Thread 724753694

I like Bloodlines 2, but it is a minimum viable product in so many ways despite a fairly protracted development cycle under The Chinese Room. Hardsuit Labs spent years on a project they were incapable of shipping, and The Chinese Room got paid peanuts to pick up the pieces and assemble a streamlined, flattened collection of compromises. Every aspect of Bloodlines 2 got squeezed. You even see it in how every single reused location got retrofitted into this samey neo-noir aesthetic of dark shadows and coloured lighting, compared to the original version seen here.

Every single quest and character and location and mechanic in Bloodlines 2 has this deep air of compromise. Of what might have been if Paradox had given The Chinese Room a proper budget and maybe forced them to hire some real RPG designers, and not just given them a brag bag of assets and told them to get it done as cheaply as possible.

what is bro yapping about

>>724753694 (OP)
>I like Bloodlines 2
lol

He has been paid to make these shitty threads. He usually just ends up posting random replies and the responding to them to make it look like people are interested in this shit.

This is The Chinese Room's version of the tower. And it has this jarring feeling of "This doesn't feel lived in". There is no reception desk anymore. There's not even a reception desk upstairs at Campbell/Ryong's office. Also, where HSL's version has this realy diversity of lighting and aesthetics, everything in TCR's version gets flattened into this relentless neo-noir aesthetic. Everything from your haven to the tower to the clubs is all just dimly lit, coloured lighting, more dimly lit. Safia doesn't have a brightly lit sterile lab. No, she works out of a dimly lit room with coloured lighting. There's this lack of contrast across TCR's version. It's all just compressed and squeezed into this single look, this single feel. It's why the game feels the same no matter where you are in the hub. Chinatown and Downtown feel kind of the same.

So, so, many character models didn't make the cut.

>>724754406
Chinese Room knows exactly one style of lighting and they apply that relentlessly.

There is zero reason to believe Hardsuit Labs would have been able to make a decent game, anon. Their rap sheet isn't exactly impressive.

You're looking at raw concepts and vertical slices and delude a masterpiece in the making.

>>724754889
I think HSL's version was a complete disaster. But I think that TCR got pressured either by budget or by resource limitations into taking the assets from HSL and really just crunching them down into a bare minimum product. All the diversity and range got obliterated. It's a game where you live in an apartment building with no NPCs you can talk to located on a city block with no named NPCs you can talk to. The world is so hollow. It's so superficial. The game has all these interiors with ZERO dialogue. NPCs don't even chat to each other. You can't talk to any of them. There's a anarch bar and you can talk to the bartender ONCE during a quest as Fabien. At no other point in the entire game can you speak to him. Again, bare minimum. The game is so conspicuously strung together. There's no connective tissue. It's just disjointed pieces held aloft with string. It's a miracle they were able to ship it, and I found the story and atmosphere really enjoyable. But it's so thin.

>>724753694 (OP)
>and maybe forced them to hire some real RPG designers
Why would you go with TCR in the first place then if you know they aren't RPG makers?

>>724756098
Because Sumo Digital nominated them. Also because they said they'd do it for cheap. Also because having a good story trumped being an RPG.

>>724754179
retard

>>724756670
>Also because having a good story trumped being an RPG.
I dunno about that considering all the complaints about it not being an RPG.

>>724757105
From Paradox's perspective it was much more important to have a good story, even a relatively linear and constrained one, than a bad story that had lots of choices that mattered. Because everyone likes a compelling story. Only RPG fans care about the RPG stuff. You cast a wider net this way.

>>724757351
Well I still see people complaining about the story too so