Temple of Trials, a badly designed area, or a stroke of genius?

ThatZenoGuy

ThatZenoGuy

Residential Zealous Evolved Nano Organism
Most games start you off in an easy place, Fallout 1 did this with nothing but some tiny rats to beat up.

Fallout 2 starts you off against quite dangerous odds, giant ants which, while weak, can quite easily take your small health point reserve down to zero.

Many people I see on reddit, some forums, etc, say its 'too hard', but I honestly just run through it every time.

I frankly find it to be a good lesson to learn, one which says "If the enemy can kill you, don't fucking fight him".

A guy specced into melee can quite easily bash their way through, a thief can sneak on past, and anyone can just literally run past the slow ants.

While perhaps not good for 'newbs', my first attempt at the place was a resounding success, I even managed to get the key off the dude at the end by talking my way out of fighting.

It kinda reminds me of my first playthrough of STALKER call of Pripyat, in which I was surrounded by dogs and random bandits the second I spawned in, and I had to fend for myself, shoot the dogs, or just leg it.

What do you guys think?

I personally find the start to be rather quick, less than 5 minutes.
 
Back when the game was new i was playing it at a friends house and even before the first lockpick door i gave up. Came back a few months later and went through it but i really didn't enjoy Arroyo at all. But after that everything went better.

When i got my hands on Fallout 1 that feeling was not there. Fallout 1 had a way better start in my opinion and heck. Even F3's start was rather fun the first few times.
The only 2 Fallout games with a worse start in my opinion is F4 and Tactics. Tactics because i play on the hardest difficulty and with 20-30% to hit vs enemies that can 1 shot you? Not so fun...
F4 was just boring.
 
Makta said:
Back when the game was new i was playing it at a friends house and even before the first lockpick door i gave up. Came back a few months later and went through it but i really didn't enjoy Arroyo at all. But after that everything went better.

When i got my hands on Fallout 1 that feeling was not there. Fallout 1 had a way better start in my opinion and heck. Even F3's start was rather fun the first few times.
The only 2 Fallout games with a worse start in my opinion is F4 and Tactics. Tactics because i play on the hardest difficulty and with 20-30% to hit vs enemies that can 1 shot you? Not so fun...
F4 was just boring.
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I guess I can't say I tried fallout 2 when it came out...I ain't that old. ;(

Got it late last year though, and went through it easily, but then again, I played a lot of Fallout 1 beforehand. ;D
 
I played Fallout 2 for the first time last year -- great game. I didn't have a problem with the intro. I mean it's tough, but it just goes to show you can't fight every single enemy you come across.
 
Since I usually play unarmed I never have much problems with the temple of trials.
But yeah, in classic Fallout games it is rare not to have the option of running away. I think many players have troubles with it because they have this "trend" they get from more modern games where you have to kill everything you see, if it is hard or impossible to do then the game "sucks", or so they say.
 
Risewild said:
Since I usually play unarmed I never have much problems with the temple of trials.
But yeah, in classic Fallout games it is rare not to have the option of running away. I think many players have troubles with it because they have this "trend" they get from more modern games where you have to kill everything you see, if it is hard or impossible to do then the game "sucks", or so they say.
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Yep.

Fallout 1-2 really taught me that 'if you are wearing no armour, and have a stick for a weapon, try to not poke the deathclaw in the balls'.

In fallout 3 I remember beating a deathclaw to death with a baseball bat and some chems in leather armour.
 
ThatZenoGuy said:
Yep.

Fallout 1-2 really taught me that 'if you are wearing no armour, and have a stick for a weapon, try to not poke the deathclaw in the balls'.

In fallout 3 I remember beating a deathclaw to death with a baseball bat and some chems in leather armour.
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You can 1 shot any enemy in Fallout 2 with some luck and no use for stims.. Just saying :P
 
From my perspective I found the temple of trails to be a very well thought out tutorial for FO2.
The reason I say this is because its the primer that introduces multiple mechanics that are in the game to players.

In this sense it shows how certain skills can be useful, as not everyone has put points into something like traps.

I found it also did a very good job of setting the tone for the game and the eclectic nature of the setting the player would experience.

One major key feature this temple of trials excelled as was character testing. Most people run through the entire area, or smash through the ants and scorpions. But the main design of the temple of trails was to set newly created character through the gauntlet to ensure player survival.

Granted more seasoned players can make some seriously unbalanced characters that are prepped for late game, and survive just fine. However the temple of trials was not designed for them, it was designed for new players since the first Fallout had the tendency to basically curb stop characters the moment they walked out of the vault in FO1.
 
Temple of Trial is only a part of it, but i liked that you start the game with a narrow path and light on content, and that you slowly get more freedom, more option, and more content.

You start in a closed area, then in a village without much content, then 2-3 town with more content and more choices, and THEN, you get to discover the bigger cities with both more content and flavor (Vault City, New Reno, Broken Hills, NCR etc...). So your feeling of wonder only go up, not down.

Which is a bit the contrary with Fallout 3, in which you saw almost 50% of what the game had to show once you reach Megaton.
 
I didn't mind it. It had traps, different tasks you need to do to open the doors, and a speech check. It had everything a dungeon should have.

These people complaining about it greatly misunderstand the game. It was expected that most players would already be used to the mechanics from FO1, and those that weren't would probably have the Game Guide which would tell them what to do anyway.

Given the context, it's a great tutorial level, that can be entertaining if your used to the system.
 
never had a hard time with ToT unless I was doing a Big Guns character, to which speech is an absolute godsend. I still find t funny to this day that Unarmed in Fo2 is better off without the knuckle weapons until you find a Power Fist.
 
So it's not hard when you know what you're doing, but it's a pretty awful and restricting opening to an otherwise good game.

I liked how F1 and New Vegas started, you just go on an adventure.

I really dislike games with openings like that, the Elder Scrolls is notorious for doing that (it's one of the reasons I don't often play Daggerfall).

But as a tutorial, it's pretty good, I just think New Vegas has a better tutorial.
 
Morrowind was pretty good, you're a prisoner given some cash, some orders and some directions before you're thrown into the world.
 
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