What's your verdict on Shadow Lords story?

Shadow Lords
1

I should start off by saying that I LOVE this mode from concept to execution. The one small issue I have so far, which could potentially become a bigger issue is the story, or rather how much of it there is and how muchis doled out, plus what type of central narrative we’re actually getting in this mode.

In my first three runs, I only got one scene with the narrator talking about Jago and Shago. I’m assuming there’s one of these per character, but without spoiling anything specific for characters, do characters get endings for beating Gargos?

I get it, this isn’t MK’s story mode, nor should it be, but shouldn’t there be more of a story through line even if many parts are text only? Would it be asking too much to get more story cohesion and clarity in the future or do we have enough of it already in this mode and I’m just not seeing it yet?

Here’s a quote from Gamecrate within an article that absolutely raves about the mode through most of it, except where it pertains to story:

“The mission storylines and background Gargos plot is written competently enough for a fusion of a rogue-like and fighting game, two genres notorious for their poor plot writing. But competency is all you are going to get. If you are looking for a deeper cinematic campaign, you aren’t going to find it here. Custscenes are animated in an engine using re-used assets from the fighting system. The grander meta-plot is barely addressed and character relationships are hand waved away. You can create a team of three mortal enemies and they’ll just shut up and cooperate. This makes the fact that you can’t choose Gargos himself or his rival Eyedol for your team that much more disappointing. In general, the actual meta-plot was addressed far less in Shadow Lords than it was in Season 2’s arcade mode.”

If this is the case, I really hope this gets addressed as a top priority from a content perspective and that its remedied as quickly as possible.

As much as the rest of the article praises the mode, and as much as I enjoy it, I was led to believe that this mode is how the story’s being conveyed this season.

Now, if more main story content is coming later, that’s great, as I respect the fact that the mode itself likely took a ton of time to create and launch. But if not, then I tend to think that might be a miscalculation on MS / IGs part.

A single player mode like this tends to attract a more casual audience that also tends to be more interested in the story, either from a lore perspective or even as a “story as reward” perspective. So if this mode is kinda lacking here well, I hope that’s recognized and dealt with.

For those that are curious, here’s the otherwise glowing article below. Credit @CStyles45 for tweeting it out!

http://www.gamecrate.com/killer-instinct-shadow-lords-offers-lesson-single-player-fighting-games/14640

Sorry, guessing that link didn’t work. Typing this on iPhone as I’m falling asleep. Apologies for any typos. :slight_smile

EDIT: Oh snap crackle pop it worked! Sorry, very tired lol. Gonna go celebrate by getting my net out and catching some Z’s. G’night everyone.

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I’ve got a quick question…what exactly is a rouge-like? They keep describing SL as a rouge-like, but I’ve never heard the term before.

3

the term has become more and more bastardised over time, but Roge-like or roge-lite essential means your progress carries over to some degree when you start over. (in the case of Shadow Lords it would be your items and guardians that carry over)

4

Me personally, I like how Shadow Lords turned out, but my only few gripes are the following…

-Anticipated character interactions, but text boxes are what’s mostly used instead. Story also felt a little rushed.
-Wished they’d include it in the Definitive Edition from the beginning without requiring the update.
-Why the Single Player portion is also online required doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I mean its all fine and dandy until you reach the end of a Turn, only then the server crapped out and sends you back to the system’s dashboard. Happened to me three times in the same playthrough. I get it a huge multiplayer portion is there, but that’s a little odd making it necessary just to play the mode at all.

But regardless, I’d say this mode wasn’t that bad for what it provides. I like the idea of taking a team of 3 then fighting through hordes, while also preventing the final boss from winning.

5

I love the mode. Would it be nice for more cinematics, yes, but the overall mode is great. I really like that everyone “not including guests” has a small to large little story of their own. I like that not everyone’s story centers around Gargos. Having characters that have their own agenda is cool.

SL is just a week old, and I am wondering how it will look and play a year from now.

6

I think SL is a great mode but story wise bar a few ‘cutscenes’ and I use the term loosely there’s not much story going on. S2 rivals had an opening, a rival scene and an ending for each character. We knew why they were there and if they had closure.
With s3 we have no opening scene for s3 characters and certainly no endings which is the biggest issue I have with the entire game.
Why have a novella, develop a rich lore and then squander it with ‘you saved the world’?
I mean did aria give maya, tj, orchid and all the answers she promised them?
Did mira get the artifact from sabre and give it to her boss?
Did tusk give up his immortality?
Did Kim finally wear a different pink jacket?

I need to know these things. If your gonna bill it as the story mode, it has to have story.

Let me say again, I think it’s an inspired mode but there’s a fair few things go in it that needed addressed.

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7

I thought it was good, silly fun, but I’m hoping that future plans include additional story content, even if it’s not necessarily in cutscenes. It did seem a little bare bones.

8

Bring back arcade or rivals mode. This mode to me is less fun than them. SL was advertiaed as story mode not grinding mode to gargos, gargos is not in this castle, rinse repeat

9

It’s way better than i expected, story wise. I’m a fan of the mode and i really appreciate the unlockables. SL is miles beyond the character story we got for s1+2 story mode.

10

To add to what @FulMetalSnorlax said, roguelikes are often built around determinative decision-making (do X or Y post-mission options), and perma-death (no restart, if you die, you start over).

Lots of them include an element of “stealth” in one fashion or another, even if it’s necessity is just a by-product of the perma-death possibility. This “stealth” ranges from actual in-game effects to aid your avoidance and survivability (invisibility, silent movement) to simply avoiding mobs as you progress through a stage - SL’s analog would be deployment and the skipping of days.

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I would choose “deploy” as the only “stealth” option. You can complete the mission with it, you avoid fighting (literally xD), and even if it doesn’t go as expected, you don’t lose the character

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12

Ok, I think I’m starting to get the idea. Quick question though, which may help give me a better grasp…what other games are out there that would be considered rouge-like?

Sorry, It’s just weird to me as long as I’ve been playing video games I’ve never heard of this…I’m wanting to find something else besides KI that I can kinda anchor it in to get a good grasp on the concept.

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The first two that come to mind are One Way Heroics and Heart&Slash, though these are modern iterations of the genre.

Lots of old-school text-based RPG’s (circa MacIntosh computer days) would be considered rogue-like these days.

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14

Rogue legacy, don’t starve, binding of isaac…

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15

I guess that would put Oregon Trail in that category as well.

lol…Jago died of dysentary.
Orchid: I told you not to eat that weird meat on a stick…

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16

Yeah I am kind of wondering where the rest of the story stuff is? When I first did it we got some with Jago and Kim, then I lost and started over with a new team and now the only cut scenes or story stuff that isn’t unlockable dossiers (Which I f***** LOVE btw, these are amazing) is the same couple scenes where it says ARIA is helping, then the one about Gargos’s Omen’s and how he punishes one for losing and that’s pretty much it? I starting to feel like I am doing something wrong lol

17

That’s EXACTLY the feeling I got! After going through my first run and seeing a Jago / Shadow Jago cut scene, but getting stomped by Gargos, I started with a new team of Sabrewulf, Mira and Kan Ra. I went through and wound up losing before I got to Gargos, but I still probably got about 12 or so turns in and didn’t see any cut scene for any character.

I started to think… “Did I have a team composition that doesn’t work right because Sabrewulf’s kind of a fringe good guy and Mira and Kan Ra aren’t?” But I dismissed that idea. There was one text exchange between Sabrewulf and Kan Ra where Kan Ra [spoiler]gives him his voice back[/spoiler] but that was it.

Again, just to reiterate, I LOVE this mode. I love that new characters want to join your party. I love that there are so many choices to make. I love the dossiers on each character and I love unlocking them as well. Same goes for the mimic skins. Definitely dig all of the consumables and the guardians and they make me want even more of them.

The fight scenarios are starting to become repetitive after a few play throughs, so hopefully we’ll see a lot more added (perhaps in some more locations on the glob as well), but I certainly don’t begrudge them for that. On the whole, I think it’s a great mode, no question. One of, if not the best single player mode I’ve ever played in a fighting game.

I just really hope that along with more scenarios, consumables, guardians, etc, which I’m assuming they’re planning on adding, that we also get some more reward type stuff like outfits, accessories, colors, skins, maybe even another level or two like for Mira and Eyedol or even an updated classic level or two, but now I’m just letting my mind wander.

Along with the reward idea though, I really hope add a good deal more story for each character, whether it’s the fully narrated cut scenes or simply more text conversations between characters. As fleshed out as the rest of the mode is, I’m almost surprised at how little they have here in terms of story.

I don’t hold that against them though, provided they add a lot more later. I’m sure that getting this mode up and off the ground was more than enough of a time commitment for @developers. I just hope now that we have it, they’ll keep adding more in this regard!

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18

I think a lot of people came in to this mode with a similar mindset as you did, thinking you could pick a team of whoever and get a clear story. In the Archive you can see who has, and who doesn’t have, unlockable cut scenes (Sabrewulf has one), so if you want to get the Season 3 story you have to play through with certain CAPTAINS of your team. The other characters on your team, your wing men, really have no bearing on the S3 story being told, that being said though, there are side stories with particular characters/factions that you can find no matter the captain, and while they don’t have any cut scenes, they do have dossiers that you can read through. I’m thinking of the ‘Cult of Gargos’ missions, and the ‘Ultratech Lab’ missions.

So yeah, the story of SLs can seem all over the place because it isn’t presented in a linear fashion, thus it just isn’t easily digestible as you play from game to game. But I think once you get everything unlocked it may be easier to get overall.

I say this after having just played with Tusk as my Captain and going through his main story getting his 4 cut scenes. The cut scenes really don’t flow at all, but I have gotten one of his dossiers (like #4 of 11) and the dossier seemingly goes into some lore I’ve never seen before. Anyway, I’m thinking/hoping that once everything is unlocked, that Tusk’s history will be more clear, and maybe even the gaps between the cut scenes more filled out.

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19

Yeah wow, I just assumed that each character would have one cut scene at minimum and also some type of ending. Someone above said it just gives you a “congratulations, you won” type of ending, which is honestly baffling to me that they couldn’t give each character another story bit.

Well, baffling in the sense that it wasn’t done since this is also a story mode, not baffling that they weren’t able to squeeze that out the door in the original release of the mode. If they were to say that there’s more coming later and that each character will have an ending scene, that’d be perfectly fine by me.

Thanks for letting me know that though! Especially about the captains part. I think I had an idea that they were the main focus, but I was hoping there’d at least be more background for other characters as well, but I guess that’s where the dossiers come in. Think I’ll adjust my expectations down a bit accordingly.

I hope you’re right, and what you’re saying here makes sense. Perhaps I just won’t look at any of the dossiers at all until I have all of them. I almost kind of wonder why they didn’t just give you the parts in order starting with the first one, but then again, maybe there is no cohesive narrative in the dossiers either from one to the next. If that’s the case, that would seem like pretty big lost opportunity, even if they’re still nice little pieces of the character’s background.

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Yeah. Hisako has one, Fulgore has one, Jago has one, and may be a few other S1/S2 characters have a cut scene. I think all the of the canon S3 characters have like 3+ cut scenes. But yeah, they mentioned this months ago, that the story of S3 would revolve mostly around the S3 characters, and after the first videos surfaces like 2 months ago or so, they showed the archive, and it showed that many characters wouldn’t get cut scenes and the like.

On the ending, it is a bit more than just “Congratulations!” as it gives a bit of insight into the concept of what a shadow lord is (a bit), but it is only like a 30 second cut scene.

They haven’t, and I wouldn’t suspect that they would. Again, this mode focuses more on the S3 characters than anything else. And though they said that are doing DLC for and Eyedol story line, and could do more in the future, I wouldn’t expect a more in-depth story for all the characters in the near future.

You are welcome, and that is a good idea,

The dossier definitely go in order and flow together. The S1 and S2 character dossier ARE the character backstories from the forums here just cut up into pieces, but the S3 character dossiers are brand new…as are the side story lore dossiers.

But yeah, others have suggested that the dossiers should have unlocked in order, and I personally think that may have been better from the stand point of following the story, but at the same time, unlocking them randomly does sort of reinforce the random nature of the mode. It is a double edge sword no doubt.