing the same handful of stages over and over again thinking you've seen what the game has to offer, and then suddenly finding yourself in an entirely unfamiliar setting.
Considering that one biggest strengths of the first games was it's tightly controlled level flow, you would think that a game entirely about generative randomization would kinda ruin what made that game work as well as it did. But, despite individual levels having less impact, there is something to be said about the cumulative effect of being forced to improvise and adapt on a level to level basis. It becomes less about the specific design of the levels and more about the textural experience the game creates over time. You won't remember any specific encounter as you might in the first game, but it leaves an undeniable abstract impression in its flow.
The special abilities feel a little underwhelming at first, until you've collected so many of them that you've power creeped your way into absurdly effective and satisfying combinations (getting the shot flow + ricochet powerups at the same time really did a lot to make this part of the game click to a borderline obsessive degree for me). The final stinger the game pulls makes this system all the more impactful. Genuinely unforgettable ending.
MCD is an odd game in that it kinda ditches a lot of what made the first game work at all in favor of doing a completely new thing that somehow works even better. It's no longer a game about acting out memorable action movie set pieces as carefully paced logic puzzles, it's now taking the emotional impression of these set pieces and deconstructing them into a repeated mantra of cycling improvised-yet-familiar puzzle tasks. It's more interested in creating an abstract emotional impression than any of the tightly recognizable beats of the original. It keeps the incredibly simple baseline movement and weapon system unchanged, but creates complexity in unexpected ways with it's new systems. It took the skeleton of the original game, and instead of saying "what if we did this, but more and better?" it finds a distinct new expressionist space to explore.
why the fuck do I die instantly when I bodyswap with a spawning enemy though that shit is so stupid nothing makes me rage quit faster than when that happens like wtf
Deceptively repetitious, in that it gradually shifted from a game of endless grinding into something of a hypnotic trance state in the form of a game play loop. The effect of fully learning the initial flow of the game really lent to the unease I felt when in its late stages, it all of the sudden starts introducing new alien elements and stages and visuals. There is a striking effect to playing the same handful of stages over and over again thinking you've seen what the game has to offer, and then suddenly finding yourself in an entirely unfamiliar setting.
Considering that one biggest strengths of the first games was it's tightly controlled level flow, you would think that a game entirely about generative randomization would kinda ruin what made that game work as well as it did. But, despite individual levels having less impact, there is something to be said about the cumulative effect of being forced to improvise and adapt on a level to level basis. It becomes less about the specific design of the levels and more about the textural experience the game creates over time. You won't remember any specific encounter as you might in the first game, but it leaves an undeniable abstract impression in its flow.
The special abilities feel a little underwhelming at first, until you've collected so many of them that you've power creeped your way into absurdly effective and satisfying combinations (getting the shot flow + ricochet powerups at the same time really did a lot to make this part of the game click to a borderline obsessive degree for me). The final stinger the game pulls makes this system all the more impactful. Genuinely unforgettable ending.
MCD is an odd game in that it kinda ditches a lot of what made the first game work at all in favor of doing a completely new thing that somehow works even better. It's no longer a game about acting out memorable action movie set pieces as carefully paced logic puzzles, it's now taking the emotional impression of these set pieces and deconstructing them into a repeated mantra of cycling improvised-yet-familiar puzzle tasks. It's more interested in creating an abstract emotional impression than any of the tightly recognizable beats of the original. It keeps the incredibly simple baseline movement and weapon system unchanged, but creates complexity in unexpected ways with it's new systems. It took the skeleton of the original game, and instead of saying "what if we did this, but more and better?" it finds a distinct new expressionist space to explore.