My only Critique of the story so far (story spoilers, obviously)

Game Discussion
21

Yeah I kinda just knew the King was a order member right after he got name dropped (although I did somewhat suspect Revon)

It would definitely be great if we got to interact with the boss before fighting them (literally every boss gets introduced and then we fight them immediately after we talk to them, and all of them aside from Shura and Iris can/do die)

The same even goes for Cernyx, and he has little to no buildup. You kill the cultists and then fight him right after. It feels strange, the only bosses who had any real buildup were Argos and Calvus, and even then we didn’t get to see them at all beforehand.

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22

Imma be fair, the Calvus build up in my opinion wasn’t as good as Argos because it kinda felt rushed, but das my opinion.

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23

It’s like in movies where the friendly guy we meet in the first 10 minutes and never again is the bad guy

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24

Lady carina is probably the most forgettable boss because she has no build up and appears of nowhere lol

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25

well i think there is a way this can work.

for example, in akame ga kill multiple characters are killed off but they still pop up in flashbacks and the like, maybe we can get a flashback of how these two joined the order or through the eyes of their friends and family.

26

i feel like shura is more forgettable, probably because you can only beat him once and he never appears again

27

Shura is almost definitely going to appear again later in the story I think.

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28

I guess I’m going to dump my thoughts on Vetex’s story in this critique thread:

I think it’s important to note that Vetex completely copied this system from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (see ACO image below) (He kinda even copied the game’s name I’m pretty sure).

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I’m not saying this is a bad thing. In fact, no one can own game mechanics, ideas, or styles. However, I think this shows that Vetex heavily aims for having some sort of similar story beats as ACO. And speaking as someone who’s played both AO and ACO to completion (although years ago), both stories function the same but Vetex’s story is more muddied and obviously plain as a Roblox game.

I think the root cause of this problem is that Arcane Oddesey’s story is more of a magic shounen parody of ACO. And by a shounen parody, I mean that AO includes a main cast of virtuous, strong, and young characters that try to take down a big baddie with some kind of special MC, much like a majority of adventure shounen. This isn’t a bad thing by itself, but Vetex just doesn’t pull it off well with the limited story beats he had.

I don’t really think a prior appearance for any character is necessary, at least not for video game storytelling anyway. The biggest example of this is Elden Ring (Yes, I’m one of the people who says it has a story). Most of the bosses are obviously good af, yet they only appear solely for their fights. The buildup to those bosses is instead the worldbuilding, as they’re mostly revealed to the player through word of mouth and the environments the player explores in their respective kingdoms.

Vetex did this with General Argos and sort of did it with King Calvus with the prince’s speech when they arrive at Ravenna, but Elius and especially Carina suffered from a lack of it all.

AO’s story is definitely good for a Roblox game, but it’s still flawed. As I said before, I think the story of AO is more of a weird mix of shounen and ACO’s mystery action elements. If he could focus on one style, or better yet even pull off the current style properly, then I think the story would definitely be improved. But the way AO is now is that it doesn’t succeed as ANY kind of story and that is because of the protagonist.

AO suffers from what I like to call Blank-Slate MC Syndrome, where the protagonist is purposefully made bland for an audience to self-insert/semi-roleplay into the story. This is especially a problem when the MC is pretty virtuous in the story, even though we can literally be a murdering pirate with a 100,000-galleon bounty.

The player character doesn’t have any thematically meaningful interactions with any other character except for being a magicked-up, walking moral compass that may or may not be completely good. Literally all King Calvus and other bosses have to say about the PC is “Huh, I thought you looked weak but I guess you’re strong” and “Oh yeah I sense some special power in you that’s related to the cult.” And then Iris suddenly becomes their friend after the PC weirdly follows them with a sudden interest in helping them. I don’t know about you but I’d say that’s pretty creepy. And don’t get me started on how the MC doesn’t even get to fight the glass curse user after being enslaved by them for one month or however long.

In fact, I think Morden should be the protagonist of the story. He has the same understanding of the cult as the PC (at least he says so), went under the magic experiments with the PC, and definitely has more personality than the PC. Sure, he doesn’t fight all the Ravennian bosses but he steals the Death Curse and fights the Glass Curse user that 1-shot the PC.

But yeah, it’s Roblox so it doesn’t really matter how good the story is anyway.

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29

“I’m back, and I’m here to kill more than just local sea life.”

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30

Yeah I thought she was Prince Revon at first (when we see somebody in a mansion speaking to the people) and then it wasn’t, then I got sent to the little open field and I knew the fight was happening so I got confused asf :skull:

31

Yeah, this was kinda weird for me too.
The only bosses who don’t do this are Shura, Iris, and Cernyx (and also Kai and Merlot if they count)

But all of the cult related bosses start off by going “man you couldn’t hurt a bacteria bro” straight to “AH! I will use my full power against you, worm…”

I wish they had some more variety in what they said (maybe Calvus could’ve said something like “Ah, my guest of honor! I must say, I’m quite impressed you got past Julian… or was it you? Let’s find out, shall we?” (Or something like that idfk))

32

thats literally what wom was lmao

33

ok now I want vetex to spend time before nimbus sea rewriting the bronze sea to visit ravenna early on and actually meet people

like my biggest issue was that elius and carina literally just… didn’t exist in the war seas until their very boss fight.

there’s NO mention of ANYTHING related to them beforehand, and the only acknowledgment afterwards is a guy that mentions they’re his children

like I honestly don’t understand the point of the order tab where you unveil identity when you are downright fucking told exactly who they are before you get the last clue nor have you ever met them before.

it’s kind of useless to show me “oh damn general argos is the baron” when we have literally only heard of him like once or twice, those being inside of the fort and we then go show up and beat his shit in right afterwards

34

Not super good with blockquotes but I like a lot of the points you made.

Shonen vs Mystery

This part I critiqued with the whole ‘web of intrigue’ thing the most was how there was no proper mystery to be had. What this tries to build is a sense of mystique and interest which falls flat when there is no ‘mystery’ to be had. You’re just learning about people as you fight them essentially- this is where it differs from Elden Ring. Elden Ring can get away with this because it’s not trying to build a mystery plot in any sense, nor even attempt a vauge illusion of mystery

Ludonarrative Dissonance

It’s always going to remain fact that in games with custom protagonists there will be no ‘character’ for the protagonist. Rpgs don’t really do a heavy character focus now- and one thing I think WOM had over AO is the idea of the two opposing storylines, if you wanted to be top dog evil guy then you had a storyline for that, same for good storyline, but they were practically identical and hadn’t had time to flesh out before Vetex cancelled the continuation of development.

Here, the AO protagonist is supposed to be someone righteous, but players can slaughter dozens of innocents, kicking waterlogged shipwreck survivors back into the ocean after robbing them of their last vestiges of wealth- not actions I would say, are heroic. Nor are they actions I think characters like Warren, Morden, and Iris- who while not virtuous are at least trying to do the right thing, would approve of.

Time

The most important thing you can do for a story is give it room to breathe- and AO’s story has very little time to breathe. Morden is the most fleshed out character, even more so if you read his journal. In fact, I do wish they would play more into the characterizations Morden showed in his journal because it revealed a deep internal conflict- he wants the protagonist to be happy, to enjoy their life free of the horrific memories of experimentation, yet at the same time he is frustrated. Frustrated that he is the one that has to remember, to carry the burden of Tuckers death alone whilst you don’t even know who the dude is. It’s a good bit and honestly something I wished Morden perhaps confronts you on in the future.

Another good piece of writing is Akurius Keep. The journal there does great world building work whilst also amplifying the mystique and horror of the place, it doesn’t explain the curse, it only makes it that much more unsettling.

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35

can you send me picture of Morden’s diary journal pls?

36

I agree with all of your points, and you just write all of the stuff I feel ain’t right in the story but in cohesive paragraphed words.

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37

Here ya go

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38

My two biggest problems with the story are:

  1. We never get closure or information regarding Julian. I thought General Argos was the “strongest in the Bronze Legion,” but Julian is obviously far more powerful, so is he just not in the Bronze Legion then? What’s his actual job? And we never find out what happened to him after his fight with Morden. Is he dead? Is he alive? If he lived, how?
  2. Lady Carina just feels like walking wasted potential. She came completely out of nowhere and served no narrative purpose. She barely reacts to what you did to Elius, she really has no reason to be his sister because that relationship never went anywhere. I was so excited learning Carina and Elius were siblings, but then the story does literally nothing with it. Like, if you’re going to kill her off, at least make her dialogue interesting first. I really wish she lived and I wish her sibling dynamic mattered more.

I can’t call this a “big” problem since it falls under the very-enjoyable “so bad it’s good” category, but Prince Revon’s dialogue is extremely over-the-top and melodramatic. I honestly thought it was supposed to be funny on purpose until I learned the story part was titled “Unsettling Promise.”

If Vetex and Tech wanted him to be scary, why make us fight him first and make him pathetically weak? Why write his dialogue to focus so much on how oblivious he is to Calvus’ true nature? There’s no way to find that “unsettling,” it makes him look stupid. It would help to make it more personal, have him say “my brother” instead of “our fair king” and focus less on how much of a “good person” Calvus was and instead how much he meant to Revon.

Or, you could scrap his “promise” entirely and just have him stare, wordlessly, in grief and anger. That would have more of an impact, and it’s scarier because you don’t know what he’s thinking. See his facial expression contort through various conflicting feelings, and focus on that long enough to make it memorable so when he comes back later in the story it doesn’t feel random. I love Revon’s dialogue as much as the next guy, but if he’s really supposed to come back later and do vicious things to the protagonist and their friends, it’s important that his Bronze Sea dialogue doesn’t come off as melodramatic or ridiculous. A bad setup can easily destroy any possible impact of a story.

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39

Ngl I barely remember where they got him

40

Lack of closure is a bit of a problem with the story in general. For example, we never learn what happened to Beringer and his Cloud Curse. Sure, we know he’s dead, but since Fort Talos was destroyed, did his curse ever get recovered? Who took it? I really hope that comes back later. I think it would make sense for the first curse user we fight to use the Cloud Curse, since not only is it weak but it was only recently made available, so its user would be inexperienced with it. That would be a nice introduction to curse users as enemies and how they work without being too difficult.

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