Firmament: The Latest, Awkward Successor To Myst

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I'm a pretty big Myst fan, which a handful of you might be aware of! I've been waiting for Firmament almost as long as I've been a fan, so I was pretty excited. This game has ended up kind of divisive, and I get it! I ended up positive on it overall, but I get where the criticism is coming from and I have plenty of my own. I wish I had more to say!
I gave myself a challenge for this video, one to make my analysis of this game be truly unique. I wanted to have the only Firmament video scored exclusively by music from a Yaoi BL game.
Review code provided by Cyan Worlds.
Support us on Patreon: / drcullenphd
Follow me on Twitter: / drcullenphd
Script Editor: / supremezerker
Special Thanks: @VZed
Music from: Hashihime of the Old Book Town
All this is for algorithm stuff so dw abt it heart you.
Firmament feels…off, though, in ways hard to describe. Most of their uniqueness is still here; it’s undoubtedly another game in this atmospheric, what-the-hell-am-I-doing genre, but Cyan seems to have tried to modernize their approach? I guess I see why they did this, and I don’t think doing it was necessarily a bad thing-and to make it immediately clear for those who want me to get to the point, I don’t think Firmament’s a bad game. I do think that it is on the weaker side of the vast Cyan catalog, though. Maybe it didn’t help that I started playing it hot off the high of Riven, the best point-and-click game I’ve ever played, but my playthrough was spread out long enough for me to get my expectations in check so I don’t think that mattered overall. Firmament was not a game I was able to form a connection with after all was said and done, but one I can appreciate all the same.

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Опубликовано:

4 авг 2023

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Комментарии : 53

@BLAZINGwaffle56 11 месяцев назад

Glad i found your channel, its nice to find and follow small creators with huge swathes of potential for the future after seeing my feed be buried with super popular creators for months on end. Gotta root for the up and coming and keep it fresh 😊

@VZed 11 месяцев назад

Frankly I don't know how I'd live without the Klaxon and the Mid-Atlantic bossy man. I set up that alarm to play every 16 minutes in my apartment, just to make sure I don't forget that we ARE... keepers.

@TheMovingEye 5 месяцев назад

I found that Firmament was lacking the environmental storytelling which makes it feel lifeless. In Obduction you had so many little places with story like the re-purposed graveyard in the starting area that made your head scratch at first until you understood. Firmament just had puzzle locations.

@randylplampin1326 3 месяца назад

8:50 You did know that the picture on the wall is a famous painting of Napoleon in the Louvre in Paris, right? Except that it has the face of Sirus and not Napoleon. Ah yes. Harking back to the good 'ol days of Art Appreciation classes in high school. Nice!

@FerdinandZebua 4 месяца назад

I got here from the recent launch teaser for the Riven remake, which was just announced a few hours ago by Cyan Worlds...

@culIen 4 месяца назад

I saw that too, I'm soooo stoked for it. Everything they've shown has looked amazing so far.

@GabiGhita 2 месяца назад

Thanks for this and just wanted to say, I don't know if the URU president thing was a joke, but URU is my favorite of the Myst games: it doesn't have a story, it has a history, and I think that's amazing. Kadish Tolesa and Ahnonay are my favorite ages in all of Myst.

@culIen 2 месяца назад

I have a pretty jokey tone in most of my vids, but I legit love URU. It has such a unique vibe to it that I'm just utterly captivated by how mysterious the whole game is

@GabiGhita 2 месяца назад

@@culIen I was kind of 50/50 on it because I know there's still an open version of Myst Online you can login to and find some unreleased areas of D'ni city and a couple of ages, and there's still some folks there playing.

@TheCuriosity8 9 дней назад

I really loved URU, of the cyan games it was my favorite to just hang out in and revisit. As I mastered the worlds and got stuff working I really felt like I belonged and could call my little Relto home. I still boot up the online version about once a year just to take a tour.

@thomasgraf1986 Месяц назад

OMG, The Simpsons "say the line!" bit. 😂 I had similar thoughts. Not the best, but not bad. May never play through it again because of that underwater heater/pipe level.

@valuemastery 2 месяца назад

I am currently playing this game in VR with a high end PC and Meta Quest Pro VR headset. While I agree that it lacks the storytelling and depth of older Cyan titles (especially Riven, which was my all-time favorite game) and it is a bit disappointing that there is only one way to interact with the world, the sense of vastness of the world around you is staggering. Just ended the first world, and it has left me in awe more than a few times. Love it.

@culIen 2 месяца назад

This is a fair assessment I wasn't able to take into consideration. It seems like they're pushing VR hard, and that's something I'm just unable to really experience since I lack the hardware. It seems like that would go a real long way! Glad you're enjoying it and hope you continue to do so ^-^

@athalean 2 месяца назад

The thing that really stuck out odd for me in Firmament was that outside of the Swan there are no journals! The game gives you so much time to be alone with your thoughts but then also never gives you anything to think about. Compare to how the brothers' rooms in Myst just live rent-free in your head until the rest of the game and it's suddenly shocking how empty the world of Firmament feels because you never learn anything about the people who worked there until the very end. Still loved the game, especially in VR. I'm happy there's at least one video about Firmament on RU-vid, I normally do a post-spoiler immunity dive for games I like and I guess this is all there is this time, oops :D

@tonyallen4265 4 месяца назад

I swear Jonathan Blow convinced Cyan to have only one way to interact with the environment. This is NOT the Cyan way and I resent the result highly.

@smaller_cathedrals Месяц назад

I highly resent Jonathan Blow.

@MaltMilkshake 5 месяцев назад

"Weird" is exactly how I described the game to myself after finishing it the first time. Not bad, just... weird.

@agauerm 2 месяца назад

I love FP puzzlers, walking sims and wanted to love this game so much, but the puzzles are so tedious and boring that even I could not bring myself to try and finish it. Only thing it has going for it are the stunning graphics.

@myfavoritemartian1 2 месяца назад

I am glad I bought and completed it before I heard your opinion. BTW: Did you even complete it? Ascend up to the space station and launch the Starship? (The reason for ALL of the factories below)

@culIen 2 месяца назад

Yes I completed the game, I just didn't care for it as much as you did and that's fine.

@useless4692 11 месяцев назад

Yeah, i agree with a lot of your thoughts and i’d like to add a few more This game was always marketed as a made for vr game, explaining the more third dimension thinking required Yet despite this, you’re never really left alone, which breaks immersion especially for vr games It also wants to be a pc game because of the niche vr community So it had to find a way to make the controls work for pc players because you can’t just turn your controller like you can with motion controls, thus why the controls are jank Again, it doesn’t know what it wants to be

@culIen 11 месяцев назад

It's weird, because I was about half way through my playthrough when I was reminded of all these VR focused promises. It was weird to me, because *nothing* about it feels like it was designed to work for VR. I'm sure they wanted to do that at some point, but like you said making it that niche is just asking for low sales. It also shares UI elements for the Myst remake, and I imagine that developed alongside it both helped and hurt it. I wish I could have played it in VR to see, because as it stands even the socket controls just seem ideal for mouse look. But, because of that, we can really only judge by what we have. And that's just a PC adventure game, with a lot of awkwardness. I'm glad there's someone out there making cool VR experiences, but the market just isn't stable enough to make games like this.

@markthintie5132 4 месяца назад

I Kickstarted this game and i Love it. I have not completed it yet and that is a Good thing, i do not want it to end. Sadly i have not received my Physical Box Edition ( i think it was stolen by the courier ) and have been waiting since 21st Feb 2024 to this day.

@Wrincewind. 29 дней назад

have you reached out to Cyan about it? They're really helpful folks - they replaced my faulty Voltaic CD from my copy of Exile way back when, didn't even charge me shipping. (Internationally, no less!)

@SilverandCigars 2 месяца назад

How does one join the Uru fan club?

@culIen 2 месяца назад

You must go to the deserts of Nevada and find our signia. Then you need to solve puzzles the uncover our secret base.

@alankott3129 4 дня назад

@@culIen Do I have to do the Naruto run past Area 51?

@culIen 3 дня назад

@@alankott3129 back and forth 3 times yes

@scokely 2 месяца назад

Just finished Firmament, and I'm going to disagree with you-- this was the must frustrating experience I've had with a Cyan game. I liked the Adjunct, I thought it was creative. And I LOVED the Camelus, and wished I could have used it more than just for the one puzzle. But I found myself having to rely on walkthrough hints a LOT more than in previous Cyan games. I found the puzzles very difficult, and not really in Cyan's "style". As for the ending ... I'm not going to spoil it here, but it's incredibly disappointing and not very well thought out. The multiple endings of Obduction and Riven are far superior to this. Thanks for the review, I'm hoping for better things from Cyan in the future.

@culIen 2 месяца назад

Fair! I also had to rely on hints and a friend to help, and I think my reasoning for not vibing with it as much as others differs even if we share the same general consensus. I've never felt the "Oh, was that really it?" Feeling with one of their games before and it's quite unfortunate. I hope this isn't a sign of what's to come for them, and even if I can respect so much of this I kind of worry about them.

@Wrincewind. 29 дней назад

@@culIen I had a similar feeling when I got to the end... and when I noticed that some of the portraits on the wall in the final zone had AI jank (messed up ears, that kind of thing), i went 'oh. oh no. please no...'

@viniciusgutheil 11 месяцев назад

Good video!

@culIen 11 месяцев назад

Thank you!

@hassledvania 11 месяцев назад

Good video bb

@purefoldnz3070 Месяц назад

did you play Obduction?

@culIen Месяц назад

I didn't finish it, but it seems super neat

@purefoldnz3070 Месяц назад

@@culIen going to play the remake of Riven when it drops?

@culIen Месяц назад

@purefoldnz3070 yep! Maybe not for a vid, but defo playing it day one

@trapez77 3 месяца назад

You didn’t realize that there is a reset puzzle option in the settings you can’t get softlocked

@culIen 2 месяца назад

I didn't, and tbh I'm not sure if that thing was available when I played before launch, but my criticism is more that it happened at all. I tried a couple things to get that block unlodged with resets and coming back to the area and the only thing I was able to do was to reload a save. I don't *actually* care about bugs that much, but it's stuff I know others do care about so it felt like something worth mentioning in the video.

@SakuragiRed 11 месяцев назад

Damn u did it 😂

@culIen 11 месяцев назад

Look when SakuragiRed asks something of you, you do it 🫡

@pilotdawn1661 10 дней назад

With all the effort to make the world environments so believable, why do the NPC characters encountered look so toy like/fake?

@culIen 7 дней назад

Honestly, I assume it's budget reasons. Cyan's artists are great at environments and relatively still objects but people are complicated and it's clear that they're more indie than AAA in the modern era. It doesn't get that much better with the Riven Remake, but I guess I'm glad they're still trying even if I'd prefer the FMVs.

@kattastic9999 4 месяца назад

.... What's your KI id

@CmdrShepardsPie 6 месяцев назад

It kinda makes me think of BioShock, especially BioShock Infinite

@martin7936 5 месяцев назад

After a few seconds looking I can see it is not great game there is no hype for me and still no news for PS5. However I will buy it to help Cyan making a new future better game.

@CitroenC407 2 месяца назад

I will say that I really enjoyed Firmament for what it was but it's probably the weakest Cyan game for me. The puzzles were interesting with the Adjunct but I felt they were largely too easy, more trial and error logic puzzles than the environmental puzzles we've seen in the likes of Myst, Riven and Obduction. Also I found the game to be a little easy overall. I had a few moments where I had to use my brain to get past a certain part but overall I never truly got badly stuck to the point where I needed assistance. Also there was a distinct lack of interesting lore and diaries to read, a hallmark of all the other Cyan games where every note, every book, every scrap of paper would reveal something new and interesting about the world. That was not really a big part of Firmament unfortunately and it was worse for it. Still a very fine adventure game overall but a flawed experience.

@johnberkley6942 3 месяца назад

It feels to me like Firmament is the product of exhaustion. Obduction was a brave attempt to recapture the storytelling charisma that was Riven. Firmament is puzzle after puzzle with a bit of a lame story. Particularly if you compare it to a game like Soma, which covers a similar territory in a way. Storywise Soma is a far superior game. It leaves you with quite a few thoughts at the end, but Firmament's ending is a bit meh by comparison. Beautiful, yes, Cyan games are always beautiful. Obduction was so much superior in the story, I'd have been quite happy for them to have made a branching sequel involving time travel perhaps. But I daresay they were over it and couldn't face trying to wring more life out of it. I'm scared to wonder how Riven is going to fare all tricked out in its 3D glad rags later in the year.

@culIen 2 месяца назад

I feel like Firmament started with ambition and large ideas, but by the end I can't help but agree with you completely. Just getting it out was likely the focus, and it's unfortunate how constrained the whole thing feels. I'm a bit hopeful for Riven since it's one of my favorite puzzle games, and it does look promising, but yeah there is some lingering worry. Really need them to knock it out of the park and feel rejuvenated.

@juann268 5 месяцев назад

Firmament feels "off" because 60% of its content is "AI-assisted". AI tools make it very easy to churn out content without the deep artistic involvement of its creator. Firmament's personality is barren because very little human character rubbed off on it. It's the same kind of feel you'd get from a chair that was imagined and built by hand by a person using power tools versus a chair that was designed by a generative algorithm, checked once by human eyeballs to make sure it was fit to be used for sitting, and then built, assembled, packaged and shipped by a robotic assembly line. Yeah, you can sit on it, but you can tell nobody really thought about how it would feel to sit on it.