You might want to consider just looking up a walkthrough that lists what-you-can-do-when, just to escape the grind of trial-and-error and see the storyline.
I need to make another push to get through the game (I’m at about the halfway point). I have a feeling I’m stuck because I think I know what comes next (stealing the Firebird from Tatiana), but it’s not actually time yet, so I’m missing the things I should be doing instead. I’m both helped and hindered by my vague memory of the game.
We’ve talked a bit about the main character and his complications… Were there any favorite moments in the game? Any favorite characters? Or despised characters (like that obnoxious French child)?
I really like the British man that gets on the train at Munich. I honestly forget whether you ever find out more about him and what he’s up to, but I love how he just baldly blurts out questions and observations to make people uncomfortable, but in a tone like he’s just wondering about the weather. Perfect accent and vocal performance.
The relationship between Tatiana and Alexei is really nice. I particularly enjoyed watching them play chess. I forget where that plot goes, but it’s clearly going to be tragic due to the Count’s history and Alexei’s ideology.
NOTE: Now that I look at the calendar I see that we’re coming up on two weeks for this game. So get your final thoughts in before I pick the next decider (maybe tomorrow night).
So I appear to have found a game breaking bug. I’ve been using a walkthrough to direct what I need to accomplish by different stages (I know what I need to get, and where it is, but when and how can sometimes be obscure). Problem is I’ve gotten to the concert event stage, but things broke. Anna’s dog was supposed to be taken, and Anna was supposed to go to the concert.
Problem is that never happened. 2:30 passed. Then 3. Then 4. then 5. Got all the way to Vienna and she still practiced away. I couldn’t go into Kronos’ car either. What was supposed to happen never did. Going to rewind back to around 2 to see if it picks up from there. But annoying. Had I not used a walkthrough I wouldn’t have known this was a bug, not that I was missing something. It is a circuitous event though, since I need to get into Anna’s room so I can get into Tatiana’s.
As for the game itself I’m a fan of the characters Josephine and Rebecca. It is one of the better written romantic arcs I’ve seen in any game.
I actually really love that you get just these little hints about characters and unfinished threads, and that you’re not learning every single detail about them. I’ve always liked the feeling that these characters had lives before the game started, and will have lives after it ends. Assuming they make it that far.
I had problems at the exact same time, but different problems. They took the dog and the concert began, but Tatiana was in the concert and in the other car playing chess with Alexei. I went all the way back to the dream sequence and started the day over and it was fine.
Phew! Just got through the whole concert sequence. I had no memory of quite how many rooms I was supposed to break into! I just remembered stealing the Firebird! Love the ballsy move of walking out of the concert from Kronos’ compartment with a briefcase full of gold! Not sure I really understand (as we’ve been saying in the discussion here) what the motivation is or how I’m supposed to understand it…
I’m at Vienna now, so I think there’s a decent amount more to go.
While there are a lot of really neat ambiguities in the story, there are also quite a few plotholes and weird moments, especially in the last half. Some of these I would guess are areas where the game had to be truncated to fit what they had time or budget for and at the same time they had to work with the footage they had. One of those is the bomb sequence, which just felt disjointed and illogical. Cath steals the detonator and Alexei whips up another in no time? (I did notice that the clock in the smoking car was missing… Okay, that’s a nice touch.) Even when Cath finds the bomb, he can still go sit down and talk with the British guy as though nothing life-threatening is going on. Then when you manage to defuse the bomb (fumbling around through sketchy inventory use) it turns out the British guy, Anna, and the conductor are behind you the whole time? Thanks for the help, you loafs!
The whole idea that they could just drive the train across Serbia and Bulgaria and Turkey without stopping for water or coal is nutso.
Still, some good moments near the end. I absolutely loved the ending when I first played it through a decade ago. I still feel that tonally it’s just brilliant, even if, again, there is some weird suspensions of disbelief required.
Am I understanding right that the Firebird will sing during the day, but will flip out and kill people at night? Is that what happened? Maybe I need to go back and read the Firebird tale and see if that’s presaged in the story? Anyone know?
Well, it’s a flawed game, but beautiful in so many ways. Thanks for picking it, Nikolaj!
Oh, and I had the realization after I finished the game that I actually had owned the hintbook, so I went into my basement to try to dig it up and, indeed, there it was! I read through the whole thing and didn’t learn any great insights into the plot, but did find out about a few tidbits of subplot that I missed. There was also an interview at the end with Mechner and one of the other writers, Tomi Pierce. Mechner said that the decision to make the cars have the little bends at the end so they could be historically accurate (against the desires of the programmers) added two years onto development. I assume that’s a joke, but one with some truth to it.
