Fact: In the first five levels of Braid, there are 60 puzzle pieces to collect.
Fact: You can not move on to the final level until you have them all.
Fact: I have found 59 of 60 pieces.
Question: Do I use a guide for the last (basically impossible) piece?
Walkthroughs, occasionally the bane of a gamer's existence. Are you really bad at the game that you need someone to hold you by the hand every step of the way? What was the point of buying the game if someone else was going to solve the puzzles?
That being said, I'm no stranger to looking up a guide. For example, if you play a game like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, you are going to miss a ton of extra things (such as magic caves) if you don't use a guide. Of course, many people get by without one, but...
I actually have been pretty happy with myself lately. Most of the games that I have been playing recently, I finished without a guide. But Braid DOES have some pretty difficult puzzles.
Would it be worth it using a guide? I've spent hours trying to figure out the puzzle, but I have had no luck so far. Usually, I use a guide only for the following reasons:
1. I've spent a ridiculous amount of time looking for the answer and I just can't find it.
2. Bonus content I would otherwise skip by.
3. It would save me time by not going to every location in a gigantic world to test every far-flung theory I might have.
Braid IS very difficult, but that might be reason NOT to use a guide. The satisfaction of managing to beat it entirely on my own would be really nice.
I've thought about it, and I think I'll do it just by myself this time. I guess this blog post was more for me than for you; it was to orchestrate my thoughts. I think I now have a nugget of idea of how to beat it. Let's see how that works out...
I should probably mention a little something about Braid itself. It was made by independent developer Jonathon Blow. Even though I'm playing it on the PC, it is also available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Although when you first play it you might be tempted to think that it is simply a Mario clone, trust me, it is anything but. You have almost absolute control of time.
And unlike other games that have time control mechanism, such as Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, there is no limit to how long you can use your powers, and how far back you can go. For example, if you fall into a pit and die, you just press your handy "Shift" key and go back in time before you jumped. Then you leap over the pit with a more precisely timed jump. If that was all there was to it, Braid would be fantastically easy. The purpose of the game is to fond all the puzzle pieces, which forces you to stretch your ingenuity in different directions.
However, there really is more to it. How can you not mention the "sorry, but the princess is in another castle" line (which is a reference to Mario) and the water-colour background. And then there is the story. It doesn't make too much sense to me, but it is a story of regret. I think. Maybe.
This post seems to be a two-in-one. I discussed if should use a walkthrough, and I put in a plea for you to play Braid.
Edit: HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!! I BEAT THE GAME :):):) It was definitely worth it :D I still don't understand the story much more, though.
Braid is an amazing game, John; I will not disagree with you :)
ReplyDeleteThe story is, actually, my favorite part of the whole experience. While it is vague, it does make some sense, and was most likely intended to be ambiguous and open to many different interpretations. I agree with you; the initial conclusion I came to, concerning the plot, was that it was about regret and lovelornness - basically what you said above. I'll have to discuss it with you in depth at some point, since it's a great story, and worthy of lengthy conversation and discourse.
In Christ,
Ryan