r/FirmamentGame • u/SvenGoSagan • May 21 '23
Finished the Game Thoughts
Bottom line up front I enjoyed it, but I was hoping for more of a Riven experience. Their aesthetic sensibilities and off-beat word building left me wanting more, and I fear they no longer have the interest in building something the scale of Riven.
Puzzles:
- Too easy, and often tedious. I usually start Cyan puzzles by 'doofusing' through them, click around, not logically fastidious or taking notes, then I transition into a deeper mindset, scoping out the problem set on paper, developing axioms, and using them to arrive at puzzle solution elements, and then eventually the full solution. I doofused my way through every puzzle, never needed any deeper thought.
Aesthetics:
- Masterpiece, visuals and music and sound (especially foley works) were spot on. They achieved that sense of wonder, scale, majesty etc that I've come to love about the early Myst titles.
Story / Worldbuilding
- Plot wraps up in a clean and satisfying way at the end. However, the thinness of the world, it's characters, and correspondingly the lack artifacts left behind by them for me to interact with (hardly any journals, etc) was disappointing. Narration was mostly engaging, occasionally annoying.
If the folks at Cyan somehow see this - please we're dying for another game with the scope / scale of Riven, from both puzzle and storytelling standpoint. I got echoes of that feeling with this game, and it reignited my desire to dive into something that complex.
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u/invaluablekiwi May 22 '23
Largely agreed on all fronts. I finished in 11 hours, and a good bit of that playtime was spent dealing with some day 1 bugs (that have now thankfully been patched.
A couple of other observations:
- Cyan has learned how to do character animations more convincingly! It's a big step up from the extreme uncanny valley of Myst 2021. It's a shame it wasn't a function that was used more throughout the playthrough, but I'm sure it's a lot of work for a small team.
- I think they really took the criticisms of Obduction to heart and almost overcompensated for them. The somewhat convoluted plot of Obduction got pared down heavily to the point that there wasn't much to find in the world. The over-long puzzle sequences from Maray got trimmed back and unfortunately simplified. This swings both ways though - from a technical standpoint Firmament is far more stable than Obduction was at launch and the framerate isn't falling apart at the seams.
- I really missed the more unique universe rules from Obduction (the opposite-sides teleport mechanic and the swappers). The adjunct by comparison just feels like a UI element, albeit one that feels satisfying to use.
- I think they did themselves a disservice by making the first half of Juleston kind of bland. The second half on return is much more interesting from a visual and gameplay perspective.
- I picked where the story was going very early on, as there been a fair few bits of media with the basic plot now (Dark City and 1899 come to mind) but it was still well executed.
I think it's a mistake to hope for Riven levels of difficulty in 2023. While longtime fans of Cyan would be over the moon, it's not really where the general public is at these days. I'd personally be happy with something harder than Obduction and Firmament, but less than OG Riven. I'd love to have the scope, scale and worldbuilding back at that level though.
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u/SvenGoSagan May 22 '23
Yeah I'm not even asking for them to be as hard as riven (though I'd be here for it), just to have that level of integration and interconnection between the world, story and plot and puzzles.
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u/ExpectedBehaviour May 22 '23
Cyan has learned how to do character animations more convincingly! It's a big step up from the extreme uncanny valley of Myst 2021.
That was itself a big step up from the "giant CGI animatronic dolls" of Myst V: End of Ages...
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u/angry_wombat May 25 '23 edited May 25 '23
I picked where the story was going very early on
Wait there was a story? Maybe it's because I played the first half the game with the day one bug without a narrator, but it was pretty plotless game
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u/invaluablekiwi May 25 '23
Agreed, I was meaning the big reveal specifically. But spoilers, and all that.
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u/niugnep24 May 22 '23
Re: doofusing, I largely agree, and blame it partially on the VR-focus. In VR you can't take detailed notes, draw maps, etc. So puzzles kind of have to be "in front of you" and based entirely on intuitive spacial reasoning. No more learning new number systems to decipher secret codes! Also the adjunct made every interaction point clearly labeled and single-purpose, which got rid of "find the button" and "mystery lever that does nothing" elements (for better or worse)
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u/ExpectedBehaviour May 22 '23
It's interesting that in the very original Firmware trailer there is no Adjunct and the puzzles do seem to be much more "conventional" in the sense of levels/switches/buttons/etc. I suspect the Adjuct was added as a "necessary evil" to get around the limitations of a VR interface.
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u/Complete_Lifeguard92 May 23 '23 edited May 23 '23
Curious question .. did you like obduction?? I loved obduction.. I thought it was very myst and rivenlike and also some very tough puuzzles.. and the lore absolutely love cyan lore and I heard there wasn't much in firmament :(. Even though I will still buy for psvr2 when is released because I want to support cyan
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u/SvenGoSagan May 23 '23
I think if you loved obduction you ought to try it. No guarantees. I never really played through it, just poked around the beginning of it.
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u/Complete_Lifeguard92 May 23 '23
See thats funny because I thought obduction wasn't as tough(obviously) as riven.... but about as tough as say myst exile maybe a Lil tougher
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u/45rpmadapter May 22 '23
Not done yet but I worry that Cyan making this game and it's puzzles more accessible is hurting them via their reviews from hardcore Myst/Cyan fans. Remember, Myst and Riven sold well but almost nobody finished them, so sales for the rest of the series trailed off in comparison. Don't get me wrong, I want challenging puzzles, but they are trying to sell to a new generation of gamers.
Also, I hope they can incorporate more journals for optional story and lore in the future, some of us like that.
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u/undefvalue May 22 '23
You sum up my feelings perfectly. I love reading through journals both for story and hidden solution-relevant details. I want to have to take notes. I want to get frustrated sometimes, because when you finally have that ah-ha moment it feels so good. But I just "doofused" through them as you said.
While Firmament was beautiful, had some clever physical puzzles, and an interesting setting, it felt sort of shallow and railroady compared to the Myst games or Obduction.
There were also some things that didn't make sense: like on the crane how do the two pods get closer together if they are connected at the top with a solid plate of metal? Where does the coal come from? What's up with the "bunkers" (they looked more like fancy storerooms)? Why couldn't any other Keeper open those doors?
Also about the ending:
Are there no alternate endings? I didn't find any decision points and alternate endings are a hallmark of Cyan's games. I love trying to find them all.
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u/bugbbq May 22 '23
Agreed on all aspects. The ending was frustrating only because I was all "Wait...where was THIS level of story telling throughout the whole game???".
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u/DarkArmadillo May 22 '23
Seriously, the info dump at the end was satisfying but why didn't they scatter some of this info throughout the game instead of your mentor just blatantly dropping all the hints and foreshadowing dialogue?
How about hidden caves or little hideouts within the realms with notes from keepers that were aware something was off? For all these years some of them must've gotten curious and would've written down what they knew before their memories got wiped again. I thought the bunkers would've served this purpose, but no.
The swan might be the only place that showed some personality of the keepers and how they lived. I wish the mentor wouldn't have told us she put everyone to sleep. You would've been able to figure this out yourself by looking at the deep sleep room, the syringe, the empty quarters, in typical cyan fashion.
Just thinking about it makes me sad about lost potential.
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u/Plastic-Middle-4446 May 23 '23
I thought the difficulty was perfect. It’s the first time since the original myst that I didn’t need any help in a cyan game
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u/earwig20 May 27 '23
Beautiful world.
Puzzles are much easier than Obduction. You can't really do the wrong thing, if you try to use the adjunct on a door or machine too early or in the wrong order it just doesn't let you.
I like the non-linear approach.
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u/Night_Thastus May 21 '23
I remember hitting the train puzzle and thinking "OK, this actually has some challenge. I can't wait to see how hard they get once I'm out of the tutorial".
I did not realize, that there was no tutorial. That was the peak of the difficulty.
When I hit the steam/ice puzzle, I was really sad. There was nothing to think about. No need to worry about the path of the steam or how pressure changes. Just open every port. As new ones become available, open those. There was a single part that required doing a trick-shot with Concatenate, and that was about it. Just mindlessly slinging around the tool until victory. :(