How to improve Too Human
After spending several hours playing Too Human you can say that I am a fan of the game. I happen to really enjoy the control scheme and love the mix of sci-fi with Norse mythology. Still this game has not met critical success and some of the complaints are valid about Too Human. Even though I find the game a lot of fun to play and well worth the cost there are still some areas that can be improved for the next game in this trilogy.
The most glaring issue I think has to be the game's difficulty and the learning curve in the game. Unlike most games Too Human does not come with different difficulty options. You are thrown into the game at the default difficulty which can get ugly real fast if you don't know what you are doing. Lets face it, if you are dieing constantly you are not going to enjoy the game so adding different difficulty options is the first place I'd start when creating the next Too Human.
While Too Human may have innovative controls for an Action RPG it takes a page out of last generation by forcing you to hunt for health packs. Most modern games have taken the Halo 2 approach and allow you to regenerate your health. The Bio Engineer class has this ability so it shouldn't be too hard to make it standard across all characters.
As you progress throughout Too Human you will rank up but so will the enemies you fight. I like that you get some more difficult "leaders" in battles but I do fins some of the grunts get a bit to hard. There is no question in my mind that the undead soldiers are too difficult to kill. Often it takes several strikes to kill these grunts and since there are so many of them it makes the Helheim mission grueling to complete. On that one mission I died twice as many times as I had on the other three missions combined. The undead grunts should be like fighting the goblins in the other missions where one or two hits kills them. The elites and other leader enemies are hard enough in Helheim to make the game a good challenge. The constant dieing really kills the pacing of the game which hurts the flow of the game.
I tend to think that you will get some really nice loot in Too Human but the best stuff is for those that hit level 22 and then again in the low 40s. This real means you will not get the coolest looking armor or weapons until the last mission or on your next play through. In my opinion this is how it should be, reward the people that really like your game with the coolest loot. Still the loot drops can be improved. It seems that there is special armor based on your choice of Human or Cybernetic alignment but not by class. It also seems you have special weapons by class but not alignment. I hope in the next game there will be special weapons and armor based on class and alignment.
A common issue from the reviews is the story telling in Too Human. I think that letting the player know Balder was killed by Hod, who was tricked by Loki, then retrieved from Helheim would have been better for the player. We can still see how Balder was deceived and relate to his anger. Instead we are thrown into a situation where we don't know why Loki is imprisoned or why Balder has been away. We don't even know why we fight the machines till half way through the game.
When it comes to the games's story the interaction with the other Aesir in the game is a bit mixed. There are a couple time you have the option to talk to one of the Aesir and it will spout out a one sided conversation. I don't understand why these encounters are presented this way. Often you can just ignore that person and keep walking past. I think this only hinders the game and I would like to see more interaction with NPCs in future games.
My last area for improvement is with the game's engine. I feel that there is area for improvement here because of clipping issues and some low quality textures. The fact the Valkyrie clips through the flow everytime you die is just plain bad. Considering you die so much it really gets blaring. I have also noticed in cyberspace that some areas have really low quality textures and it does take away from the game. Overall I like the art style and feel the game is high quality so when you do see these poor area it sticks out.
I hope that Silicon Knights implements a couple of these suggestions for the next Too Human. It really seems to me that when you create a game that causes this kind of drama people take a more critical look at the game. I also tend to think that games were you can die lot don't get good review scores. Lots of reviewers play games on the easiest difficult setting so they can run through the game faster. Dieing a lot and having to watch the Valkyrie clip through the floor every time is bound to hunt the games review scores.
The most glaring issue I think has to be the game's difficulty and the learning curve in the game. Unlike most games Too Human does not come with different difficulty options. You are thrown into the game at the default difficulty which can get ugly real fast if you don't know what you are doing. Lets face it, if you are dieing constantly you are not going to enjoy the game so adding different difficulty options is the first place I'd start when creating the next Too Human.
While Too Human may have innovative controls for an Action RPG it takes a page out of last generation by forcing you to hunt for health packs. Most modern games have taken the Halo 2 approach and allow you to regenerate your health. The Bio Engineer class has this ability so it shouldn't be too hard to make it standard across all characters.
As you progress throughout Too Human you will rank up but so will the enemies you fight. I like that you get some more difficult "leaders" in battles but I do fins some of the grunts get a bit to hard. There is no question in my mind that the undead soldiers are too difficult to kill. Often it takes several strikes to kill these grunts and since there are so many of them it makes the Helheim mission grueling to complete. On that one mission I died twice as many times as I had on the other three missions combined. The undead grunts should be like fighting the goblins in the other missions where one or two hits kills them. The elites and other leader enemies are hard enough in Helheim to make the game a good challenge. The constant dieing really kills the pacing of the game which hurts the flow of the game.
I tend to think that you will get some really nice loot in Too Human but the best stuff is for those that hit level 22 and then again in the low 40s. This real means you will not get the coolest looking armor or weapons until the last mission or on your next play through. In my opinion this is how it should be, reward the people that really like your game with the coolest loot. Still the loot drops can be improved. It seems that there is special armor based on your choice of Human or Cybernetic alignment but not by class. It also seems you have special weapons by class but not alignment. I hope in the next game there will be special weapons and armor based on class and alignment.
A common issue from the reviews is the story telling in Too Human. I think that letting the player know Balder was killed by Hod, who was tricked by Loki, then retrieved from Helheim would have been better for the player. We can still see how Balder was deceived and relate to his anger. Instead we are thrown into a situation where we don't know why Loki is imprisoned or why Balder has been away. We don't even know why we fight the machines till half way through the game.
When it comes to the games's story the interaction with the other Aesir in the game is a bit mixed. There are a couple time you have the option to talk to one of the Aesir and it will spout out a one sided conversation. I don't understand why these encounters are presented this way. Often you can just ignore that person and keep walking past. I think this only hinders the game and I would like to see more interaction with NPCs in future games.
My last area for improvement is with the game's engine. I feel that there is area for improvement here because of clipping issues and some low quality textures. The fact the Valkyrie clips through the flow everytime you die is just plain bad. Considering you die so much it really gets blaring. I have also noticed in cyberspace that some areas have really low quality textures and it does take away from the game. Overall I like the art style and feel the game is high quality so when you do see these poor area it sticks out.
I hope that Silicon Knights implements a couple of these suggestions for the next Too Human. It really seems to me that when you create a game that causes this kind of drama people take a more critical look at the game. I also tend to think that games were you can die lot don't get good review scores. Lots of reviewers play games on the easiest difficult setting so they can run through the game faster. Dieing a lot and having to watch the Valkyrie clip through the floor every time is bound to hunt the games review scores.
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