The Talos Principle (2014)

Holy hell, the Into the Beginning DLC chapter (included with the Talos 1 Remaster) is really tough. That's not to say I'm disappointed, of course. I do enjoy the difficulty.

The "Road to Elysium" DLC for Talos 2 did have a couple of puzzles that I was stumped on for nearly 4 months, though, so hopefully I won't be stuck quite so long this time.

Having a great time with this one! My biggest gripe so far is just that this is one of those games that for some bizarre reason gives you the option to invert vertical, but not horizontal, camera movement! Curse my aging brain and its ever-diminishing ability to adapt to things like this.

The most standout aspects so far? The audio. Both the excellent soundtrack and the command performance given by the voice actor for Alexandra Drennan's time capsules. After I found myself literally tearing up from a few of these short audio-only performances, I looked her up: Erin Fitzgerald, who (unsurprisingly based on her performance here) has such an extensive and impressive resume that we've all no doubt heard her talent in another game, show, or movie before.

The soundtrack from Damjan Mravunac is on Soundcloud, and Heavenly Clouds is my current favorite.

I have mixed feelings about games having nice graphics. Sure, it sounds like a good thing. Everyone likes their games to look pretty, right? But what if it's not a good thing? What if pretty graphics are a trap? What if it's actually better for games to look like dogshit?? Okay, I joke. But only somewhat.

Look, I love the Talos Principle to bits. I played it when it first came out (a decade ago, now, holy hell), have replayed it, and its lived in my mind and heart a lot since then. But when I heard Croteam is remastering it, my first thought was: "Why?" It may have been running on the old Serious Engine, but even so, the game looked great. Sure, it's aged a bit by now. But so has George Clooney, and I don't see anyone raising hell about how his face needs a remaster. Anyway, the point is, the game looked more than good enough.

It also ran pretty light. It's 6.2 GB, and ran on basically anything. You could probably run it on a toaster, while also making toast. Well, maybe not quite. Anyway, contrast that with the sequel, which is 103 GB with the DLC included. Talos 2 runs pretty heavy. You need a fairly decent graphics card, and you'll probably be running it on medium or low settings, especially if you're trying to play at a higher res like 4K.

Talos 2 looks amazing, at first. The landscapes look incredible. But then you can't help but notice that when looking at a body of water, there's this shimmering reflection at the edges of the screen that stays in the same place as you turn, meaning the reflections aren't actually rooted in anything in the real world. And then there's the moments where the game's fps stutters, which rather than being random like an occasional framedrop, happens consistently in certain spots almost as if the game is using those exact spots to load new assets, except instead of it being in a loading screen, it'll just happen right in the middle of a path or walkway. I can trigger the stutter over and over again by just walking back and forth through the spot. I've been told that this is "a UE5 thing." Great.

Sigh.

Maybe I'm just not the target audience for remasters or something. I've played a lot of old, relatively assy-looking games that I've loved, and I honestly can't recall ever thinking to myself, "Man, this game was great, but it would've been a better game if the graphical engine had been more advanced." Maybe there are people out there who think like that, but I'm not sure who. I asked some of my friends whether they ever felt that way about an old game they loved and none of them could relate to that sentiment either.

Well, despite my whining, I can't deny I'm still excited and I'll probably pick it up day 1. I guess I just love this game/series that much. Also, it's got some brand new content that was never in the original, so I can't help but be hyped. It's new Talos content and that's enough for me. If it were just a remaster, I'd be much less enthused.

Now on World B after getting all the stars and completing all the puzzles for World A.

I see now what killerstar meant by not being the best time to play it. There were a few things that pointed to a bad outcome but the "got it" song in one of the computers was pretty on the nose about the situation. Though can I be forgiven for thinking some of the lore in the computers is somewhat pretentious? Some of it is dripping with allegory, it felt like I was drowning in academic texts.

That being said, this game is giving me so many "a-ha" moments. I love it. I also like how Elohim gives the player a push to take a breather from one puzzle and do another when you've spent too much time on it, which helps people who get locked in a box on a puzzle..... except I refused to let a puzzle beat me! Ended up getting the "Extreme Persistence Detected" achievement hehe.

MFW there's actually way more than 7 areas and there's actually 3 worlds. This game may be longer than I thought.

My 100% instinct is kicking in and I'm in for a long haul. I HAVE TO GET ALL THESE STARS

I also love the puzzle design! One red puzzle in particular on A-3 stumped me but I loved how a "window" gave me a hint, that was super neat and a great way of showing information. Really felt like an "a-ha" moment.

Time for me to make a jump to playing puzzle games! Always been sitting on it because I don't really hold my intelligence to any high degree whatsoever when it comes to these games (and my only experience being Portal 1 and 2, which tend to be railroaded puzzlers with the latter being "find the white wall"), but I felt like I finally needed something to keep my brain active during this lockdown over here.

I've heard good things about this game in particular, so I'm excited! Hopefully I don't spend hours on one puzzle, that possibility always scares me hehe