Hunter233

Oh, reading the "gone gold" post reminded me of a couple things. First is another complaint I had about the game. I used to love the beautifully done CG cutscenes of the first game, and so I was really disappointed to find there weren't any in this game. Yeah, I get it, they have their 3D engine now. But firstly, the graphics aren't that great to warrant the complete elimination of CG cutscenes, and secondly, the animations are so lacking that, while they didn't bother me terribly during conversations, the game would have really benefitted from a few hand-tailored CG cutscenes. Oh, and having them would have eliminated that whole loading screen problem during long chunks of cutscene. I mean, how much better could the ending have been if part of it had been taken care of with a simple CG scene? Second, you guys have the PC version, right? Is there a focus field in that without using a gamepad? I borrowed a friend's PC copy to see which I preferred, and right now I'm having to say I like the X-Box one better simply because I can't for the life of me figure out how to activate the focus field with a mouse and keyboard.

I also really enjoyed the ending. After a while, heh. I guess any complaints I have about the game were covered by you guys. Loading screens during the finale = bleh. I mainly came here to answer your question about the "other sidekick." He was talking about Sam from Lord of the Rings. He said something like "What did he do?? Carry some guy up a mountain on his back? Big deal!" which is a reference to the ending of RotK. Oh, also, is the "white lady" supposed to be the White of the Draic Kin? Isn't she dead by then? It made me wonder if perhaps Brian or whatever else might be hunting the Kin is able to use their forms afterwards. Maybe Zoe didn't actually "save April," and the hunter just wanted her to think she had so she'd stop trying, so it came to Faith in the White's form to feed her misinformation. That would explain why we can't figure out what Zoe actually did. The only other explanation I could think of would be shaking April out of her stupor. That still wouldn't explain why the White would be able to tell Faith that at that point. That also got me thinking about how much of this game might have been misinformation. So here's an interesting theory: First off, I'm fairly convinced Brian is the one hunting the Kin. Only I don't think he's actually Brian Westhouse anymore. I don't think he has been since the intro to the game. My guess is that whole thing with the Undreaming was his form being taken by it so it could do whatever nefarious things it's up to. But then why would Cortez/Chavez have helped him, if he was going to end up becoming a bad guy? Well, and I this notion took a while for me to deal with, maybe Cortez isn't a good guy after all. It's been a while since I've played TLJ, so that game might poke some holes in my theory, but I'm gonna throw it out there anyway. Maybe the Balance being restored in the first game wasn't such a good thing after all. We know the two worlds reunite by the end, and within April's lifetime, so maybe they were supposed to have reunited then, in order to stop whatever it is that's happening now. But Cortez wanted what's happening now to happen, for whatever reason, and so he set events in motion that would keep the Balance going. This would also maybe explain why the Guardian told April that she's not needed anymore. That could have been misinformation as well. A big part of the philosophy behind this game seemed to involve purpose, and how lost one is without a purpose. Perhaps the Guardian knew that for the events in motion to be stopped, the twin worlds would have to be reunited, thereby eliminating the Balance and denying him of his purpose. Rather than once again living life without purpose, when the opportunity arose he did what he could to set April down the wrong path, thereby securing his purpose by denying April hers.

In my opinion, while WW did leave an awfully bad taste in my mouth, it was still more or less enjoyable to play through because of the puzzles that were still buried within. Yes, the "attitude" grated like hell on my nerves, and yes, I had stopped playing the game partway through until TT was announced, and looked like it was actually going to be good again, but once I had that reason to play it, I was able to grit my teeth through the terrible parts and find some of the good things that were in it. Believe it or not, there's actually some semblance of a decent story in there. It's just a little hard to see through the grit. But down to the core question. Is TT good enough to play through WW first? Obviously, my answer is yes, since that's what got me to pick up WW again in the first place. So I guess the question from my viewpoint is "Was it worth it after you actually played TT?" And for that, my answer is a resounding yes. TT was definitely not as good as SOT, but in my opinion, it came very close. And as someone stated earlier in this thread, it did an honest job of trying to make it seem like there was actually a good reason for the direction WW took. It claims the reason the Prince was such an annoying freak is because he had had little sustenance, sleep, or human interaction for seven years, seeing as he was constantly on the run from a mystic and inescapable foe. While I don't really buy it, you can tell that whoever wrote the story for the third one was more or less of our mind when it came to the second one, and did his best to make it seem, at least, an acceptable evil. One thing some people seem to be misunderstanding, though, is the role of the Dark Prince. Everyone's writing him off as "the Prince from the second game," when that couldn't be further from the truth. The Dark Prince is polite, refined, and very witty, though brutal, and is, in my opinion, one of the most entertaining characters in the entire series. Finally, the Prince takes a sharp turn back towards where he was in the first game, character-wise, something the story explains away by finally being free to live again. The most interesting part of the character development for me was that TT put the SOT Prince in a new light for me, making me realize that he wasn't really all that much of a hero either. All in all, I thought it was a great finale to the series, and nearly justified the existence of WW; at least as much as anything possibly could. Definitely worth finishing the series for, though.