Knox

THIS IS NOT A POST TO PUT DOWN ANYONE WHO ENJOYS THE REWRITE! THESE ARE OUR THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS AND SHOULD NOT BE TREATED AS FACTS

Im just gonna be upfront, i do not like these new rewrites whatsoever. Prologue and demo 1, they were fine! Heck i even loved what they did with demo 1 if you disregard the timeline discrepancy of how quickly ck was able to put up martial law, but then again this involves some fucky time traveling stuff so i wont put it at too much importance. Admitedly i love the whole noobador and mysfig subplot, i was honestly cheering when they first met because hey! More noobador screentime and more of his background especially with his ties to the nooblets in the meadow (that was honestly just adorable). Not much is to be said for demo 1 and the prologue since not a lot changed but OOH BOY. Demo 2 and demo 3

I had high hopes for demo 2, “hey maybe the rewrites could work!” But the one issue that was prevalent thru the chapter, heck the issue prevalent with this rewrite is how. Shoehorned everything feels. There is barely any room for interpretation with the dialogue because every. Single. Character. Keeps treating the audience like a toddler when it comes to reading their dialogue. I dont like this for multiple reasons; one, it feels like youre insulting your audience’s intelligence if you keep hammering the point in their face with dialogue like this. Two, the lack of subtlety kills story tension—for christ sake, thaniyels breakdown at the end of chapter 2 felt so ooc for some weird reason but more of that soon.

like no fucking dip????? Im pretty sure anyone couldve made that connection without needing to be told so??? You couldve just said “hes known to be a bit of a prankster. One day one of his pranks went a little too far” AND IM PRETTY SURE ANYONE WOULDVE MADE A CONNECTION TO WHY HIS NAME IS GRIEFER. But then again they switched up his name to just being good ol’ brad thaniyel instead of griefer so i guess they needed some way to insert the name griefer? Maybe im just being a bitch and nitpicking! But NOOOOO it goes on and on. Even the dialogue between brad and thaniyel feel like one of them is perpetually winking to the audience. dialogue is subjective so what i say is only my opinion, but i want to get a point across so.

this is thaniyel’s dialogue post bubonic plant fight. Is there anything wrong with it? Theres no penalty or reward if you can answer or not

The dialogue is longwinded and shoehorned in. Rather than getting straight to the point it prances and circles around already implied or established emotions. “I couldnt tell him, no words in this world could have explained it all” is just “nothing i could say could possibly make him understand it, and how could i?”. Both lines suffice in telling us that thaniyel, no matter his regret and guilt, cannot find the right words to explain to brad his responsibility as mayor. Either line could have worked fine, but both of these lines being shoved in the same box of dialogue feels like the writers trying to hold us by the hair and making us watch them hammer it in.

“Its not something i wanted, no… these responsibilities. Look at what they’ve done. What they’ve taken from me, my life, my wife!”

Why not cross out “look what theyve done” and combine it with the next line to be “look at what theyve taken from me! My life, my family…”

“I gave it my all, i gave it everything and it still wasnt enough!”

“I gave it my all” and “i gave it everything” can just be combined into one or the other.

A character is not their own psychologist. They don’t know why they’re feeling the things they feel and even if they do, they won’t be able to word it out perfectly. Getting rid of that aspect of dialogue makes everything feel surface-level with little to no room for interpretation.

I am not saying long-winded dialogue is bad. Admittedly i love long winded dialogue—its fun to read and It has its place if you can pull it off. There is a difference between intentionality when writing long winded dialogue and regular dialogue. This is trying to be regular dialogue but is unintentionally turned long winded because of the constant loop arounds and hammering in to the point its dancing on your nose.

This problem is everywhere in the rewrite as far as we can tell (still have to play demo 4, not sure if we’ll even play demo 5). The dialogue here is literally just one example, another could be the ones in demo 3’s dream world AND OH BOY WE HAVE SOOOO MANY “GOOD” THINGS TO SAY ABOUT IT.

Starting off. Oh my god they fucking murdered the embodiments. They shanked them in an ally and left their corpses to fucking ROT. Not much has changed from the dream world itself but the embodiments feel like completely new characters. The dialogue from greed gave me so much whiplash because it changed so much from its base character. The whole dream world section just feels feels forced in general if you compare to the pre rewrite. They try so hard to insert the retro machine plot into the dream world it takes away the focus from player—now its all about “supressing your emotions” and “locking them up” which irks me. Builderman (hatred bm) just feels so wrong on many aspects? In fact im pretty sure they couldve just let the dream world be without much changes other than the embodiments being tamed BUT NO. They just had to change the embodiments!

For example. Greed couldve stayed the way as it is! The manifestation of the player’s constant desire, be it materialistic or whatnot to the point they take and take until nothings left. But nope! They changed the pile of tix to be the retro machine and completely altered greeds personality. But the thing is base greed still wouldve worked. It couldve represented how player is willing to take no matter what the consequence until theres nothing left. To be greedy in completing a quest putting aside your own morals because “the ends justify the means” BUT NOOOOO. The same thing happens for solitude/sorrow, fear, and hatred. AND ON THE TOPIC OF HATRED.

HOW DOES IT GO FROM BEING ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTINGLY WRITTEN CHARACTERS IN THE WHOLE GAME TO THIS. HOW. HOW. IM GENUINELY AT A LOSS OF WORDS. do i even need to explain why this dialogue is just utter garbage and ruins everything for hatred???? How about a blitz round shall we!

Lack of subtext

Completely changes hatreds character

On the fucking nose

Changes their personality

“How do you fellow kids?” Ass builderman mention

Scourge of everyone to “hatred is everyone”

And we just wanna make one thing clear. Changing hatreds personality or character or even any of the embodiments wouldve been fine if it wasnt executed like utter dogshit.

I havent even mentioned leer or any of the cutscene after every demo but im tired atp so ill keep it brief

I dont like leer nor the addition of guests being part of the villains and im just gonna keep it at that