Is it too easy to get stuck in or break Serpent Isle?
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 8:58 pm
This has nothing to do with Exult, I think, but rather with Serpent Isle as a game. I finally managed to complete the Black Gate and decided to start on the Serpent Isle.
In the beginning I didn't like it as it felt too linear compared to the Black Gate, but the Silver Seed expansion was rather fun and the game became interesting when I got to Moonshade.
But when I got to the frozen region part of the game things started going wrong one after the other and I decided to just throw in the towel and read a walkthrough on the rest of the game. Even with a walkthrough I couldn't complete it so I just quit the game and read the last of the walkthrough. :p
My main issue was that it felt like I was being punished at every turn for free roaming. I could spend hours completing a dungeon I had discovered by chance, but the very last door would be locked until I did something in the main storyline and there was no way for me to know until much later or from reading a walkthrough. I would spend hours trying to open the last door, or complete the last puzzle because there was no way for me to know that I was missing a key item or that some game event wasn't triggered yet.
Some of the places where this happened included:
- Shamino's castle. I found this when wandering around and I could use telekinesis to open the gates. I was able to do everything inside the castle, but the keep was magically sealed. I tried talking to everyone, but got no clues. But much, much later when I got the tracking dog he apparently triggered the magical seal to go away for no apparent reason.
- The same happened with the dragon blood quest. I had found the caves to the north very early and was just exploring. I brought the dragon blood to the Gwani, but they would just take it from me and not give me a reward. I had to read a walkthrough to know that I had to use the tracking dog beforehand for no apparent reason to receive a reward.
- Later I got the serpent's tooth to the temple of balance and completed the puzzles there before I got permanently stuck inside the temple because I didn't have any of the items you should have had at that point. This required me to load another save game.
- I had also walked across the temple of the white dragon early in the game and later in the game I assumed that was it so I went back and I was able to enter and solve all the key puzzles, but when I tried to kill Shamino, Iolo and Dupre nothing happened, they all remained on 1 health. Leaving the castle and asking everyone I could find got me nowhere.
- What caused me to quit the game entirely was when the walkthrough told me I had to go to Torrisio and ask him about catching souls. I had killed Torrisio many days ago in real time because he stole that philosopher wand from me. I had tried talking to him after he took the wand, but he just kept running away without saying a word so I thought the game meant for me to kill him so I did. After all I needed it because that teacher guy from stone. There was no way I would try and find a save game that far back so I just quit.
I played through the entire Black Gate without a walkthrough and I loved the pacing of it and the balance between free roaming, side quests and storyline, but Serpent Isle made me feel like it's only possible to complete it if you do everything in the order it's supposed to be done, if not it's too easy to mess something up and you'll find it almost impossible to end up in the right place at the right time.
Just venting some steam and wondering what others thought about the differences between the two games?
In the beginning I didn't like it as it felt too linear compared to the Black Gate, but the Silver Seed expansion was rather fun and the game became interesting when I got to Moonshade.
But when I got to the frozen region part of the game things started going wrong one after the other and I decided to just throw in the towel and read a walkthrough on the rest of the game. Even with a walkthrough I couldn't complete it so I just quit the game and read the last of the walkthrough. :p
My main issue was that it felt like I was being punished at every turn for free roaming. I could spend hours completing a dungeon I had discovered by chance, but the very last door would be locked until I did something in the main storyline and there was no way for me to know until much later or from reading a walkthrough. I would spend hours trying to open the last door, or complete the last puzzle because there was no way for me to know that I was missing a key item or that some game event wasn't triggered yet.
Some of the places where this happened included:
- Shamino's castle. I found this when wandering around and I could use telekinesis to open the gates. I was able to do everything inside the castle, but the keep was magically sealed. I tried talking to everyone, but got no clues. But much, much later when I got the tracking dog he apparently triggered the magical seal to go away for no apparent reason.
- The same happened with the dragon blood quest. I had found the caves to the north very early and was just exploring. I brought the dragon blood to the Gwani, but they would just take it from me and not give me a reward. I had to read a walkthrough to know that I had to use the tracking dog beforehand for no apparent reason to receive a reward.
- Later I got the serpent's tooth to the temple of balance and completed the puzzles there before I got permanently stuck inside the temple because I didn't have any of the items you should have had at that point. This required me to load another save game.
- I had also walked across the temple of the white dragon early in the game and later in the game I assumed that was it so I went back and I was able to enter and solve all the key puzzles, but when I tried to kill Shamino, Iolo and Dupre nothing happened, they all remained on 1 health. Leaving the castle and asking everyone I could find got me nowhere.
- What caused me to quit the game entirely was when the walkthrough told me I had to go to Torrisio and ask him about catching souls. I had killed Torrisio many days ago in real time because he stole that philosopher wand from me. I had tried talking to him after he took the wand, but he just kept running away without saying a word so I thought the game meant for me to kill him so I did. After all I needed it because that teacher guy from stone. There was no way I would try and find a save game that far back so I just quit.
I played through the entire Black Gate without a walkthrough and I loved the pacing of it and the balance between free roaming, side quests and storyline, but Serpent Isle made me feel like it's only possible to complete it if you do everything in the order it's supposed to be done, if not it's too easy to mess something up and you'll find it almost impossible to end up in the right place at the right time.
Just venting some steam and wondering what others thought about the differences between the two games?