NnT was so enjoyable for me that I played it 3 times in a row over the past week, so I probably ought to say something here about it. I got almost all the achievements (which wasn't that hard thanks to the chapter select), with the exception of this one 'cause it's apparently broken:
I normally don't 100% games 'cause I can't be bothered or lose interest (and find it pointless when it stops being fun), but doing it with NnT was its own reward - It gave me a reason to play the living crap out of it after waiting for it for so long.
There isn't a lot I can add to the positive things that people have said here about it, since I'm boring and agree with most of it, particularly with Manco about the game performing really well (even with my 4 year old rig), and what Nep said about the atmosphere, with everything feeling more alive.
But I will say that I wasn't expecting to like NnT as much as I did, considering I've played AO many times - NnT was familiar, yet different enough from AO to be an almost fresh experience. I found it to be really fun, especially seeing some of AO's puzzles and level layouts adapted to NnTs mechanics, as well as some entirely new level segments which mostly worked well.
I liked the various gameplay improvements too, more forgiving and less unfair than AO's on the whole. You have to build momentum when you move, which adds some new challenges (although makes meat grinders a little harder), the 2.5D and camera scrolling has been made to work really well (I can tell that a lot of thought went into it), and all of the compromises make sense from a gameplay standpoint, even if people have been whining about them (like the steam/smoke vent replacement for AO's shadow sneaking mechanic - It simply highlights where you can sneak in a more definitive way)
The amount of extra detail that JAW poured into the levels is incredible, of course - Faithful to AO's background artwork while also adding a lot of detail where needed (For example Rupture Farms Zulags 2-4 weren't done as well in AO and were pretty barren compared to Zulag 1, maybe AO's devs didn't expect many players to get that far).
Alf's Escape's level design was genius, especially how you had to pass through some of the same areas twice, with the layout in those areas altering the second time around to make new puzzles. It was awesome to play through a level that was entirely original, rather than one that was based on an existing game - And I sort of feel that this will be a small issue with Abe's Exoddus if it ever gets done.
I'd love to see more entirely original content to see more of what JAW's level designers can come up with, rather than them being constrained because they're rehashing existing content, if that makes sense. Like Havoc and others, maybe I'd like to see some sort of level editor as a DLC for the AE remake, perhaps even with steam workshop support (it'd increase the longevity of whatever game it'd be released for), but I know something like that wouldn't be simple to implement.
Back to NnT though: Perhaps the only things I disliked about it were the two glitches I had (which I've already told Wil about) - But I think JAW are already aware of them. There's that bug with the meat grinders in the
Paramonian Temple secret area, behind the boulder which makes them too fast if your FPS is high. Also on hard, sleeping slig reaction time is incredibly quick - Often killing me dead before they've even stood up, which is probably as intended for the difficulty. However, this caused me to get stuck in one area of Scrabania where a particular slig kept repeatingly insta-killing me over and over while I was trying to run past with the Elum, until I learned that I could keep the Elum jumping, to have a small chance of "avoiding" his bullets.
I also have a few little nitpicks too (like other die-hard fans), but the only one worth mentioning is about the new sounds of the scrabs and paramites - I mean they're okay, and if they had to have new sounds, then that's how it had to be, but I think they're too "hissy" and less distinctive from each other in my opinion, unlike the original sounds.
And as for the credits, I paused them, minimised N'n'T, muted it,
played this, then resumed watching the credits. Problem solved.
It's not a bad song, but it's out of place IMO.
But yeah, apart from that, I've not enjoyed a game as much as I enjoyed NnT for a long time - I think JAW did a really well.
Big, big thank you to them.
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Im sure he wanted to make it when he said that hed make it at 250k sales.
But if its sold 250k already then fantastic. Cuz weve still got 4 platform releases to hit that 500k goal.
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Yeah, It would be nice to know if they are remotely close to that amount of sold copies or not at all.
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Since they're now offering NnT for free for PSN Plus subscribers, I too wonder how they're doing with sales - Obviously they wouldn't do this deal with Sony if they couldn't afford to do so, and it'll help promote future games in the series later, although it makes me a little concerned since NnT is the only new game they've got right now.
