EDIT: i really wish you hadn't started the point-by point model Manco! So much more time consuming!!
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Your main argument seems to hinge on “they always meant to do it but didn’t have the resources, so including it now is an improvement”.
That’s a false argument. Just because they can do something now doesn’t mean it’s automatically an improvement to the game.
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That's not my argument at all. My argument is that they only really locked down Oddworld in AE so it makes sense that they brought some of these elements into the remake of NnT. Whether or not this is an improvement is a matter of taste. I'm just saying it completely makes sense why they did it.
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Side characters can absolutely have personality. The problem here is that they always did have a personality, just much more restrained and less goofy than they are presented in NnT.
When playing through AO and AE, it’s not too difficult to pick up on the fact that Sligs are lazy and stupid – they’re often sleeping, they don’t deviate from their patrol routes, they often respond to Gamespeak or unknown sounds with confusion. In cutscenes we see their greedy and self-interested side, and their subservience to Glukkons.
All of that characterization comes through without ever reducing the intimidation of a Slig’s presence in-game. But by adding more exaggerated personality traits to them in NnT they are shown in a much more comedic and incompetent light, and this reduces their presence as a threat. Intellectually, I still understand that they will shoot and kill Abe of they spot him, but I don’t have as strong an emotional reaction to them any more.
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I don't get what you're arguing here. You do understand that the characters were silent in game because there was no memory to do any more? If they could have had more dialogue in AE, which makes the Sligs like there were in cutscenes, they would have done it. I even believe Stew & lorn have talked about this in interviews.
The personalities of Sligs and Mudokons in game in NnT is exactly the same as their personalities in the AE cutscenes - which is the true representation of these characters as opposed to the gameplay of AE. It's like complaining that Abe looks cartoonish in NnT when he looks almost exactly the same as he did in the originals in cutscenes - that's how he's supposed to look. But he doesn't because of memory. And all they could afford to do was lower quality sprites.
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Yes, and the net effect here is that they are harder to take seriously, and thus the story in NnT is harder to take seriously.
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The important thing about Oddworld is the themes and parallels it explores. Oddworld doesn't need really serious characters to explore these effectively. AE & SW did a bang up job whilst still maintaining humour throughout.
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Yes, and that’s an issue. One of the supposed themes of the Quintology is that as the story unfolds we see more and more of the Industrialist ‘food chain’ – as more of the corporate hierarchy is revealed we learn that those we thought were villains are just schmucks who have to answer to their bosses. This is what SB and Job are both talking about – as the world becomes more defined, our perception of different characters is supposed to change. But if you give those characters personality right from the start you lose that development later down the line.
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I talked about this above:
By my argument would be that that was not particularly intentional - maybe it the sense that they told the story the way they did because they wanted to keep the story very basic (and focus on the game itself) - and to be the worldbuilding of Oddworld is more significant in its story ie going from saving Mudokons from Molluck to saving the Queen from Lady Margaret to saving whatever from her great grandmother to the huge Oddworld cities and Khanzumers or whatever.
Giving the Mudokons and Sligs dialogue, in game, that makes them seem more like the Mudokons and Sligs in AE doesn't feel like it's ruining this world progression at all. But that they had a chance to give some personality to these creatures that they couldn't afford to do in the first game because of either time, memory, or they simly hadn't figured out yet. And since they *did* figure it out it only makes sense to include some of that in the remake - so Sligs and Mudokons don't seem very different between this game and the next. And so you don't get people debating about the difference between Sligs with essentially no dialogue - and Sligs with some humourous dialogue.
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But Sligs never had humorous dialogue until MO, where they were portrayed as much less potent threats than they were in the past. MO’s tone was also much more humorous across the board and this had a detrimental effect on the game’s story.
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Yes they did. In every single cutscene they had dialogue in AE.
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Two final points: - I don’t agree with the idea of making characterization consistent across all of the games – it results in very flat character progression.
- I think that characterization can very easily go too far, and should be used sparingly. I don’t think that it should be overspent on nameless beings that appear frequently throughout a story, especially if there’s no meaningful attempt to make them all individuals.
e: I feel like I’m spending a lot of time criticizing NnT, so I just wanna quickly point out that I do really enjoy it and I think they got a lot of things right. I just have some very particular things that I’d like to see change for the next instalment, and I happen to be spending a lot of time discussing them. |
By my argument is that it's not character progression. These aren't really characters like Abe, Alf, Molluck, or Munch. Who can all have character development and character arcs.
This is about having very very basic archetypes in the original game with no characterisation. Then deciding to add personalities to the various species of Oddworld who are not major named characters. That's not character progression. That's not world progression. And it makes complete sense why they carried this over into NnT. Because since AE that's obviously what kind of personalities they wanted both Mudokons and Sligs to have.