Re: The Silver Lining intro
Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 10:39 pm
Well.....I've played it. I understand why it's short and the reasoning....but is that really a good enough reason?
Besides that, the narration is incredibly long-winded. I found myself more and more apt to avoid interacting with things just so I wouldn't have to sit through the long descriptive texts. The narrator was a little annoying as well, but most of the fault is due to the writing itself. The jokes were very bad and forced and served to completely undermine the ultra-dramatic tone the game had set.
The music wasn't all that special either. It was of great quality, don't get me wrong. Very impressive work and very professionally done....it just didn't do anything for me. It was all very ambient and directionless. It was just there to do its job and it did it to satisfaction. Portrayed the right atmosphere everywhere, although the constant dreary overtones were a little overwhelming. But it works for where the direction of the story is supposed to go. The worst thing about it was that there was no central theme to be found anywhere....it was all just very background-ish.
Something I loved from the original King's Quest games were that the soundtracks had wonderful themes for any given area, situation, or scenario. Very well done. And often even enchantingly so (KQ5 and KQ6 accomplished this best I think). Very bright and alive. I'm not referring to the tone of the tracks but rather the nature of their composition. By comparison, TSL's soundtrack is nothing like the classics' soundtracks at all. And maybe that was intentional, but I don't think it was a smart move. My opinion, of course.
After KQ7 went a similarly underwhelming route regarding direction of the soundtrack (I'm sorry, I didn't like it), I was happy to see that at least MOE brought the bar back up a little bit. Some of those themes in that game struck similar chords that KQ5 and the earlier Sierra games found, though not nearly to the same degree. I'm sorry to see that trend isn't coming back for TSL this time around, though. It's all just bland ear-filler so far.
Although, I was impressed and surprised to hear the presence of an electric guitar in one specific track. That was a bit of a bold move for a fantasy setting and I tip my hat to the composer for such a move. The theme itself, however, wasn't that memorable.
All in all, I'm intrigued to play the next episode (possibly even all of them if they keep interesting me), but I just hope it's full of a lot more variety (and a lot less wordiness) than the first episode was. As an introduction to the rest of the game, I don't necessarily think it did a very good job, but it did raise a lot of questions that I want to see answered....so it got part of the job done at least.
Besides that, the narration is incredibly long-winded. I found myself more and more apt to avoid interacting with things just so I wouldn't have to sit through the long descriptive texts. The narrator was a little annoying as well, but most of the fault is due to the writing itself. The jokes were very bad and forced and served to completely undermine the ultra-dramatic tone the game had set.
The music wasn't all that special either. It was of great quality, don't get me wrong. Very impressive work and very professionally done....it just didn't do anything for me. It was all very ambient and directionless. It was just there to do its job and it did it to satisfaction. Portrayed the right atmosphere everywhere, although the constant dreary overtones were a little overwhelming. But it works for where the direction of the story is supposed to go. The worst thing about it was that there was no central theme to be found anywhere....it was all just very background-ish.
Something I loved from the original King's Quest games were that the soundtracks had wonderful themes for any given area, situation, or scenario. Very well done. And often even enchantingly so (KQ5 and KQ6 accomplished this best I think). Very bright and alive. I'm not referring to the tone of the tracks but rather the nature of their composition. By comparison, TSL's soundtrack is nothing like the classics' soundtracks at all. And maybe that was intentional, but I don't think it was a smart move. My opinion, of course.
After KQ7 went a similarly underwhelming route regarding direction of the soundtrack (I'm sorry, I didn't like it), I was happy to see that at least MOE brought the bar back up a little bit. Some of those themes in that game struck similar chords that KQ5 and the earlier Sierra games found, though not nearly to the same degree. I'm sorry to see that trend isn't coming back for TSL this time around, though. It's all just bland ear-filler so far.
Although, I was impressed and surprised to hear the presence of an electric guitar in one specific track. That was a bit of a bold move for a fantasy setting and I tip my hat to the composer for such a move. The theme itself, however, wasn't that memorable.
All in all, I'm intrigued to play the next episode (possibly even all of them if they keep interesting me), but I just hope it's full of a lot more variety (and a lot less wordiness) than the first episode was. As an introduction to the rest of the game, I don't necessarily think it did a very good job, but it did raise a lot of questions that I want to see answered....so it got part of the job done at least.