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#is to look up what the encounter design of LC is like and. uh. wow! i hate it!
cai-tan · 6 months
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Hey so, I'm gonna heavily apologize in advance. I know this is a really harsh take, especially because there are fans of Lethal Company in my community.
TL;DR: I went ahead and looked up some more information and gameplay on it, and I can guarantee without a doubt that I have very little interest in playing it, let alone streaming it.
Like, it's really not Deep Rock Galactic, not even in vibes or theming. Like, yeah, DRG (the company) seems to care very little about your survival, but the game isn't built around surprising you and making you feel confused, powerless, and vulnerable. The most powerful weapon in Lethal Company is a shovel, and it's the solution to a fat (estimated) thirty percent of the threats you face in the game. The rest of the enemies and traps are essentially just unintuitive knowledge checks; you either know what to do immediately *after* someone else encounters it, or you encounter it and get locked into a situation of "Guess I'll Die".
I get that sometimes, games can just drop you in and you learn in trial by fire, and that can be really good! But specifically, when it's done right, it can be good. Dark Souls is a great example of this; the spiraling level design makes you feel like you're constantly getting lost and sidetracked, when really it's the level design guiding you through the intended progression paths. Lethal Company just gives you vague hints via mostly unhelpful, tediously long-winded log files.
I don't want to directly claim it's a bad game, or that anything I just described is bad game design, but it's really just not something I'd be on board to play or stream. Honestly, first impressions is that it feels like it's more of a Content™ Game that's all about making streamers do The Funny Reactions and Get Clipped. I kinda like getting technical with games, and this one seems like it'd feel awful to do so with. It just seems like it boils down to grabbing things and praying (to RNGesus, no less, and that guy hates me) that you either don't cross paths with Instant Death Guy 3 or Instant Death Guy 7, or that it gives you Conditional Instant Death Guy 2 and you just so happen to have the Funky MacGuffin Tool Specifically For Conditional Instant Death Guy 2.
My channel is about Analysis and Solving Problems. Lethal Company is (in my humble opinion) a game about Screaming at Scary Things and Getting Clipped.
Sorry for the disappointment.
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