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xyzzysqrlSo I promised I'd check in with y'all if the actual plot of Warframe decided to come downstairs and put in a showing, and much to my surprise it has actually kicked off its slippers and joined in the dance.
It's a good plot, but I kind of wish it hadn't shown up because of what it does to the gameplay.
I actually don't want to talk about the plot that much, but I do want to talk about those gameplay implications, so I'm going to beneath the spoiler cut. Main-quest-wise I've played through Natah, The Second Dream, and The War Within, so there will be spoilers up to that point.
Seriously, spoilers. If you care about that, don't read on.
Let's get a little space going.
So the Warframes are remote-piloted by psychic teenagers who survived an accident with "The Void", which makes this the most anime plotline I can think of that isn't actually an anime. I'm down with that, and that's cool, and I will admit that I giggled a lot when I hit the end of The Second Dream and heyyyy here's the CHARACTER CREATION screen, only 100+ hours into the game.
Naturally I went full-on anime with my character design. It's fun to note that gender is optional as far as I can tell, you can make a masculine character or a feminine character and give either one a deep male voice or a female voice or just be as neutral as possible because fuck gender here in the space ninja future.
(I mean, technically you are jumping between male and female warframe bodies all the time, so whatever.)
So uncovering your real body gives you a cool power-up move where your screaming teenage self manifests behind your Warframe and shoots psychic space ninja laser beams at enemies, and that was REAL cool.
Unfortunately, then The War Within happened, and that replaces your cool power-up with the ability to actually teleport in your psychic teenager to replace your Warframe temporarily.
I'm unsure why, in a game with 30+ frames, hundreds of rifles and shotguns and pistols and swords and whips and tonfa, the ability to raise a space cat and space dog and space drone to help you out, tons of customization options, etc...
Why would I decide "Ah-ha, the thing I need here is a 100 HP human teenager who needs to treat the movie 'Carrie' like an employee training video. Let me summon her in -- oh she's dead, back to the Warframe."?
Right now the only reasoning I can think of is "WE'RE ANIME NOW, MOTHERFUCKER!" and I legit can't refute that, so I'm still summoning my Pink Teenage Warhead to psychic-leap through the chests of enemies until she catches a stray bullet and peaces out back to the ship.
It doesn't mean I feel real good about it though.
Anyway I apologize for not getting super-in-detail on the plot, just the spoilers and spoilers and spoilers. That said, I'm still enjoying Warframe even if I'm still struggling with level/rank/whatever 30-ish missions and it just decided what it needed to do was crack open a carton of LEVEL FUCKING 100 NODES and sprinkle them liberally around the starchart ahaha NO FUCK YOU I'm not even TOUCHING THOSE.
It's still a great game, still eating up scads of my time. I feel weird about that, but I gotta ride these impulses out as I may.
It's a good plot, but I kind of wish it hadn't shown up because of what it does to the gameplay.
I actually don't want to talk about the plot that much, but I do want to talk about those gameplay implications, so I'm going to beneath the spoiler cut. Main-quest-wise I've played through Natah, The Second Dream, and The War Within, so there will be spoilers up to that point.
Seriously, spoilers. If you care about that, don't read on.
Let's get a little space going.
So the Warframes are remote-piloted by psychic teenagers who survived an accident with "The Void", which makes this the most anime plotline I can think of that isn't actually an anime. I'm down with that, and that's cool, and I will admit that I giggled a lot when I hit the end of The Second Dream and heyyyy here's the CHARACTER CREATION screen, only 100+ hours into the game.
Naturally I went full-on anime with my character design. It's fun to note that gender is optional as far as I can tell, you can make a masculine character or a feminine character and give either one a deep male voice or a female voice or just be as neutral as possible because fuck gender here in the space ninja future.
(I mean, technically you are jumping between male and female warframe bodies all the time, so whatever.)
So uncovering your real body gives you a cool power-up move where your screaming teenage self manifests behind your Warframe and shoots psychic space ninja laser beams at enemies, and that was REAL cool.
Unfortunately, then The War Within happened, and that replaces your cool power-up with the ability to actually teleport in your psychic teenager to replace your Warframe temporarily.
I'm unsure why, in a game with 30+ frames, hundreds of rifles and shotguns and pistols and swords and whips and tonfa, the ability to raise a space cat and space dog and space drone to help you out, tons of customization options, etc...
Why would I decide "Ah-ha, the thing I need here is a 100 HP human teenager who needs to treat the movie 'Carrie' like an employee training video. Let me summon her in -- oh she's dead, back to the Warframe."?
Right now the only reasoning I can think of is "WE'RE ANIME NOW, MOTHERFUCKER!" and I legit can't refute that, so I'm still summoning my Pink Teenage Warhead to psychic-leap through the chests of enemies until she catches a stray bullet and peaces out back to the ship.
It doesn't mean I feel real good about it though.
Anyway I apologize for not getting super-in-detail on the plot, just the spoilers and spoilers and spoilers. That said, I'm still enjoying Warframe even if I'm still struggling with level/rank/whatever 30-ish missions and it just decided what it needed to do was crack open a carton of LEVEL FUCKING 100 NODES and sprinkle them liberally around the starchart ahaha NO FUCK YOU I'm not even TOUCHING THOSE.
It's still a great game, still eating up scads of my time. I feel weird about that, but I gotta ride these impulses out as I may.
