"Sacrifice" Vs "Brutal Legend": What are their PROS and CONS?

[Sir Shockwave]

As a man whose played both, they have their advantages...but also their flaws.

The big let downs with Sacrifice were it's camera and controls, something that would be repeated in Stormrise. When you have a large army of critters to move, it becomes cumbersome. HOWEVER, Sacrifice is a lot more re-playable than Brutal Legend ever was due to the way the story was designed - do you play one god straight, or some mix of two or three?.

Brutal Legend on the other hand had better controls, but also suffered from arguably worse Army Management. The sole tactic amounted to "March next to me, Kill things.". The controls weren't much designed for issuing more than that. However, both games get points for their imagery.

Do you think that BL being on a (and i quote here) "FILTHY BAKA GAYJIN GONSOLE" made it worse? Could have been saved by having PC controlers?

Nope, not at all. Sacrifice had some pretty bad controls to, owing to it's Camera. I don't think a Mouse and Keyboard really would have helped Brutal Legend any further.

 

[CD-R]

I really don't see why everyone thought Brutal Legend was only going to be a hack and slash game. It said very clearly in the demo in big flaming letters you would be leading an army.

Here's a tip. 9 times out of 10 when a game advertisement contains the words "lead" and "army" in the same sentence, it's probably going to be a strategy game.

 

[Kilo24]

...
A better way to approach this, though, is to not play the game as an RTS, but rather as a sort of 3rd person Action game. Essentially, the game revolves around the main character anyway, and you can theoretically play the game using little or no creatures i think, using your other types of spells (damage, etc.). Basically it's you versus an oposing wizard, slinging spells at each other. Of course, since the AI will use creatures, it will be very hard if you don't, but that's not the point.
...

Weeeeeeeeeeeeell the wizard its quite weak at an early game and cant kill for shit until you hit the godlike powers of lvl 9 so you kinda need the minions even for a Wiz vs Wiz match because (guess what) he can heal just as fast as you do (assuming Player vs AI)

Depending on what god you are aligned, you most likelly will hit a gamebreaking spell early on like the Demonic Riff who can summon demonds per EACH of the enemies in the vicinity, so if the enemy had a massive army of LVL 1 creatures then they will die horribly, every single one of them (assuming that he cant just order them out of the area of effect) or the Raise The Dead spell that the AI never uses againts you.

Hell, even at lvl 1 with James and Pyro you can hit brokeness early by having a massive army of flyers because those versions do splash damage, something that its inmensily usefull when each wizard at lvl 1 DEPENDS of massive quantities to counter each other.

No creatures is not a viable strategy at all, even at level 9. Even if you got the other player to agree to creatureless, the game would be ~80%-90% running to and from manaliths. Without manahoars, you're a machine gun with only one bullet. You'll probably want at least 3, at which point their souls become a potential loss (and with the way the game handles accumulating advantages, you don't want to give that up.)

Your wizard is still a huge deal; but without creature backup or at least a slow, cumbersome level 9 spell hitting the enemy it becomes hard to kill an enemy wizard actively trying to stay alive. And casting any spells that take a while (like manaliths) makes you an easily interruptable sitting duck. The game really doesn't work without creatures.

I'd also hazard against the use of the word "gamebreaking" here. There are some spells which do massive damage, yes, but since creatures are so quick to resummon and death is a pretty light penalty, they aren't a big deal. There aren't any friendly-fire-free massive damage spells (Demonic Rift is the closest, but the damage isn't huge), so even if the enemy gets completely wiped out he can usually grab most of his souls while shielded before you can convert them. Those spells are usually also so slow and obvious that they don't catch an even somewhat wary player, though they can still buy you time.

I mean, the closest spell to gamebreaking is animate dead because it takes just a few seconds and no cooldown to resummon any creature, shrinking the already short army rebuilding time into almost nothing.

 

[Uncreation]

...
A better way to approach this, though, is to not play the game as an RTS, but rather as a sort of 3rd person Action game. Essentially, the game revolves around the main character anyway, and you can theoretically play the game using little or no creatures i think, using your other types of spells (damage, etc.). Basically it's you versus an oposing wizard, slinging spells at each other. Of course, since the AI will use creatures, it will be very hard if you don't, but that's not the point.
...

Weeeeeeeeeeeeell the wizard its quite weak at an early game and cant kill for shit until you hit the godlike powers of lvl 9 so you kinda need the minions even for a Wiz vs Wiz match because (guess what) he can heal just as fast as you do (assuming Player vs AI)

Depending on what god you are aligned, you most likelly will hit a gamebreaking spell early on like the Demonic Riff who can summon demonds per EACH of the enemies in the vicinity, so if the enemy had a massive army of LVL 1 creatures then they will die horribly, every single one of them (assuming that he cant just order them out of the area of effect) or the Raise The Dead spell that the AI never uses againts you.

Hell, even at lvl 1 with James and Pyro you can hit brokeness early by having a massive army of flyers because those versions do splash damage, something that its inmensily usefull when each wizard at lvl 1 DEPENDS of massive quantities to counter each other.

No creatures is not a viable strategy at all, even at level 9. Even if you got the other player to agree to creatureless, the game would be ~80%-90% running to and from manaliths. Without manahoars, you're a machine gun with only one bullet. You'll probably want at least 3, at which point their souls become a potential loss (and with the way the game handles accumulating advantages, you don't want to give that up.)

Your wizard is still a huge deal; but without creature backup or at least a slow, cumbersome level 9 spell hitting the enemy it becomes hard to kill an enemy wizard actively trying to stay alive. And casting any spells that take a while (like manaliths) makes you an easily interruptable sitting duck. The game really doesn't work without creatures.

I'd also hazard against the use of the word "gamebreaking" here. There are some spells which do massive damage, yes, but since creatures are so quick to resummon and death is a pretty light penalty, they aren't a big deal. There aren't any friendly-fire-free massive damage spells (Demonic Rift is the closest, but the damage isn't huge), so even if the enemy gets completely wiped out he can usually grab most of his souls while shielded before you can convert them. Those spells are usually also so slow and obvious that they don't catch an even somewhat wary player, though they can still buy you time.

I mean, the closest spell to gamebreaking is animate dead because it takes just a few seconds and no cooldown to resummon any creature, shrinking the already short army rebuilding rate into almost nothing.

Maybe i should better explain my point, because it looks like i haven't been clear enough. I did not mean to talk about the most viable or efficient strategy, or if it's better to play only spell or creature heavy. The point i was trying to make, is that it's best not to view the game as an RTS, but as a 3rd Person action/RPG game. You should not try to play it like Starcraft, or Red Alert, or one of Total War series (i'm talking about the battles here), because it's not that sort of game. You should play it more like... er... i don't really play 3rd person action games that much... But, basically it's you vs the enemy wizards, AAAAND you also get to bring troops to help.
So, you're not general Patton/Rommel/emperor Napoleon etc. commanding your troops, you're more like Sauron in that scene in LoTR the movie, leading his goons against the armies of Middle Earth while wacking people with a huge mace, except instead of a huge mace in this game you have some nice spells.

 

[DioWallachia]

Maybe i should better explain my point, because it looks like i haven't been clear enough. I did not mean to talk about the most viable or efficient strategy, or if it's better to play only spell or creature heavy. The point i was trying to make, is that it's best not to view the game as an RTS, but as a 3rd Person action/RPG game. You should not try to play it like Starcraft, or Red Alert, or one of Total War series (i'm talking about the battles here), because it's not that sort of game. You should play it more like... er... i don't really play 3rd person action games that much... But, basically it's you vs the enemy wizards, AAAAND you also get to bring troops to help.
So, you're not general Patton/Rommel/emperor Napoleon etc. commanding your troops, you're more like Sauron in that scene in LoTR the movie, leading his goons against the armies of Middle Earth while wacking people with a huge mace, except instead of a huge mace in this game you have some nice spells.

Then why it is considered a RTS? its our perception of the genre so small that we just jump to conclucions or the just trascends the RTS method of being a god-like manager in the sky and put you right in the frontlines? the thing that Yathzee complained is that he isnt part of the action and its just watching everything do his work for him, this game in theory should do the right thing then but now well executed. Maybe its one of those mechanics that just cant coexist with one another, if you have one you cant have the other.

 

[teebeeohh]

sacrifice is really really good while brutal legend sucks massive ass(apparently, never played the game)
sacrifice was also a straight up RTS, even it is unusual and makes everything but the Big ball of death utterly useless. and it was the first RTS i ever played where controlling your units was secondary to managing special abilities, i usually just put my units in a good formation around my wizard and focused on using spells. the only time i ever gave my units direct orders was to focus on an enemy wizard.

 

[DioWallachia]

snip

Well, at least in the multiplayer matches (the few i had with all the problems of finding a server an such) Titans (5 souls mobs) and things like Soul Wind were forbiden because with the latter you could stun-lock EVERY ENEMY ON THE SCREEN constantly thanks to the fact that you could drop souls on the place in the new patch and cast it over and over.

 

[Uncreation]

Maybe i should better explain my point, because it looks like i haven't been clear enough. I did not mean to talk about the most viable or efficient strategy, or if it's better to play only spell or creature heavy. The point i was trying to make, is that it's best not to view the game as an RTS, but as a 3rd Person action/RPG game. You should not try to play it like Starcraft, or Red Alert, or one of Total War series (i'm talking about the battles here), because it's not that sort of game. You should play it more like... er... i don't really play 3rd person action games that much... But, basically it's you vs the enemy wizards, AAAAND you also get to bring troops to help.
So, you're not general Patton/Rommel/emperor Napoleon etc. commanding your troops, you're more like Sauron in that scene in LoTR the movie, leading his goons against the armies of Middle Earth while wacking people with a huge mace, except instead of a huge mace in this game you have some nice spells.

Then why it is considered a RTS? its our perception of the genre so small that we just jump to conclucions or the just trascends the RTS method of being a god-like manager in the sky and put you right in the frontlines? the thing that Yathzee complained is that he isnt part of the action and its just watching everything do his work for him, this game in theory should do the right thing then but now well executed. Maybe its one of those mechanics that just cant coexist with one another, if you have one you cant have the other.

I don't know. Honestly i've never understood why this game is considered an RTS. I've never thought of it as such. Maybe because it's so unique that people just didn't know how to classify it, and just put it in RTS by default.
The whole reason why i pointed out this whole thing about me not considering it an RTS, was that a lot of people in this thread were complaining about the camera. That is a complaint i have heard before, and as far as i saw then, it originated in the fact that people were expecting to be able to manage their units like in an RTS game. Because that's the mindset they came into this game with: this is an RTS, it should work like this.
I feel that the fact that i did not approach it like a regular RTS game saved me plenty of frustration.

 

[DioWallachia]

Maybe i should better explain my point, because it looks like i haven't been clear enough. I did not mean to talk about the most viable or efficient strategy, or if it's better to play only spell or creature heavy. The point i was trying to make, is that it's best not to view the game as an RTS, but as a 3rd Person action/RPG game. You should not try to play it like Starcraft, or Red Alert, or one of Total War series (i'm talking about the battles here), because it's not that sort of game. You should play it more like... er... i don't really play 3rd person action games that much... But, basically it's you vs the enemy wizards, AAAAND you also get to bring troops to help.
So, you're not general Patton/Rommel/emperor Napoleon etc. commanding your troops, you're more like Sauron in that scene in LoTR the movie, leading his goons against the armies of Middle Earth while wacking people with a huge mace, except instead of a huge mace in this game you have some nice spells.

Then why it is considered a RTS? its our perception of the genre so small that we just jump to conclucions or the just trascends the RTS method of being a god-like manager in the sky and put you right in the frontlines? the thing that Yathzee complained is that he isnt part of the action and its just watching everything do his work for him, this game in theory should do the right thing then but now well executed. Maybe its one of those mechanics that just cant coexist with one another, if you have one you cant have the other.

I don't know. Honestly i've never understood why this game is considered an RTS. I've never thought of it as such. Maybe because it's so unique that people just didn't know how to classify it, and just put it in RTS by default.
The whole reason why i pointed out this whole thing about me not considering it an RTS, was that a lot of people in this thread were complaining about the camera. That is a complaint i have heard before, and as far as i saw then, it originated in the fact that people were expecting to be able to manage their units like in an RTS game. Because that's the mindset they came into this game with: this is an RTS, it should work like this.
I feel that the fact that i did not approach it like a regular RTS game saved me plenty of frustration.

Since i play it young, i aproached it by fun mindset rather than any specifics but today i still dont know if we should CARE about its genre roots. This kinda ties with things like "what the marketing told us the game will be about but it wasnt" of Brutal Legend and Mass Effect 3 (2 games that belong to EA. What a shock i know!!), does knowing just a bit about the game before reaching our hands fucks things up? I know that HYPE ruins everything in the long run but do we really NEED to know what genre a movie/game is to enjoy it? Isnt the movie supposed to be DESIGNED to evoque the correct tone to inform the audience what the game will be about?

If you were a developer how would you aproach a Genre Busting kind of game like this? how would you define something that exceds definition?

 

[Kilo24]

snip

Well, at least in the multiplayer matches (the few i had with all the problems of finding a server an such) Titans (5 souls mobs) and things like Soul Wind were forbiden because with the latter you could stun-lock EVERY ENEMY ON THE SCREEN constantly thanks to the fact that you could drop souls on the place in the new patch and cast it over and over.

Interesting. I wasn't aware of that abuse. I haven't played the game much in the past few years, and not much online multiplayer. I'll concede the point.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

Jesus. I've always been complete ass at RTSs, and even I am intimately familiar with Sacrifice. What's with you children?

 

[DioWallachia]

snip

Well, at least in the multiplayer matches (the few i had with all the problems of finding a server an such) Titans (5 souls mobs) and things like Soul Wind were forbiden because with the latter you could stun-lock EVERY ENEMY ON THE SCREEN constantly thanks to the fact that you could drop souls on the place in the new patch and cast it over and over.

Interesting. I wasn't aware of that abuse. I haven't played the game much in the past few years, and not much online multiplayer. I'll concede the point.

Then again there were so few people to play and so many times my game just PLAIN REFUSES TO PLAY in multiplayer for server issues and shit that i couldnt play matches at lvl 9 from the start to see more broken combos.

 

[DioWallachia]

Jesus. I've always been complete ass at RTSs, and even I am intimately familiar with Sacrifice. What's with you children?

But that is part of the question. Is an unique game like Sacrifice an RTS at all? It goes beyond the definition or its something else?

 

[JeanLuc761]

Jesus. I've always been complete ass at RTSs, and even I am intimately familiar with Sacrifice. What's with you children?

But that is part of the question. Is an unique game like Sacrifice an RTS at all? It goes beyond the definition or its something else?

It's kind of a hybrid. It has the camera and movement mechanics of a third-person adventure game with the gameplay mechanics and design of a RTS. Still one of my favorite games ever.

 

[sapphireofthesea]

Sacrifice was (and is) brillant but extremely hard. If you are thinking about firing it up again, there are some issues with video drivers but these can be overcome. Oh yeah, did I mention, it's proper hard.

Brutal Legend was some console only thing that had Jack Black in it, so two reasons to completely ignore it right there.

I have to agree with that sentiment, but add one thing. It was hard but doable. If you failed a mission more than a few times it was because you were doing something wrong. Once you get a handle of everything the steps to winning are logical, though you still have to play well to do it.
Using Yathzee's model it is the ideal form of challenge. It challengings and makes things just hard enough that when you do get things right you fill epic.

For those who don't know it, put your acient graphics paint over glasses on and go give it a try. I promise you every mission is doable, so just keep at it and you will see what a nicely paced bit of fun is like (provided it proves to be your type of game).

 

[DioWallachia]

Sacrifice was (and is) brillant but extremely hard. If you are thinking about firing it up again, there are some issues with video drivers but these can be overcome. Oh yeah, did I mention, it's proper hard.

Brutal Legend was some console only thing that had Jack Black in it, so two reasons to completely ignore it right there.

I have to agree with that sentiment, but add one thing. It was hard but doable. If you failed a mission more than a few times it was because you were doing something wrong. Once you get a handle of everything the steps to winning are logical, though you still have to play well to do it.
Using Yathzee's model it is the ideal form of challenge. It challengings and makes things just hard enough that when you do get things right you fill epic.

For those who don't know it, put your acient graphics paint over glasses on and go give it a try. I promise you every mission is doable, so just keep at it and you will see what a nicely paced bit of fun is like (provided it proves to be your type of game).

Why people insist that the game looks like crap? in fact i find the idea of making unique creatures based on the limitations of the engine to be quite brilliant. HOWEVER, i do find weird that you can climb a mountain that its like 80º up by walking and that you cant command your flyers to increase the altitude to evade some proyectiles or just to rain hell into the enemy below.

 

[random_bars]

A simple thread really.
Those 2 unique RTS have been largely ignored (the former so much to the point of being "one of the most underappreciated games of all time") and there are cases where the reviewers that DO care to play it dont enlight much on the problems they may have (COUGHyahtzeeCOUGH). Is it really that hard to give an honest opinion on what does and doesnt work? Do you have to have an expertice on RTS games or every genre those games made off to deal with something this unique?

I ask you, the gamers, your opinion on the subject. We should at least start with what those games did right and wrong just at first sight without any knowledge of RTS or of what a genre even IS. Then we compare the games in a more global sence, like what did manage to innovate both inside and outside their genres.

You're not going to get many useful answers in this thread, unfortunately.

But I'll give it a shot.

In Sacrifice you're much more tied down to the ground. Your movement is very, very restricted compared to Brutal Legend - and although you can command troops using the map, as well as teleport, it doesn't really cut it, especially when spells and soul gathering is in order. So planning your movement through the world is much more important. I feel that this is actually very, very beneficial for the single player experience as it allows it to be very cohesive - whereas Brutal Legend had to draw a strong divide between its battle missions and its on-foot missions, Sacrifice was free to slowly ramp up from 'somewhat aimless wandering around with a gaggle of creatures following you' to 'all-out battle with control of the entire battlefield at stake' without any particularly big changes to anything. This was of course also helped by the fact that in Sacrifice, you summon your creatures right next to you rather than from your stage.

Another thing I think Sacrifice did really well is the souls system. It's a really, really cool idea, in that it means that scuffles can end in victory for one side without both of your armies being nearly slaughtered - claiming a few souls from the other guy is victory enough, meaning you get interesting 'wars of attrition' going on, with souls changing hands several times throughout the course of the battle. And it means that for possibly the first time in an RTS game, it's actually feasible (and very often a good idea) to cut your losses and make a tactical retreat.

Now for Brutal Legend - well to start off, it's aesthetically much more beautiful than Sacrifice. Sacrifice may have some kind of cool creature designs, but it's still from 2000... Whereas Brutal Legend, oh my god. There are emo zombies; guys with swollen bellies filled with rats; demon dominatrixes and slaves; giant fire-breathing cats; hot rod mounted sacrificial altars; and so on. There are trebuchets that fire living balls of flesh. There are headbangers who literally attack by banging enemies with their heads. Every unit in Brutal Legend looks amazing and is a fully fleshed out character with lines and lines (over 35,000 in total!) of hilarious dialog. Sacrifice's bunch of blocky things with various 'quirky' voices can't compete in the slightest. Plus, while Sacrifice has five factions versus Brutal Legend's three, Sacrifice employs LOTS of 'pallet swap' units... Not so much in Brutal Legend. At all. Every unit is completely different from every other, especially because they all have completely unique Double Teams.

Brutal Legend also has much better combat. While in Sacrifice your combat is limited to the damage spells, Brutal Legend has a fantastic trifecta of axe combat/double teams/guitar solos. On your own, you can fight enemies with basic hack and slash combos. These give you a wide selection of different types of quick, weak attacks that can be used anywhere at short notice, requiring no troops to be with you - since you can fly you can get to anywhere you want to use the basic combat in an instant. But it's weak and it leaves you vulnerable while you use it. Then there are Double Teams - more specialized, much more powerful moves that involve you teaming up with a troop to do something better than either of you could do alone. Then on top of that there are the solos - very powerful, often game-changing abilities - but they require you to lock yourself in place for a few seconds, focus on the notes you're playing, and many of them have cooldowns after their use.

Probably the main difference between these two games is that Sacrifice is much more defensive and strategy oriented, whereas Brutal Legend is more aggressive and action focused. In both games, during a scuffle between your troops and your opponent's, you need to help out - carefully deciding every second of your time what is the best action to take out of several. In Sacrifice you're flipping between grabbing souls, using spells, and summoning new creatures; in Brutal Legend, you're choosing between using avatar combat, double team attacks, and playing guitar solos. Of course you're creating troops and gathering resources too, but in Brutal Legend this is passive and/or instant: your resources gather on their own and troops can be created at any time in a second. These aren't designated as 'high cost' actions like they are in Sacrifice, meaning your time can be spent on exploiting the much more diverse combat system.

However something interesting about Brutal Legend is that because you can fly, this constant decision process of 'what is the most useful action out of my selection of choices for me to be doing right this second?' comes into play not just in a fight but during the entire battle. You can either help out your troops in taking a geyser; or you can go harrass some enemy troops; or you can go claim a geyser that your troops have freed up; or you can go down to a scuffle and help out your troops in it; or you can go mess with the enemy leader directly; or you can go to a far-off group of troops to give them new orders, or you can play a guitar solo to give you an advantage in some way or other. In Sacrifice this isn't really present as you simply can't be anywhere you want to be in an instant, so it relies a lot more on tying your troops directly to manaliths or your altar.

Ultimately, I prefer Brutal Legend, but they're both really cool games. There's my thoughts, OP. Hope that helped.

 

[warrcry13]

I played Sacrifice but never played Brutal Legend. I forget if I ever beat Sacrifice honestly. I wasn't very good at it.

I liked the soul system. I could do lightning strikes and move away and eventually win if I was good enough.

 

[sapphireofthesea]

Sacrifice was (and is) brillant but extremely hard. If you are thinking about firing it up again, there are some issues with video drivers but these can be overcome. Oh yeah, did I mention, it's proper hard.

Brutal Legend was some console only thing that had Jack Black in it, so two reasons to completely ignore it right there.

I have to agree with that sentiment, but add one thing. It was hard but doable. If you failed a mission more than a few times it was because you were doing something wrong. Once you get a handle of everything the steps to winning are logical, though you still have to play well to do it.
Using Yathzee's model it is the ideal form of challenge. It challengings and makes things just hard enough that when you do get things right you fill epic.

For those who don't know it, put your acient graphics paint over glasses on and go give it a try. I promise you every mission is doable, so just keep at it and you will see what a nicely paced bit of fun is like (provided it proves to be your type of game).

Why people insist that the game looks like crap? in fact i find the idea of making unique creatures based on the limitations of the engine to be quite brilliant. HOWEVER, i do find weird that you can climb a mountain that its like 80º up by walking and that you cant command your flyers to increase the altitude to evade some proyectiles or just to rain hell into the enemy below.

Personally I found the graphic to have awonderful charm about them and I am not a graphics whore so I still enjoy the game. However, I think most of it is for the newer crowd who are used to untra realistic or super crisp graphics.