![]() The high difficulty level is not a flaw – if anything the number of shards begin to seem too generous by the end – but the esoteric nature of the game’s ruleset is not handled well and the game does little to ease you into its peculiar world. You can also resurrect fallen Daughters with special tokens and while these are extremely rare it does mean that technically there is no permadeath. You retain an in-game currency called shards which can not only be used to unlock increasingly powerful perks but also allow you to do things like skip previously beaten boss encounters. Like most modern roguelikes, Othercide is not as vindictive as it first seems and dying does not mean you lose all your progress. Othercide – we’re still not sure B&W was a good idea (pic: Focus Home Interactive) It’s a highly flexible system, and great for those already familiar with the genre, but whereas the simple move-and-then-perform-an-action set-up of XCOM is enough for even strategy novices to grasp, Othercide is not nearly as straightforward. Rather than just having a couple of action points to spend per turn you start with a pool of 100, which are used for different attacks but which can also be held back to make sure you take a move more quickly next time. For obvious reasons this is not something you want to do often, although it does also gift the recipient a new perk based on how powerful the sacrifice was. Instead, you’re forced to sacrifice a different Daughter, of an equal or higher ability, to heal one you want to make sure survives. ![]() ![]() There’s also the complication that there are no healing items in the game and yet most of the more powerful attacks require health to use. The timeline can easily be changed though and so one of your primary goals is to try and manipulate the sequence of events so that you stall enemies or interrupt their attacks. The most unique element is the importance of timing, which is indicated by a timeline at the bottom of the screen and shows when each character, including enemies, will take their move. Kiedis himself described his addiction as “a big grey monster”, which is actually one of the monsters the man faces in the video.Although Othercide has influences from a variety of different games the core action most closely resembles a cross between XCOM and Disgaea, with different classes of fighter that include ranged specialists and the self-explanatory Shieldbearer and Blademaster. The video gives a very nightmarish vibe, and is most likely using the monsters as symbols of addiction. The music video offers a little insight (although it can be just as confusing), as it seems to depict the story of a man in a hospital trying to fight off monsters before eventually passing at the end. The lyrics are somewhat cryptic, and hold multiple meanings as you would come to expect from Kiedis. Slovak, lead singer Anthony Kiedis, and Slovak’s replacement John Frusciante all suffered from heroin addiction, so this song could be from the point of view of any of them. ![]() Some believe that it is an attempt to communicate with Slovak, or even written from his perspective. This song is some form of a tribute to former guitarist Hillel Slovak, who died of a heroin overdose himself. A single from the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s 1999 album Californication, the “other side” here is a metaphor for both the struggle to get back to a normal life after addiction and also death itself.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |