The whole "forced to do evil" angle was explored in Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. In that game it was the bad guys using it as a counterpoint to Raiden's assertion that he was on the side of Justice. It was the exposure to the "hypocrisy" of Raiden killing people who were "just following orders" that breaks Raiden and he momentarily straight up disregards his moral code in favor of survival and reverts to being the mindless killing machine he was once known to be, gloriously backfiring in the villians' faces. Both games were released on THE SAME DAY.
It also does the moral ambiguity well, because after his initial berserk, he calls up his buddies, apologizes, and asks if they're going to be okay with him having to revert to Jack the Ripper to stop the horror that's happening in World Marshal - it's not pleasant, but he needs to be the wetwork guy for the sake of everyone else.
This is unfortunately also the reason why MGR's story feels unresolved by the end (I'm convinced they expected to get a sequel). Raiden understands that he is absolutely 100% as bad as the people he's killing - war and violence, no matter how necessary, can never be justified when civilians are always the ones who will suffer - but he accepts this and continues killing for his idea of the greater good. Roll credits. Raiden's gone back to something like seeking justice by the ending, but that rings hollow after the events of the game. He's still killing people. If Raiden's key character theme is the question of if he's a person or a weapon, what kind of conclusion are we to draw if he continues to do as a weapon does? A weapon cannot change the underlying systems of the world. It can only shed blood. It can only kill. Basically, what was the point of any of that? Maybe _that question itself_ is the point, but I don't think it feels intentional. It wouldn't have ended on such a blatant sequel hook if they wanted an _actually_ ambiguous ending; the story just feels unfinished. (also Armstrong's ideal world wasn't actually that much worse than the world that already exists in MGR. It's basically just 'instead of the global war machine killing civilians for money, I will make it kill civilians for ideals (until someone more powerful comes along to usurp me, I guess)'. Like, the end result is still 'cyborg mercenaries are the main economic sector in the world because reasons'. whatever. maybe Raiden's killing cyborg bankers at the end or something)
The idea of Prophet and Alcatraz having back and forth reactive to play style and choices of how to handle engagements sounds genuinely interesting, though given the era of gaming it's from does feel to me like it might risk leading to some tacked-on oversimplified morality system being shoved in to the game.
I actually like the idea , Alcatraz could be more of the just cut loose and blow the ceph and cell away like in the second game, and prophet likes the slow approach more like solving a puzzle than a shooting gallery and it might have a kink or two but you could do it 😊
I mean, you'd have to be pretty dumb to turn it into a morality system (but we are talking about the guys who made Crisis 3, so . . .), given that it makes way more sense to frame it as a difference in playstyle preference (stealth vs direct combat). The much harder to satisfactorily solve part would be giving Alcatraz a voice when him being a silent protagonist was kinda central to his characterization on both a diagetic and meta-narrative level.
"Why does Prophet running around on a tropical island, i thought he was Alcatraz soup, hold together by good wishes and alien pixie dust?" "Nanomachines, son!"
@@ThePandoraGuy its Alcatraz body but he died at the end of crysis 2 and its prophets consciousness which was saved inside the suit and overwrote Alcatraz's body and mind which leads to Prophets comeback
My biggest issue was the absence of Alcatraz. He was the protagonist of an entire game and yes he called himself prophet at the end of 2 but still he is the most recent conscience in the suit. It should have definitely played some kind of role in the game instead of prophet alone.
It's another thing that's explained and explored in a book, frustratingly. C3 does have an intel item saying Alcatraz's "neural file" was damaged in that last interface with the spore mechanisms in C2, which isn't quite how the interquel book explains it.
basically, alcatraz is in permament coma, and the suit's ia asimilated prophet, basically, the only thing left from alcatraz, is just the nervious sistem
Alcatraz never spoke so that's just coping man. We shouldn't care about him, he was just a body for Prophet to take over again via the nanosuit, and you know he took over at the end of Crysis 2, so i prefer how it is now with us playing as Prophet, at least HE TALKS, like Nomad.
@vicentegonzalez2859 if you find every log in the game, you get a file stating that CELL has deployed their own nanosuit operative "Silverback" to hunt Nomad very recently
I played Crysis 3 way back when it came out. After watching your two recaps of 1 and 2, I went through the trilogy again and was surprised by how hard 3 resonated with me. In the time between my first play through and now I enlisted in the military, got royally fucked up during a deployment, came back and was eventually discharged with little fanfare. Psycho's story hit me really hard. Most days things are fine and I can manage every day life successfully. But there's always little pains, instabiltiies, and a general sense of not being right. I try not to dwell on it, but I absolutely know full well that I am not as strong, capable, or stable as I used to be. It's a hard pill to swallow when you have a drive to get the most out of life, but your body simply can't anymore. I figure that people with disabilities may well feel the same way. I guess I need to come to terms with the fact that I count myself amongst them now. So yeah, Crysis 3 hit pretty close to home in a way I wasn't expecting.
The end of the game really hit for me. I relate to the feeling of not being quite as 'human' as is expected, and when I saw Prophet's suit had adapted to give him back his (nearly) original appearance I cried a bit. To me, getting back his humanity was all he wanted in his final moments floating through space. His suit, post dopamine inhibitor deactivation and after absorbing more and more power, was able to give him some semblance of that. It also calls back to the earlier line from Psycho, when he asks Prophet if he even has a face under the suit. All in all, it tied up nicely enough for me. I may have been the exact target audience for this one.
I do like it as an ending for Prophet, I think his character journey is fun. I also think it's a pretty transparent send-off to the Crysis series: tacking on an emotionally gratifying ending scene where it doesn't necessarily make plot-sense, to leave the franchise on a high note.
i"m with You on this one, crysis 3 was to me much more enjoyable than the second game and Prophet being now able to sit down and relax AND if need be have full access to his nanosuit powers is a nice cherry on top.
It makes you think though: Prophet literally consumed Alcatraz to reform himself. That's a bit awkward isn't it, especially as Alcatraz never had a say in it.
Concerning how the laser satellite was able to destroy the ceph I think it was because it was in the middle of traversing the wormhole, I'm no physicist but it sounds logical to me that their energy absorption, shields and what not would not agree with a wormhole so either prophet was lucky and struck during the only window they were vulnerable( which fits as you taking too long and the ceph clearing the wormhole is a game over) or the laser destabilized the wormhole so the ceph got portal chopped
I kind of would assume the opposite given they were using a white hole initially and would need to be conducting energy to move through the wormhole. A lot of their tech being energy conducive makes exact sense if this is the kind of thing they do normally. Maybe archangel threw it out of wack but honestly it's energy being enough to disrupt a wormhole from a whole other galaxy is kind of weird. Planetary scale energy is kind of a blip at that point
Archangel isnt planetary scale energy though iirc? Isnt it not directly drawing from the same energy generated by the alpha ceph, the very thing powering the wormhole in the first place?
@@Spectre-907 It's less than that yes, planetary was noting the scale of destruction since it has enough energy to pierce a tectonic plate. It's a regulator and facilitator of energy from the grid sourced by the alpha. So CELL is basically using it as a battery usually and the expunging a bunch now.
I assumed shields were down and that the ceph did not expect to meet a species violent but restrained enough to create a weapon that use the whole energy production of the planet and not destroy themselves with it. Additionaly, Archangel was probably feeding on the beam itself, boosting its power
@@nathanarmaing5575 Yeah, I personally just figured *absolutely catastrophic* energy dump into an alien Science Hole(tm) causes "instabilities" for anything having to cross that exotic environment intact
They actually explain it n the intel you gather that the reason firing Archangel is so deadly is because Ceph energy mechanisms harmonise in a chain reaction, so firing pure concentrated energy (which is also stated to be their form of gestalt hive intelligence) increases the power exponentially. Hence why Archangel threatened to destroy the planet if they hit the Alpha Ceph.
Which is also why using the remaining 95% of Archangel's charge was probably the only thing on or around earth that had any chance of stopping the M33 Ceph.
Oh god, "pure energy." I know it's a crazy sci-fi game primarily about post-humanism, but I will never not be bothered by writing elements like this. Pure energy does not exist, energy must always exist in one form or another. Potential, thermal, kinetic, or--in what appears to be the case of Archangel's beam--light. It looks like a giant laser. I like the idea of a positive feedback loop, though. Archangel was drawing energy from the Alpha Ceph. The Ceph can clearly absorb energy in a variety of forms and distribute that energy. It reasons that they could very well likely distribute it from the encroaching mothership to the Ceph installations on Earth. Since its impossible to have a 100% conversion of energy from one state to another, It would be very cool if Archangel's beam basically cycled all of the mothership's own energy (plus maybe power from the white hole) through a giant wireless feedback loop onto one specific spot, superheating it like an ant under a magnifying glass, and melting a hole right through their super-science spacecraft using basically just the laws of thermodynamics.
@@rafalst But will it be as iconic as the trilogy? For me the story of the nano-suit and/or Prophet has been told and it has been told well. Trying to revive Crysis feels like a belated cash-grab to me, especially as Crytek and the Cry-Engine have pretty much faded out since Crysis 3. And you can already make the argument that Crysis 2 and 3 suffered from the concept of diminishing returns. So what could a part 4 bring?
they sacrificed gameplay for story, but even the story is odd as it feels like there's some in between that is missing. You then end up with an oil and vinegar situation where it ends up separating after a while. Your expose on the whole "debt slave" plot point within the first few minutes was spot on. It would have been more meaningful if the CELL operators didn't all behave like they did in crysis 2, being military jarheads for hire. Same voicelines and squad commands, etc. Would have been better if they all had differing reactions or varying levels of competence and morale. Edit#2: Love how you seamlessly brought together all the bits and bobs revealed through the Crysis 3 intel into a more approachable game than what was currently givin.
Yeah even Crysis 2 had some character to CELL compared to 3. Like on the FDR highway section where Strickland tells CELL to stand down and not fire on Prophet and one of them replies "Prophet? That piece of shit took out half of Cobalt section!" before ambushing you. It's a small touch but it was something.
@@kestrel1917 This then happens a second time with "Hazel Section" in the submerged parking garage segment. "Hazel section what the hell do you think you are doing?! Cease fire now!" "blow it out your ass, old man. This piece of shit took out half of Maroon section, Prophet dies, here and now!" This is also what makes the escape from the Prism where CELL is your ally for a very brief amount of time, and how they are willing to sacrifice themselves on the bridge segment in order for you to escape. That's remarkable professionlism.
@@kestrel1917 Although I like Crysis 3, it does feel a bit like Crytek was running on fumes. Crysis was an unexpected success because it had originality. Crysis 2 felt a bit like a "me too" game by a competing studio: it had many key elements from Crysis, but it felt like they didn't really know what to do with them. Crysis 3 at times felt like Crysis of old, at times like Crysis 2 and at times like somewhat sloppy leftovers from both Crysis and Crysis 2. Which is a bit of a shame, because what started out with a bang, slowly died with something approaching a whimper. The strange thing is that all three games are still replayable to me, because each one still has something that takes me in every time I start a new run.
@@tjroelsma the crysis legion book was awesome, but the crysis two game while a fun shooter, kind of lost something from crysis one. Game should have felt like crackdown/prototype/saint row, vanquished 4, where you are this superhuman being that can do some crazy things. Sprint should of been as fast as some vehicles, melee attacks should off done a lot of damage and more easy power jumper lets one leap building casually.
@@brendenhawley2225 Sure, but remember the first Crysis, although being very popular, didn't make Crytek much money, as it was one of the most pirated games at the time. I can't shake the feeling that that fact had a huge influence on the decision to switch to the Xbox 360. Arguably that Xbox 360 wasn't as powerful as the top-end PC's at the time, so I think it's safe to say that Crytek deliberately "dumbed down" Crysis 2 (much smaller and tighter maps) to make sure it would run well on the 360. It's also entirely possible that the 360's hardware simply couldn't deal with much higher sprinting speeds without having to either drop the framerate. They also had to drop some of the special modes, as the Xbox controller didn't have enough buttons for them.
Ooh khunlusa, be the voice that soothes the silence of the background while I'm drawing. Note aside, that crysis 2 ending and take over of prophet over the mangled body of a soldier that didn't want to be there in the first place made me shiver with existencial horror. Im glad the crysis 3 video came out like 3 days after I finished the last one, gause the horror it's still fresh
I like your suggestion on how to tackle the story, but here's what I would have done with some of the story elements you introduced. I feel like there's interesting ground to pull around the role of technology, agency, second chances, and transhumanism. Forgive me if this is just a long, rambling and pointless paragraph dump but it's less a story treatment and more of a pitch. Rather than Alcatraz remaining in the suit with Prophet, it's just Prophet at the start. Prophet constantly talks about the sacrifices he made, but Psycho calls Prophet out for using someone like spare parts, and Prophet doesn't see anything wrong with that (primarily because the nanosuit itself doesn't, and is influencing Prophet). Something akin to "Oh, you made sacrifices, didn't you? What about that poor jarhead you shoved into that suit, did he sacrifice himself so you could come back?" Prophet retorts something like "It's different", and Psycho gives a dismissive "Yeah, it's different, isn't it." Prophet reasons to others and himself that he has his mission to defeat the Ceph, and Alcatraz didn't, but each time he says it, it's less convincing. Eventually, Prophet realizes he can't fight this war alone, and they infiltrate a Red Star lab, with Prophet fighting against the suit's own directives (it creates objectives but Prophet overrides them). Prophet uses a suit cradle and interfaces with its deep layers to reconstruct and bring back what he can of Alcatraz in a dedicated level that takes place inside of the suit, culminating in a cutscene between Barnes and Alcatraz about how they're so far beyond human that maybe clinging to what's left isn't that bad of an idea, and that Barnes wants to give him a choice and a second chance. They choose a joint callsign of "Theseus", and Alcatraz is able to speak with his own voice for the first time. The Suit fights back during this, saying that "Personality Imprint Reconstruction is not mission critical" but Prophet retorts "screw the mission" or something. Their relationship starts off antagonistic and with friction, but during the campaign, there would be conversations between Prophet and Alcatraz-- Alky asks if Prophet knew the suit would take over Alcatraz's body, they discuss the people they lost in their squads, etc., and when Prophet admits he made mistakes because he "was only human", Alcatraz states that "We're both only human, even now". Rasch would also be influenced/controlled by the HiveMind in the background, often going onto these weird, long, unrelated tangents that seem just like the ramblings of a senile old man- stuff about butterflies and caterpillars, metamorphosis, ships sailing across an ocean, etc.. Eventually, these would be spelled out along with the rest of the Ceph colonization strategy, as the Ceph themselves don't make a distinction between technology and biology, beings of thought and energy with a malleable substrate... just like Prophet and Alcatraz. For the ceph, colonization doesn't necessarily mean conquest, and humanity isn't the first intelligent species they've encountered. As long as Ceph technology exists, the Ceph exist, and any species attempting to fight fire with fire just ends up being integrated into the Ceph. As one rambling monologue from Rasch in a lucid moment goes, "Life, death, biological, mechanical, human, inhuman-- we make them separate. They do not. They have never been separate, never distinct. They only are." Just like Barnes cast off his flesh and blood for a new substrate, the Ceph do so without reflection. The Ceph have existed for millions of years, encountered countless intelligent species, and it always ends the same way: The Ceph are not very imaginative, but they do not need to be: they just let the universe imagine things for them, and imitate and iterate upon that. For the Ceph, their colonization of Earth isn't an existential struggle: it's a science experiment, a research and development program. As long as some element of Ceph technology exists on Earth, the Ceph exist, and that includes the nanosuit. I'm not terribly sure about what the ending would be, but one idea is for Prophet to sacrifice himself to disrupt the Ceph HiveMind and force the Ceph into hibernation while humanity figures out how to remove them, leaving Alcatraz inside an unshackled nanosuit, but this might be too easy/happy for the cosmic horror set up in the past few paragraphs.
Small correction: Prophet at the start of C2 actually knew nothing about what would happen. He just knew the spore was eating him and he couldn't continue the mission. He believed he was giving Alcatraz the suit in order to take up the fight and that he would fully and permanently die when he shot himself to make the suit accept a new operator. He didn't realise just how well the nanogear would "remember him" or have any agency in it restoring him. There are two different explanations (the one in C3 and the one in the book of interquel stories) for why Prophet's the only operational consciousness in the suit by the time of C3, but neither of them involve Prophet deliberately taking over.
Sweet baby Jesus, that's a brilliant concept for the Ceph! An ultimate "Devil's Toys" metaphor. Except, instead of wielding the Devils sword, you just become the Devil. They're like a sort of reverse-Borg. Instead of finding interesting things to intentionally assimilate, they let the things they assimilate come up with interesting toys which they then get to integrate. Absolutely genius! It would also let you insert potentially exploitable holes in their defense, as they'd be kind-of a hodge-podge of technological ideas. Maybe no other species thought to try XYZ, which means that's still an avenue the humans can exploit. Or, perhaps another species they assimilated found a solution to defeat them ... but it was too late. So that species encoded a message into their tech, which the Ceph adopted, in the hopes a future species might decode the message in time, and save themselves.
@irregularassassin6380 Yeah, it was an "oh shit" moment caused from reading Crysis Legion and replaying Crysis 3, where Prophet says "We've improved your technology" to the Alpha Ceph like it's some sort of gotcha when in fact it's more just outsourcing R&D. I had written down my thoughts in a semi-cohesive ramble/reddit post on r/Crysis a while back, if you'd like to see my rationale for why I believe this to be the case for the Ceph (and why I don't think Prophet's victory in 3 was much of a victory in the end).
@@thomasjoychild4962 That's true, but, then again, how much would Pyscho know of that, and also, how much of the suit is Prophet and how much of Prophet is the suit? His consciousness wasn't transferred into the suit, it was copied- Lawrence Barnes is dead, and Prophet is an amalgamate entity. I'd lean heavily into this in my narrative, because while the original Crysis 3 narrative does ask how seperate the suit and Prophet are, I think leaning into it would be a very interesting trajectory to go down.
I love how the biggest features of Sykes's clothes are the huge jacket bandolier of ammo, showing how he's 'limited,' and the fern camo shoulders, showing how he's 'natural.' It's less than subtle, but it works.
Fun fact c3 was meant to get a dlc featuring nomad but it got canceled. Also silverback is Dominic Lockharts nephew who was in the nanosuit program. Its in game and the novel
About the debt slaves : I think a few more lines stating that "OK it's horrible to be enslaved against humanity, but they *are* coming after us *and* posing a direct threat to both our mission and humanity, therefore we do what we must" Maybe add to that an (optional) mission to destroy the enslaving system (say for arguments sake, a network of towers to control nanite injected laborers), with the consequence of not facing unwilling human slaves but purpose-breed human-alien hybrid designed to be a world-conquering force for the one or two last levels. Giving the player the ability to make the moral choice over the practical one, having the discussion etc. I also personally though we would get a true resolution between psycho and his girl, where his "humanity" / forgiveness /revangeance would be tested : he spends the game howling at the moon how he *will* kill his torturer, now he discovers who it is, and has to face the dilemma : go through with his promise to appease his trauma (if it can be) or move on and decide how (stay, travel the world whatever). Honestly I'd have liked for both to survive until the end or near the end, where they would talk, the girl tell him she understands and cannot forgive herself, showing she doesn't hide behind "orders" anymore (which she tried earlier), and thus showing her humanity in her choices and their consequences, and psycho would either regrettably kill her, hating himself for doing so, maybe even remarking to himself that he's as inhuman now as prophet (in his view, for his choices of choosing revenge and killing a loved one) *or* he could just walk away, surpassing his hatred, telling her she's important, and should carry this with her to build a better future (his redemption arc, but my least favorite). Overall the "you're dying so I forgive you" is bullshit imo.
I seriously just watched your first two Crysis vids this week, hoping one day you'd make a video for Crysis 3. I can't believe my lucky timing! also I agree with your lede, something about this game just felt... lacking. I love the concept of a story revolving around a character coming to terms with what I am going to call the POSThuman condition, unfortunately in order for it to work in Crysis 3 it needed to be told better
I think I figured out part of why this game didn’t illicit as strong of an emotional reaction as crysis 2: you are always alone and separate from the larger resistance movement. Psycho is the only friendly resistance member you only spend any time in the field with. In 2 you had the marines to keep you grounded. You had Chino, Bradly, and later Strickland to remind you that Alcatraz was one of them. It helped you remember that there was still a man in there, even if the suit is all that’s holding him together. Now, you are almost entirely separated from any allies. I commented on the last video that the portrayal of the marines was one of my favorite things in that game, and now I think I understand why. Because the Venn diagram between the marines bravado and the whole vibe of the “indomitable human spirit” that I got from 2 is almost a fucking circle
There is a spanish youtuber who has a side channel about analyzing movies. One thing he always brings up, and imo he is right, ´If you use any media outside the movie itself to explain the main plot line,then you are doing a bad work. Nobody should be forced to go to outside media to understand whats going on´. And here is the same case.
Absolutely. The corollary to that is "Only what's in the work gets to count." You can complain that the explanation was in scenes cut in editing, or were subject to some publisher mandate all you want, but the problem is still there. (I'll just be a little more sympathetic to your frustration about it.)
When I saw the announcement for this game, I was beyond excited. Even the multiplayer looked cool with the whole Nanosuit Hunters against CELL. The downside to the game is how the game doesn't really feel like it belongs in the Crysis series. It feels like a lot of people wanted it to be a lot of things, and we basically got a Crysis Melting Pot. The 23 year jump felt like a 'We had no idea what to do with the story' and it sort of shows, with the dramatic scenes somewhat numbed with Prophet's 'must complete objective' response to everything. Every time he speaks, it feels like it's just so someone can turn round and go 'You're not human, stop talking' until that point is sometimes beaten, metaphorically, into Prophet's head and we eventually get the 'I AM human' moment in space. Also, the fact that Alcatraz isn't even mentioned by name, merely referenced with the 'Who's face are you wearing now?' shows that everyone seems to be fine with Laurence Barnes: Bodysnatcher. I like the bow, I like the ideas but it feels like a different game after the gem that was Crysis 2 and it's a touch bit saddening to see how this is the series' finale.
Crysis 3 has it's flaws but the gameplay is some of the best in the entire series. The dynamic between psycho and prophet is incredible. The game has a stellar multiplayer mode. It looks absolutely goergeous even by today's standards. And in some ways it's a love letter to Crysis fans with it's gameplay being a hybrid of the other 2 games. It also had a nice ending along with one of the absolute best soundtracks in gaming history. As much as people make this game out to be bad, if you really try and appreciate what is offered here you'll find that this game had a lot of passion put into it. Does this excuse all the issues? No, not really. Though my guess for why the game feels kind of rushed and why it's so short is that I think EA just wanted the game to come out as soon as possible.
@@patrickbateman312 Listen. Video game music is really good. And whenever I hear a game with a good ost (especially one of my favourite games) I say it's one of the best. It would rank in the top 20 on my personal list. And I'm not high, it's genuiently really good. And to me personally very nostalgic. At the very least it's the best ost from the trilogy
@@RonaldAsks no, video game music CAN be good. And this is just not the case here. It's extremely mid. Just because you like it for some inexplicable reason doesn't make it great or memorable to anyone else.
Eatin' GOOD every time a Khanlusa video drops. Been really excited for this video to escape containment and latch onto my psyche like a cybernetic suit softly whispering "I can fix him."
Loved your plot rewrite. I go even further and include that you kill the ceoh queen midway through the game however a reoccuring ceph enemy that you already fought multiple times eventually grows into the next queen. Maybe even include a double battle with that CELL guy.
I think the difference between a nuclear stroke being absorbed and arch angel working is that the nuclear blast was 1) mostly blast force, ie, kinetic energy and 2) the energy syphon was at full power already, making it similar to slam loading a Jerry can into the gas tank. Meanwhile with archangel, it was 1) a long period beam of continuous thermal and kinetic energy, making it easier to rip through the outer casing of the ship before it reached any syphoning machinery, and 2) (and I just thought of this now,) it was shown that the Ceph have a better time absorbing short burst of energy in the first game by the ceph scout ship being activated by lightning.
The plothole with the ship being destroyed is a good point. Only way it makes sense to me for the laser to overload its energy absorption, is if it was already near or at maximum "capacity" from the energy being constantly emitted from the wormhole.
This game being a huge part of my childhood, and it being the first ever game trailer I saw, I absolutely love this game. I used to visit my grandma's place just to play this game with like six more friends because that was one of three houses that had a computer at that time. And we played our country's version of "you're it" and many more games, while saying ''cloak engaged' and 'speed engaged' and stuff like that. We didn't even know what 'cloak' meant, but it was the coolest thing. While I agree with everything you say, I'm sharing this to say how memories and experiences can change the way you look, remember and even love something. That's just amazing to think about. But not as good as your videos!! This is literally one of my favorite channels
Ah Crysis 3, the red-headed stepchild of the trilogy. I'll always remember how utterly confused the intro of this game got me, with the concept of the "Ceph Alpha" being introduced out of the blue, Cell still being the bad guys for a good chunk of the game after what happened in 2, the sometimes atrocious dialogue that made you wonder if even this was the same people that made the previous games, etc. If Prophet wasn't such an interesting character to follow, I would've refunded the damn game at the time, but thankfully, he is, and the gameplay itself is still Crysis, so it was still a fun experience outside of the cutscenes. The ending was good tho.
A lot of story was weird and strange. But the personal stuff here, that I thought was amazing. Just fantastic. And that segment in space against the Ceph ship? Design eise, it was horrifically cool.
One thing I think a lot of people might’ve missed is that at the beginning of them game there’s an area with CELL soldiers in HAZMAT suits. In the in-game lore files there’s a blurb about how those guys are on a punishment detail for disobedience. I remember reading that after killing them all and thinking “wtf how was that not addressed?” You’d think that those guys more than anyone else would be the first to drop their guns and be like “yup fuck this”.
Really glad I came across this channel and binged all 3 videos. Great work. I forgot so much of the stuff from C2 and C3 story wise. They tried with the story but your rewrite was so much better. Loved C1 and Crysis Wars as a kid shame they never remastered the MP.
Another banger of a video. I've only played Crysis 2 way back in the PS3 and found your channel through your video on it. Now I can rewatch the entire trilogy back to back bc tism YAY! Love your content!!
If I recall correctly having played all 3 games multiple times, there are multiple mentions in the 3rd game about the differences between the colonising Ceph and the home world ones. Which could explain why the colonising forces can absorb energy so it can help them adapt and well do their job of colonisation, and the honeworld forces are teared apart by the archangels blast. Could be a stretch tho. Lmk what you think.
Funfact : On my latest playthrough I noticed that the corpse of the suit user in the skinning lab is an asset from Crysis 1, the body of Aztech, the first of the crew to die, tangled in his parachute 🤔🤔🤔
God I love it when video game franchises explain plot details on why certain things change or happen in the sequel. JUST LIKE HALO SEEMS TO BE DOING.... HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. I love the Tangent's voice "Weeeee". You NEED more Subs.
I just recently played through the crysis series over a week and spent half of crysis 3 confused about what happened to alcatraz because I didn't know there was a book and then I found an ingame note that mentioned that alcatraz' personality was in storage and I just sat there like, tf???
Glad to catch the final part of your coverage of Crysis! I recently completed a full playthrough of the remastered releases of the games with my friends who were wholly unfamiliar with the story and plot of the Crysis games, and it gave me some interesting perspective on folks who had a fresh set of eyes to the games story and plot. To summarize their opinions, they loved the games, but got caught up on a few of the issues regarding the plot that you did with your videos, one such issue being the topic of debt-slavery and...how it was handled during the events of the third game. It felt very confused in what it wanted the player to feel regarding this knowledge, like a part of the story itself was either cut or perhaps it being a leftover from another draft of the plot with CELL's dominance of the world. All in all, the third game felt...under-baked in a way. Like with what you said about it trying to cater to fans of the first half of Crysis 1 and those who liked the the changes that came with Crysis 2, it felt like they were trying to juggle the plot and the parts of gameplay/mechanics they were trying to figure out were more popular with their fanbase. As a result, they likely lost a lot of potential by going through different drafts and potential directions for the story to go into while trying to figure out a gameplay balance. I feel as though if they were either given more time or perhaps spent less time trying to appease an already fractured fanbase they could have made the story and overall plot wrap up in a MUCH cleaner manner. After all, if the fanbase was fractured, why bother trying to appease two sides that aren't going to be happy with a compromise and why not go for YOUR vision of what is best for the third installment. I still greatly enjoyed the games, as they were a wonderful blast from the past, as I watched my dad play Crysis 2 on the 360 and helped him shoot CELL soldiers by calling out targets as a neurotic 11 year old and suggest stealth paths and the like. Very happy memories to hold onto, even if the Ceph freaked me out whenever I saw them. Now as for a game suggestion, I actually have two suggestions for you with this comment. Depending on which is more to your tastes as one of them is...emotionally heavy. (At least with my experience). I wanted to suggest Signalis, a wonderfully fucked survival-horror game that i will always remember for as long as I live. However, if it is more of a nostalgic game you are after, I would suggest Star Wars Battlefront 2 (Classic)! Once again, thank you for the effort that goes into your videos, its always nice to sit down for 40ish minutes and hear about your experience with some of the games that were in my childhood, even better that you bring a critical view upon them to see how they could have been improved and how much they are affected by rose-tinted glasses. Sorry for the absolute wall of text comment, and I hope your day has been going well!
Love how you added the star bound sound track, and heck I loved the story you came up with that would of been interesting to play, don’t get me wrong I loved Crysis 1 2 and 3 but that would of explained the huge gaps between 2 and 3.
Really love this game. Replayed it several times now. Love the gameplay & story, as well as the music. The drama in this game was a real treat to experience as well because the voice acting was suberb. One thing I don't think you properly expounded on is that the "Prophet" in this game isn't really Prophet. It's the Nanosuit masquerading as Prophet. It's been used by Prophet the longest so his personality is the one its most familiar with, to the point that it literally copied it and pasted it over Alcatraz's dying brain. Psycho knows this and decides he's close enough to the original that he might as well just roll with it, even defends him when Claire tries to insinuate otherwise. The one time Psycho calls him out on it is when his frustration is at its peak. "Who's face are you wearing under that helmet these days Prophet? Do you even have a face anymore?" Absolutely chilling.
This is my favorite game in the series and I occasionally do a playthrough of the game from time to time. I missed the details of the story that are bad but it just makes me want to play it again before my new semester of school starts (a playthrough on regular difficulty, my last one was on supersoldier for the achievement and it was agonizing at times).
I am normally precisely zero percent interested in games like Crysis (and co), but watching your videos on them is infinitely entertaining to me! I love your style of talking about games!
Hey Khanlusa i found your channel a week back and have since binged most of your videos. They're great! Would you please do the dead space series? I would love to hear you explain those.
One of the biggest problems with this game's story was the same problem that Dead Space 3 had: EA just pointed to Mass Effect and said "Do this." The result was two ends of beloved trilogies with lead characters who have to fight off city sized tentacle monster/robot things (which had never been even hinted at before) while being ignored by those around them when they said that those things were going to come and wipe out humanity.
back. everything u said makes sense. i just blindly loved this game with all the cool sci fi and action and everything. and now the nostalgia. but wow does the soundtrack still slap. i remember just sitting there listening to the soundtrack on my ps3 from the extras. but considering that u used the infamous 2 sountracks in this video, got say, that should be the next one. and if not the series, at the very least 2. i absolutely loved infamous 2. hands down my favorite sp game that i still hope will come to pc someday. speculations on second son which would be cool too as i didnt play it from not wanting to jump onto ps4. from videos i saw of it recently it looks cool. but infamous 2 on pc and i can die happy
the whole part with: "shooting archangel at the ceph could make them stronger" part is actually Stage 1 within the first game in 3, shooting at the Alpha would pretty much detonate a good portion of the world due to the whole energy instability that would happen, the Alpha *in theory* is using the harvested energy from Crysis 1 in order to let itself do what it does it kept the beam up for the wormhole to work, but if CELL were to fire upon the Alpha it would've pretty much killed everyone and closed the portal before the real force came in although i do admit that Prophet shooting a bow into the Alphas head was pretty cool, especially the line: "This ones for Raptor Team you son of a bitch!" as for Archangel blowing up the main force, it could be the same energy instability caused by Archangel which probably acts the same as a lighter near a gas-leak but i personally dont understand how did the portal close if it was one ship being blown to bits? i just assume the amount of released energy from the explosion was so high that it caused the wormhole to close and for the Ceph to lose contact with their Earth branch entirely i just hope Crysis 4 has more focus in terms of story and the same fun gameplay of 3
You're correct, there's an intel item from a researcher that says Ceph mind-energy seems to do a kind of resonance-amplification thing with itself when you turn one source against another, leading to an exponentially greater destructive event than you'd expect from just looking at the energy inputs. It's why Red Star Rising was planet-threatening and it's why Archangel's remaining 95% charge was capable of doing what it did to the M33 entity.
The last time i played the game was when i was in my early teens and now as an adult and fully knowing what actually went down in Crysis 2 and Post-Crysis 2, God Damn the cutscenes between Barnes and Psycho gave me literal goosebumps I also feel like while how You would have done it is generally decent enough i guess, that idea of Alcatraz and Barnes having to share 1 body and suit and a dynamic between the 2 as you said (or something near to what you said) would have been Fucking Amazing, Especially if it was written as good as the dynamic between Barnes and Psycho Lastly, idk why people complain about it but i actually like how the Alpha Ceph has 3 drills on its head
I actually played Crysis 3 before the other two and seeing how those ones played out, it makes sense why this 3rd game wasn’t received well by previous fans. I think aesthetically and gameplay wise the game is fun as hell and I still play it to this day. My gripe is with the story and the inclusion of a kill all enemies boss in the form of the Alpha Ceph which is easily my least favorite part of any game series. I think the inclusion of something like this should make the enemies seem more powerful and not weaker which is the opposite effect anytime this trope is added. They could have just set the game in another part of the world and have the 4 armed Ceph boss we fight be some kind of commander that is opening the worm hole with the Alpha Ceph actually functioning as the equivalent of a Ceph dog/battery that barks whenever it wants its owner’s attention. That owner being the Ceph mega colony in the M33 Galaxy. The 4 armed one would be like the ones in the first game where it is this basil version of the species that is both a child and a caveman stranded on an island fighting a singular Monkey living on said island
Nice touch with the afterlife club music from ME 👌. You gonna do a video on the ME games? I've always wanted someone's take on them since they're by far my number 1 pick for story telling and gameplay. One thing I give to the games is their soundtrack. I'm always a sucker for game/movie music.
All the Ceph dying once the Alpha Ceph was destroyed actually makes a lot of sense, as all three games mention that the Ceph have a HIVE MIND, meaning that the Ceph grunts are being controlled by the Alpha Ceph and have no mind of their own. Destroying the Alpha therefore means destroying the grunts. As to Crysis 3 not standing a chance: I thought it was a decent ending to the franchise. It did its best to repair some of the things many players didn't like about Crysis 2 and did a valiant effort to return to the more open world setting of Crysis, in which they partially succeeded. Yes, at times Crysis 3 feels a bit cobbled together, like it was made out of leftovers from Crysis and Crysis 2, augmented with some new parts, but in my opinion it could have been far worse. In the end it IS hard to keep up a decent storyline, especially as the first game never seemed to be meant to be the first of a franchise and was set up as a stand-alone game. Crysis 2 felt restricted due to the switch from a PC game to a Console game and once again kind of closed the story at the end. Crysis 3 kind of found the middle ground between the two and if you ignore the endings of Crysis and Crysis 2, it kind of works.
I'll never understand the hate for this game. Obviously, I'm biased as it is one of my favorite games of all time, and I'm a trash console player. It's just so fun to just run around mad aggro and destroy demons in quick and fun ways.
Get vid! Recently played through the whole series again and Crysis 3 definitely felt the weakest. My biggest issue are the remarks made about Prophets lack of humanity and Clair's freakout at 8:14 where she asks "Is it even human?". Considering the game starts with the Nano suit in space, whilst it is war-torn and damaged, it still looks EXACTLY like it did in the first game... like sure it's unique, but the Marines in the first game and Warhead where clearly used to seeing the suit. It makes me think that, like in the video game Prey, the player would be able to upgrade the Nanosuit using the Nano Catalyst we find on Ceph troops in Crysis 2 but must choose between Human researched upgrades and Ceph based upgrades. Where repeated Ceph upgrades would distort the humanity of Prophet and the Suit, making all human forces hostile towards the player and disallowing them to access human systems but would improve their combat skill and allow them to interface with Ceph technology. And Vise-Versa with Human researched upgrades, where human forces would help the player and unlock access to human super weapons like the Tac-Cannon. It just feels like they had to cut is kind of upgrade tree, where the players choices could sway how 'Inhuman' Prophet would become. But I guess you'd loose the whole 'We won because we were human' angle.
"She was forced to do it because of the debt" exclaims Prophet about Claire, after having just mowed down hundreds of debt slaves without a second thought, before proceeding to mow down even more
The algorithm forced me to watch the first video of crysis. I was a fan after 3 min. The voice and humor is just perfect. Also watched the halo series because it's my favorite game. Keep up your absolut great work. Greetings from Germany :)
i replayed this on eddies for the first time and found myself genuinely disturbed by the idea of unleashing horror while wasting the cell slaves in the process. never quite clicked for me until now.
I know the whole reason Laurence threw the dogtags into the ocean was a symbolic gesture of not holding on to our past and mistakes, but something about it just doesn’t sit right with me. I felt like he should keep them because the idea of his friends, teammates, and overall humanity is what drove him to defeat the ceph. Yes, he has finally realized he is still human, regardless of all his… upgrades. But then, yes, he is still human. That means emotions and connections. Also then, why keep the photo of your old friends if you’re going to throw the other’s dogtags into the sea? But this is probably me just being an absolute nitpicker
My biggest gripe with the game is how the hell did prophet get his face back??? He was piloting a dead mans corpse, but when the game ends hes him again. We watched his body die at the start of 2... Also at the end why does he keep his abilities despite not being suited anymore
One thing I really love About Crysis 2,which they really botched in 3 is that the finale isn't just supersoldier fights a super boss of the enemy. Instead humanity previls by deploying a system that successfully subverts alien weapon of mass destruction and point it against them, system that is sole reason of existance of Hargreave-Rasch Biomedical, that is culmination of 100 years of preparations, that's was made by entire divisions of scientists and engineers, that was made for this specific purpose. I mean it's like a struggle of entirity of humanity vs Cephs but pretty damn close to it, I would say. Also I would go as far to say that Nanosuit is an actual main character of the second Crysis and Alcatraz is just a side character.
Still, it makes me wonder if Hargreave would have gone along with the system deployment to completion. His body was in even worse state than Alcatraz's.
The warship thing makes sense if you believe that the colossal task of wormhole travel strains the ships systems to a point, that their typical energy absorption abilities don't work for the time they are in travel. If you look into theoretical idea of wormhole travel i don't get how there is any level of logical consistency that during something as energy intensive and difficult as wormhole travel would allow for an extra external force, such as the energy absorption and shielding, to function during that process due to potential instability during the travel that could lead to all manner of potential danger. This is the only thing in the video that I have a comment for. Thank you for the thought provoking and entertaining video, I rather enjoyed it.
Your idea for a Crysis three sounds like a nice ending. I have only played Crysis and none of the sequels. I fully expected Crysis 2 to be the story of Psycho, Nomad, Prophet, and Helena linking up and establishing contact with the US military and giving a more realistic sitrep. Then North Korea and the rest of the "east" would unite with the "west" to fight the Ceph. Essentially, the Ceph outclass humanity in weapons, but they are only a generation ship established on Earth and are greatly outclassed in numbers and resources. American and Korea nano suit teams work together to infiltrate the Ceph ship and destroy it. Finally having a common goal unites humanity and crytek mixed with alien tek jumpstarts human colonization of our galaxy with the ominous backdrop of knowing we have x thousand years before more Ceph can show up (the instant wormhole thing was dumb). Now you have a whole Crysis extended universe to play with for future games and media.
I guess ultimately it annoys me when media portrays humans as completely stupid to contrive conflict and then centers petty human problems over real problems. Games will be like, "God himself has come to deliver the rapture and everyone is going to hell, but did I mention THE STOCK MARKET CRASHED AGGHHH oh and HITLER'S GRANDSON IS A BIG TECH CEO OH NOOOO"
It's kind of strange to me that everyone in the story freaks out and questions how human Prophet is when they first see him. Visually, he doesn't look very Ceph at all. Maybe they should've added tentacles coming out of his back or more jagged metal plating to make everyone's concerns about how human he is seem more justified
While I do not agree with you all the time, you make some great quality videos! Just one tip, your own voice volume is a bit low conpared to in game audio. I tend to lower volume when you switch to in game dialogue only to raise it again after you resume talking. Just wanted to let you know ^^
Hey Khanlusa, just found your channel recently and I'm loving the content, if I could make a recommendation for a video, you should check out this new game called El Paso Elsewhere, its basically max Payne with vampires. I wont go into detail about the story but I feel like it would be up your alley
