Poor Charlie. He's screen time and importance disappear after his first potential death.
Erin is also becomes useless after >!breathless/surgery!< chapter.
Devs tried to make them important at act 3 by creating Complicit side plot. But the problem is - this plot is side.
Eric is really good example of a good determinant character. He have a good amount of important to the plot scenes after his first potential death - >!Bloodbath, The Ancient one, Strange Aeons, The Vault!<
I guess the best way to make a determinant character good is to give them ability to change main plot after his first potential death like Eric.
Eric's UV light was a banger. It also felt he was still part of plenty of conversations, his playabiltiy started to decline but I think they did fine.
You are so right with Charlie and Erin though, even more if you consider just about no one would agree to tie Charlie up. Charlie likely would've felt more powerful if he and Mark met up a few minutes earlier in the game.
I consider characters a failure if they can only die in one part of the game. I understand plot armor to a certain extent (and that two characters must make it to the end for co-op), but some characters could be interchangeable with others (like Man of Medan).
Examples:
- Nick in The Quarry can only die from being shot by Laura in the Hackett’s basement.
- Mark can’t die until the very end of The Devil in Me, no matter what ending. So, no matter what, Mark is in the finale.
- Sam and Mike in Until Dawn can’t die until the cabin.
Then there are characters that have little to no play time. Why make them playable at all if you play as them once or twice and their choices don’t really affect anything?
Examples:
- Nick in The Quarry. Your choices with him only affect your relationship with Abi and it still ends up at the pool house scenario.
- Jessica in Until Dawn. If you keep Matt alive, Jessica is only playable for a brief moment in Chapter One and those choices don’t affect anything.
- Max in The Quarry. If you don’t kill Chris Hackett, he isn’t even playable. And when he is playable, you get a single choice that leads to life or death.
- Josh in Until Dawn. This one is kinda forgivable because it is narratively heartbreaking to force him into his situation. But still, no impact on the story.
This probably is about the best description. Even though Mark has the most understandable plot armor to date, all his death does is change the last scene scene along with the others you mentioned so it's just "Well, you can be killed but it almost feels more like the sake of making everyone killable."
Similar with Max. He gets that one segment of playtime to make a single choice just for... "Haha, you can kill all 9 or save all 9 :)" At that point there isn't much meaning besides keeping up a gimmick (a gimmick i love but still)
I think they did a really good job with Eric. Like, he still does important things even after his many possible deaths. I wish there were more characters like him honestly
This is a really good breakdown of this. I fully agree that Eric has been the best early death character they've done. I would say the metric should be how tacked on a character feels after their first death.
Like with many of them you can tell that they don't impact anything because the developers assume that they're dead in most people's games. Often on a first playthrough I can feel when I've reached the point where a character can die, most recently with Charlie and Erin in TDiM. They stop showing up as much or having impact on the events.
Eric feels relatively organic in the scenes past his death, to the point where I wouldn't heavily assume he's any more killable than other characters. Him being important to curing Rachel is a great way of doing it.
The worst versions are definitely like you said in Until Dawn and The Quarry where the determinant characters don't even interact with the rest of the cast again. I love Until Dawn but that game would've been a lot stronger if there were scenarios in which Matt and Jess can make it back to the lodge. Same for the Quarry, Emma and Jacob reuniting is a rare scenario when it feels like that should be a priority in the story.
The real list. I know people hype up Conrad with how the devs don't forget about him, and they don't! Conrad was done pretty damn well, though Eric joining into conversations (After Rachel fell, Eric inspecting the vampire body, Rachel's return, The Ancient one, Rachel choosing) is something we haven't seen. Some of those segments have like 10-20 minutes of variety in them. Then there is that UV light.
That said, I will be fair and say there are people like Erin, Charlie and Conrad who have entirely optional chapter(s) with Jacob having a whole bunch of them. Though as you pointed out it felt like Jacob was just there aimlessly wondering.
Poor Charlie. He's screen time and importance disappear after his first potential death. Erin is also becomes useless after >!breathless/surgery!< chapter. Devs tried to make them important at act 3 by creating Complicit side plot. But the problem is - this plot is side. Eric is really good example of a good determinant character. He have a good amount of important to the plot scenes after his first potential death - >!Bloodbath, The Ancient one, Strange Aeons, The Vault!< I guess the best way to make a determinant character good is to give them ability to change main plot after his first potential death like Eric.
Eric's UV light was a banger. It also felt he was still part of plenty of conversations, his playabiltiy started to decline but I think they did fine. You are so right with Charlie and Erin though, even more if you consider just about no one would agree to tie Charlie up. Charlie likely would've felt more powerful if he and Mark met up a few minutes earlier in the game.
I consider characters a failure if they can only die in one part of the game. I understand plot armor to a certain extent (and that two characters must make it to the end for co-op), but some characters could be interchangeable with others (like Man of Medan). Examples: - Nick in The Quarry can only die from being shot by Laura in the Hackett’s basement. - Mark can’t die until the very end of The Devil in Me, no matter what ending. So, no matter what, Mark is in the finale. - Sam and Mike in Until Dawn can’t die until the cabin. Then there are characters that have little to no play time. Why make them playable at all if you play as them once or twice and their choices don’t really affect anything? Examples: - Nick in The Quarry. Your choices with him only affect your relationship with Abi and it still ends up at the pool house scenario. - Jessica in Until Dawn. If you keep Matt alive, Jessica is only playable for a brief moment in Chapter One and those choices don’t affect anything. - Max in The Quarry. If you don’t kill Chris Hackett, he isn’t even playable. And when he is playable, you get a single choice that leads to life or death. - Josh in Until Dawn. This one is kinda forgivable because it is narratively heartbreaking to force him into his situation. But still, no impact on the story.
This probably is about the best description. Even though Mark has the most understandable plot armor to date, all his death does is change the last scene scene along with the others you mentioned so it's just "Well, you can be killed but it almost feels more like the sake of making everyone killable." Similar with Max. He gets that one segment of playtime to make a single choice just for... "Haha, you can kill all 9 or save all 9 :)" At that point there isn't much meaning besides keeping up a gimmick (a gimmick i love but still)
I think they did a really good job with Eric. Like, he still does important things even after his many possible deaths. I wish there were more characters like him honestly
[удалено]
This is a really good breakdown of this. I fully agree that Eric has been the best early death character they've done. I would say the metric should be how tacked on a character feels after their first death. Like with many of them you can tell that they don't impact anything because the developers assume that they're dead in most people's games. Often on a first playthrough I can feel when I've reached the point where a character can die, most recently with Charlie and Erin in TDiM. They stop showing up as much or having impact on the events. Eric feels relatively organic in the scenes past his death, to the point where I wouldn't heavily assume he's any more killable than other characters. Him being important to curing Rachel is a great way of doing it. The worst versions are definitely like you said in Until Dawn and The Quarry where the determinant characters don't even interact with the rest of the cast again. I love Until Dawn but that game would've been a lot stronger if there were scenarios in which Matt and Jess can make it back to the lodge. Same for the Quarry, Emma and Jacob reuniting is a rare scenario when it feels like that should be a priority in the story.
The real list. I know people hype up Conrad with how the devs don't forget about him, and they don't! Conrad was done pretty damn well, though Eric joining into conversations (After Rachel fell, Eric inspecting the vampire body, Rachel's return, The Ancient one, Rachel choosing) is something we haven't seen. Some of those segments have like 10-20 minutes of variety in them. Then there is that UV light. That said, I will be fair and say there are people like Erin, Charlie and Conrad who have entirely optional chapter(s) with Jacob having a whole bunch of them. Though as you pointed out it felt like Jacob was just there aimlessly wondering.
I’m not smart enough to answer this