In fact, certain animation tip offs were even carried through all bosses because you could notice it on the Prince rather than the enemy. You’ll notice that whenever the Prince flips his sword so he’s wielding it in a backward grip, the attack the boss is going to use requires the X button to be pressed in order to deflect it.

I thought the ability to watch the way the characters, rather than just seeing a giant blue X on my screen, allowed me to stay immersed in the game. It also gave me an extra split second to prevent incoming pain.

Playing through it made me want to go back and play the original trilogy… time-magic is way cooler than auto-saves and assisted-jumps.

Playing last gen games hard now. Sometimes I am ok, sometimes my inner graphics whore comes out.

The “QTE” description isn’t quite apt. You’re hitting buttons to jump and grab rings at specific times; the jump button always makes you jump. This is not hitting a randomly flashing button in order to progress a cutscene. Where it is similar to a quick time event is that the actions flow out longer than we’re used to. After you grab that ring and propel yourself, you won’t have to hit another button for about a second as he runs along the wall. The platforming feels like a simplified God of War (specifically the wall climbing parts), and at first it’s jarring as you don’t have to hit as many buttons to get the actions you want. That scaling back of button pressing gives the detached feeling that many people are calling QTE-like. But very quickly it gets what the 2D Sonic games got – the joy of rushing through neat areas and going from bit to bit, but with more to input.

The absense of long reloads because of failure is relieving. Despite this game being supposedly “too easy,” there are challenges where I’ve fallen ten straight times. Waiting for the game to restart each time and hiking back to that spot ten times would have driven me batty. Instead I skipped the frustration that was acceptable years ago, but at this point is a punishment that does not add to my satisfaction upon succeeding at all. Those people who do gain additional satisfaction from load time punishment are likely to feel the opposite way.

Funny thing about the combat – some of the boss encounters do take a while, but the ones Phil was complaining about on the podcast I actually cleared in under 30 seconds a piece. Those fights still needed more variety (as he said on the podcast, they recycle the same attacks without cool down and it gets straight-up silly), but since none last more than five minutes for, they feel like pallet cleansers before I jump back into the level and hunt down the collectible seeds. Phil, I totally agree with a need for proper flow in these fights, and way less actual timed button pressing.

I cannot get over how fun this simplified racing and platforming is for me. There’s this mix of scenery, motion and just enough tricks that I can’t get enough of it.

This has me wondering, does anyone really enjoy QTE gameplay? Would you be sad if the game just went into a cut scene to finish the battle instead?

Liking the new ESG crowd. It’s so great to read from so many insightful commenters.

I loved the platforming, and of course PoP is probably the most beautiful looking game I’ve ever played. And, contrary to alot of opinions i’ve heard and read, I actually liked the characters and most of their dialogue (I think I enjoyed talking to Elika more than fighting). I just wish they could have spent a little more time developing a more satisfying combat system to round everything out.

I do hope to check this game out some time.

I think the problem people have talking about this game is that it is just too hard to give the dev team props for what they did create because of mistakes that could have been corrected.

What I experienced while playing was the game was exactly the inverse of what a developer wants- the more I played the less I felt engaged by the game.

I am sure part of the problem was that i found the new Prince’s ‘edgy’ character annoying… there were moments that were good (the I spy game), but most of the time I wanted him to quit trying to be so cool.

Add to this that I simply got sick of seeing the same jumps, rings, at boards to run up or along and it means that most of the game’s core aspects started to wear on me as the game went on.

I am sure there are some that will fall in love with PoP. I am not saying they are wrong at all. I would say that they are perhaps looking for something other than what the average gamer is looking for.

I definately do not think that looking at all the aspects of a game equates to reducing the game to a checklist. If we gave every game props for what it does right while ignoring the bits that stumble then every game would get a perfect score. And it would also not be fiar to our audience.