Exit DS

There are parts of this game that I like, and it would be great if I could have more of them. But there are just too many problems that make Exit DS a huge pain in my ass.

The pathfinding is retarded - some situations work fine, others don't. If I tell Mr. Esc to drop from a certain height to the floor on the next square, he'll do it. But if I tell him to go to the square next to that, which is on the same level, he can't figure it out. Or if he's on the square next to the edge of the height, he won't be able to figure that out, either. As I've mentioned repeatedly, stairs are a nightmare.

Position is an incredibly irritating problem. The game is grid-oriented, in that you control characters by telling them to go to a square on the map, and everything has squarish dimensions. But not all positions within a square are the same! and so if someone's standing too close to the edge of a square that's next to an elevator, or a fire, or a falling crate, it's a wash.

I've already talked about the problem of the game's plague of movement and strength statistics. Levels that operate only or mostly on basic, "normal" values are fine, but now I keep running into levels where blocks can't move the same because they're on ice - or there's a crippled survivor who has to be carried and can't be dropped more than one square at a time - or this damn kid can't fucking swim. There are too many exceptions to the game's rules.

The ironic thing is that for all the faux-realism that the game's complicated parameters fabricate, it still feels cheap and phony. Why can't a survivor move until Mr. Esc comes in contact with him? Why can't a dog fall as far as a human can? Why can pickaxes destroy pillars, but not doors? Why is there no way to pull a box? There's still a puzzle to be figured out behind all this crap, but I can't be bothered to care about it anymore.

Of course the gameplay problems are to say nothing of a glaring presentation issue: the sound effects. Exit's graphics are mostly fine (the style is actually pretty neat), and the music is alright, too. But until you rescue a survivor, he, she, or it will make the most annoying noise possible, constantly. And even afterward, you're likely to hear frequent "idle" gibbering from them or from Mr. Esc. The sound effects are grating, and I hadn't been able to play the game with volume since Situation 1.

Progress: Gave Up -- Stage 4-3