A question to those who felt that Brutal Legend turned into an RTS partway through.

[random_bars]

In the big stage battles you had to use your own units mostly. You were able to do a bit yourself by landing and using your axe and such but it didn't seem like I was very effective, it was probably better for me to stay flying just so I can churn out more units.
The solos also seemed kinda ineffective, it may just be that I couldn't be bothered to go find most of them but I was hoping they would do more.

It was still a very fun game though with a great idea, I hope they make another one.

Well, against the early enemies that you fight in a stage battle, your combat does a great deal, and they can be knocked around like crazy too. As it progress then yeah it does become less useful against the stronger enemies - but then that's what the double team attacks were for. Sure, you can't easily fight a big thing on your own, but riding a metal beast and breathing fire on it? Or throwing the bouncers onto vehicles, or shooting stuff with the razor girls, or encircling a big group of enemies in a ring of fire with a fire baron? There was plenty you could do to help right the way through the battles, you just had to use the teamup attacks too as well as just the basic combat.

And as for the solos... If I tell you that there's one which lets you drop a flaming zeppelin on the map which crashes and explodes, would you say that's effective enough?

 

[Smooth Operator]

Wow there is some heavy denial going on here.
It is an RTS and not a very good one, yes you can go down and slap the enemies around to pass the horrid RTS time but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

But the worst part of that game is that you get one solid hour of Tim Schafer writing and then it's gone, then not only does your character turn boring but the RTS stuff takes over everything.

 

[random_bars]

Wow there is some heavy denial going on here.
It is an RTS and not a very good one, yes you can go down and slap the enemies around to pass the horrid RTS time but that doesn't mean it isn't there.

But the worst part of that game is that you get one solid hour of Tim Schafer writing and then it's gone, then not only does your character turn boring but the RTS stuff takes over everything.

Denial...? I never said that there aren't RTS elements. What I said is that they don't cause any kind of gameplay shift or anything because you're (supposed to be) still doing the exact same stuff as you are in the rest of the game. If you genuinely think the battles are badly designed, how about you explain why?

And while you're kind of right that the cutscene dialogue gets a bit less funny, the best dialogue by far is all in the lines the troops say in battle and how they react to each other and everything. But then if you spent your time in battle in the sky, trying to micromanage everything as though you're a mouse cursor, I guess you wouldn't hear any of it...

 

[Smooth Operator]

And while you're kind of right that the cutscene dialogue gets a bit less funny, the best dialogue by far is all in the lines the troops say in battle and how they react to each other and everything. But then if you spent your time in battle in the sky, trying to micromanage everything as though you're a mouse cursor, I guess you wouldn't hear any of it...

No the best lines are in the first hour of the game, and after that the infinitely looped unit lines are the only thing that is left, of course by the time you finish the game it is also the only thing you remember.

And that is the real issue, they flipped from a humorous adventure people came to play into a slog fest RTS people didn't ask for.

 

[random_bars]

No the best lines are in the first hour of the game, and after that the infinitely looped unit lines are the only thing that is left, of course by the time you finish the game it is also the only thing you remember.

And that is the real issue, they flipped from a humorous adventure people came to play into a slog fest RTS people didn't ask for.

Infinitely looped... Are you kidding? I've been playing the multiplayer on and off for probably over a year now and I'm still hearing new lines. The only overrepeated lines are the "we're on patrol!" and such you hear when a roving group of troops walks by in the overworld, which is indeed annoying, but I'm not talking about that.

Are you really saying that stuff like a headbanger saying to a bunch of gravediggers, "I like wearing black too, but you guys take it, like, way too far..." or a bouncer hearing you play a solo and saying, "You're really good at the guitar, Mr. Riggs!" or one razor girl saying to another while they're standing around, "I really like your hair, by the way." ...Are you really saying stuff like that isn't funny? If anything it's more like typical Schafer humour, because it's somewhat subtle and is funnier when you know the characters involved.

And like I said, calling it an RTS just because you have to occasionally select a couple new troops or point them in the right direction every so often is ridiculous. 98% of the stuff you're doing in a stage battle is the same action stuff you're doing in the rest of the game. Don't believe me? There's video proof of the game playing exactly like that in my first post. Maybe you didn't play it that way, but you really were supposed to.

 

[Rack]

You spent way too much time ineffectually wailing on enemies that were going down anyway or you couldn't beat. That time would be better spent managing your army, and in many ways that style of play makes it seem less like an action game than if you'd picked the right moment carefully and attacked when you could make a difference. To me incentivisation counts more than actual time spent, even if the end result is the same.

The other important point is if you're playing it right, Brutal Legend is always an RTS, sure you may spend some time doing the shallow action sequences, but they are fully contextualised by the strategy, you should always be aware of where you are, why and what's going on. You can get by by treating it as an action game because it's insanely easy as an rts but it doesn't really work on those measures.

 

[random_bars]

You spent way too much time ineffectually wailing on enemies that were going down anyway or you couldn't beat. That time would be better spent managing your army, and in many ways that style of play makes it seem less like an action game than if you'd picked the right moment carefully and attacked when you could make a difference. To me incentivisation counts more than actual time spent, even if the end result is the same.

The other important point is if you're playing it right, Brutal Legend is always an RTS, sure you may spend some time doing the shallow action sequences, but they are fully contextualised by the strategy, you should always be aware of where you are, why and what's going on. You can get by by treating it as an action game because it's insanely easy as an rts but it doesn't really work on those measures.

You play (or played) the multiplayer, I presume? Yeah, I know that how I was playing in the video wasn't the most effective way of playing, but the point was to showcase that, at least in the single player, any semblance of tactics or strategic thought are utterly unnecessary, and you can easily get through everything by just making a bunch of troops and fighting on the ground alongside them.

Of course online you need to think much more carefully about where you are and what you're doing, although the combat and double teams are just as important (if not more so), but I was more trying to show that you can easily get through the single player without giving a damn about strategy, and that the stage battles are only as much of an RTS as you choose to make them. The gameplay does indeed get much more deep and complex and involved when you know what you're doing, but this topic was more meant for people whose experience of stage battles was sending troop after troop at the enemy's troops, watching it all from the sky, and wondering why they weren't getting anywhere.

 

[Rack]

You spent way too much time ineffectually wailing on enemies that were going down anyway or you couldn't beat. That time would be better spent managing your army, and in many ways that style of play makes it seem less like an action game than if you'd picked the right moment carefully and attacked when you could make a difference. To me incentivisation counts more than actual time spent, even if the end result is the same.

The other important point is if you're playing it right, Brutal Legend is always an RTS, sure you may spend some time doing the shallow action sequences, but they are fully contextualised by the strategy, you should always be aware of where you are, why and what's going on. You can get by by treating it as an action game because it's insanely easy as an rts but it doesn't really work on those measures.

You play (or played) the multiplayer, I presume? Yeah, I know that how I was playing in the video wasn't the most effective way of playing, but the point was to showcase that, at least in the single player, any semblance of tactics or strategic thought are utterly unnecessary, and you can easily get through everything by just making a bunch of troops and fighting on the ground alongside them.

Of course online you need to think much more carefully about where you are and what you're doing, although the combat and double teams are just as important (if not more so), but I was more trying to show that you can easily get through the single player without giving a damn about strategy, and that the stage battles are only as much of an RTS as you choose to make them. The gameplay does indeed get much more deep and complex and involved when you know what you're doing, but this topic was more meant for people whose experience of stage battles was sending troop after troop at the enemy's troops, watching it all from the sky, and wondering why they weren't getting anywhere.

Does anyone play like that? If so fair enough but I think mostly people just aren't wanting that undercurrent, or the sense they could be doing better spending more time in the air. I did play some of the multiplayer as I loved the stage battles and wanted a chance to play with the other factions but with the single player it seems as though playing just as a beat-em-up is possible, just not nearly satisfying enough.

 

[iseeyouthere]

I enjoyed the game. For me: The RTS element didn't really bother me because I had a new perspective of the battlefield and I could join in the battle itself.
\
Could always be improved, but I had fun.

 

[zombieshark6666]

The RTS elements weren't the worst thing about the game, their implementation was.

The game was perfectly fine at first, even having buddies smash stuff with you was cool. I would even have liked giving commands like in GR or SOCOM, but Tim went way too far. You couldn't tell what was going on, how to fix it, where you needed to be, it was a mess. The combat wasn't great to begin with, but making it complicated like that didn't help. I would have been pretty pissed off if I'd paid that 60$.

 

[random_bars]

You couldn't tell what was going on, how to fix it, where you needed to be

Er, yes I could... What do you mean exactly? There are indicators which tell you when a troop you made has spawned, or when something of yours is under attack, which direct you to exactly where the thing is. The way to fix is is generally to kill whatever is killing your stuff... If it's a small threat, kill it yourself, if it's a large threat, send your army there. Where you needed to be was up to you to decide - weighing up whether to go off and attack some lone enemy troops or help out your army in a fight or to take down a tower was part of the strategy involved.

What exactly do you think was wrong with it? Is it just that you don't like strategic elements in games at all?

 

[Stu35]

Now, please tell me at which specific point in that video does the game stop being an action game and become an RTS instead.

Approximately 10 seconds in when you recruit squads of headbangers.

I didn't watch the rest, but I'm assuming you then tasked them to achieve the objectives required to win, which will have included attempting to maximise your own resources (by seizing fan geisers and building merch booths), destroy your enemies resources, etc. etc. etc.

In short, the elements of an RTS.


Incidentally, I actually liked Brutal Legend, I found the RTS elements kinda fun (if poorly implemented), and although I completed the game in a single evening (very rare for me as I suck at games), it was a pleasant evening, and I'd like to see further such projects (that is to say, the blending of Metal and Fantasy) in future games. All in all it appealed to my Metalhead psyche, that childlike individual inside me who still thinks that my Denim patch jacket is awesome (it is).

 

[random_bars]

Now, please tell me at which specific point in that video does the game stop being an action game and become an RTS instead.

Approximately 10 seconds in when you recruit squads of headbangers.

I didn't watch the rest, but I'm assuming you then tasked them to achieve the objectives required to win, which will have included attempting to maximise your own resources (by seizing fan geisers and building merch booths), destroy your enemies resources, etc. etc. etc.

In short, the elements of an RTS.


Incidentally, I actually liked Brutal Legend, I found the RTS elements kinda fun (if poorly implemented), and although I completed the game in a single evening (very rare for me as I suck at games), it was a pleasant evening, and I'd like to see further such projects (that is to say, the blending of Metal and Fantasy) in future games. All in all it appealed to my Metalhead psyche, that childlike individual inside me who still thinks that my Denim patch jacket is awesome (it is).

Evidently you missed the first part of that quote, "at what point does the game stop being an action game". I'm not denying that there are RTS elements in the game, but are you really saying that they stop the game being an action game? That when I'm hacking at enemies with my axe or electrocuting them with my guitar or various other combos, or blasting them with a razor girl's gun, or encircling them in flame with a fire baron... That that stuff doesn't exist? Because, well, it does... If you actually watch the rest of the video.