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Remember Chronos? Well here's Chronos Before the Ashes Gameplay in 2D
Shadowmask72
Posts: 4,409 
Valuable Player
in General
Remember that lovely Gunfire Games VR game "Chronos" for Oculus CV1. I think most people who played it agreed it was pretty decent and a neat showcase for how third-person games can work well in VR. Gunfire, will release the same game for pancake 2D gamers on consoles and PC next month. If you're interested, here's how it looks on PC using the max settings and 4K resolution. I wonder if you'll get much nostalgia from this?
In my opinion though, despite looking fairly crisp, the 2D version doesn't begin to compare to the VR game. You can still get immersed in this souls-like game on desktop, but I find you lose the sense of scale and just being inside the game VR affords. Either way, don't y'all think it's interesting that a VR game gets the reverse treatment when usually it's the other way around. What's next, an official Half-Life Alyx (yeh I am aware modders made a 2D version) on desktop PC?
In my opinion though, despite looking fairly crisp, the 2D version doesn't begin to compare to the VR game. You can still get immersed in this souls-like game on desktop, but I find you lose the sense of scale and just being inside the game VR affords. Either way, don't y'all think it's interesting that a VR game gets the reverse treatment when usually it's the other way around. What's next, an official Half-Life Alyx (yeh I am aware modders made a 2D version) on desktop PC?
System Specs: ASUS NVIDIA RTX 3090 TUF GAMING OC 24GB , i9 9900K CPU, 16 GB DDR 4 RAM, Win 10 64 Bit OS.
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Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever
System Specs: ASUS NVIDIA RTX 3090 TUF GAMING OC 24GB , i9 9900K CPU, 16 GB DDR 4 RAM, Win 10 64 Bit OS.
Chronos works perfectly with Revive - and is of course still available for PCVR in the Oculus Store.
"Ask not what VR can do for you – ask what you can do for VR"
But yeah, poopoo in the sandwiches of the devs for now making this follow-up title VR-ready.
Catch me on Twitter: twitter.com/zenbane
Apparently it's not a follow up title, it's a flat port of the VR game. I thought it was a follow up too!
Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever
I haven't played the pancake either...and probably won't. VR is definitely the choice to play though...a totally worth the money spent.
Despite how well VR has been doing, including the successful sales numbers of both Quest and Index, the fact is that the profit margins are slim pickings. It's well documented that Alyx barely broke even at best. Hopefully the Quest 2 sales will help push it in to some positive margins, but I can only imagine how little money Chronos for VR made. Any profits came from the funding that Facebook provided directly.
Going in to 2021, all VR dev studios face serious challenges yielding any profits if they are relying on sales alone. Having a 2D version is an incredibly smart financial move.
Hell, if they would bring this to the mobile platform then they can make a killing!
Catch me on Twitter: twitter.com/zenbane
I think at this point it's safe to say Alyx made a profit. When people were questioning if it did it had just broken 1 million in sales. Latest projections have it breaking 2 million sales and it's still selling for $60. Even if you back out all of the ones Valve gave for "free" with Index, it likely made a nice profit. But it's more of an exception than the rule.
By pure coincidence I think I was the first to see and post on Reddit that Alyx indeed has broken the 2 mill sales:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ValveIndex/comments/k5izil/more_than_2000000_now_own_alyx/
- and I suspect that UploadVR reads new posts on Index Reddit too, lol - or could of course be another coincidence that they published this the day after my post (I did copy my post to Oculus Reddit and Virtual Reality Reddit too - needed the cheap karma
https://uploadvr.com/half-life-alyx-2-million/
Very surprising to see such numbers - it puts Alyx in the same owner class category as Doom Eternal, although that category ranges from 2 to 5 mill owners, lol. Beat Saber on Steam is also in the 2 to 5 mill category, but that's not a real game
Now I wonder if we'll one day see Alyx move beyond the 5 mill...
- and I do wonder how many copies Chronos VR sold...
"Ask not what VR can do for you – ask what you can do for VR"
For most developers, they will be struggling just to break even.
Catch me on Twitter: twitter.com/zenbane
I remember getting stuck here too! Totally forgot what to do. The room where the key is, and the terminal outside that lets you control stuff, were clues to moving on. Can't remember exactly how though.
There's plenty of youtube vids with walkthroughs on it. I believe this guy has the whole game recorded:
Catch me on Twitter: twitter.com/zenbane
Might sound like I'm repeating my latest Wilson's Heart experience, but I just had a totally 10/10 experience in Chronos. Using the Index res 150%.
Note that Chronos is a relatively bright game, it works perfectly using a lcd hmd, and the game isn't soaked in temporal antialiasing = it's not blurry on high-res lcd hmds. The game profits from no SDE using Index, but it still looks awesome using CV1 ss 2 0. Sound is great using Index too - Knuckles work perfectly too using Revive 1 9.2.
For long I had the problem of dying in Chronos before reaching the next big red Save Stone. I kept repeating the same level, and I grew tired of it - sometimes cursing the game for the frustrating save game design.
But today - for the first time in years - I got to the next save stone, and I had a blast.
At first this game may seem like a simple 3rd person hack'n slash adventure with 2D-like fixed walls, and while that may not be entirely untrue, the game design and content did blow my mind several times tonight - and that does not happen often. Alyx is awesome too, but plays everything more safe and reuses a lot of content known from previous Half-Life games, while the stuff you're exposed to in Chronos can be literally mind-blowingly insane, meant in the best possible way. The creativity of the Chronos devs is second to none. Chronos isn't just another nice VR game, it's totally reference within its genre.
The main problem with Chronos may be - unlike Alyx - that Chronos can look somewhat boring in the beginning and feel too old school (like a simple 2D game ported to VR), and then there's the potentially annoying save game design. You have to venture some way into the game before it opens up and shows its scale.
Really feels like Another World on steroids and then some
I guess these words would perfectly fit any great Chronos commercial
- and this trailer kinda nails the game:
"Ask not what VR can do for you – ask what you can do for VR"
My problem here was what button(s) to push to bring up the key...nothing worked. Then, after accidentally hitting both the A + B buttons at the same time on the G2, I finally brought up the key. Well, you know the rest...
In case others need it, I can recommend this walkthrough - but of course only to be used when everything else fails
"Ask not what VR can do for you – ask what you can do for VR"
"Ask not what VR can do for you – ask what you can do for VR"
Soon it will be goodbye to Mr. Cyclops, who already costed me like 10 years of my life!
Btw, the Chronos Pain Thread, sigh:
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/4crd3b/chronos_great_game_but_stuck_on_cyclops_ideas/
"Ask not what VR can do for you – ask what you can do for VR"
Only difference is... some of us are now playing on battery lol
Catch me on Twitter: twitter.com/zenbane
Also I play using the normal difficulty level, not the easy one - which might have been an error on my part, lol.
I did find all the biggest weapons, magic stones and got the large shield, but still Cyclops costed me like 15 lives. Actually had to practice to improve my combat skills - normally I don't dodge much, but just use the shield and my weapon.
The games is rated at about 15 hours, but I might have spent that on the first 30% of the game
The game is truly mind-blowing, and there are places that might have inspired the devs behind A Fisherman's Tale, especially when changing certain perspectives and sizes.
But back to my old friend, I'm really thankful to Oculus for providing another beyond awesome experience - I don't think even Jeff in Alyx got me sweating more than Cyclops
"Ask not what VR can do for you – ask what you can do for VR"
"Ask not what VR can do for you – ask what you can do for VR"
Another thing - how many in here knew that Chronos VR has its own subreddit?
Last post is only a year old!
"Ask not what VR can do for you – ask what you can do for VR"
https://forums.oculusvr.com/community/discussion/comment/419920#Comment_419920
Other than being a great experience overall, I can see why it doesn't create a lot of chatter. The gameplay is fairly straight forward. One early-game puzzle can be tricky, and then one late-game puzzle was cruel. Those 2 puzzles cause most of the online discussion. Still... very well worth the price of admission.
Catch me on Twitter: twitter.com/zenbane
Also my joy of killing Cyclops was quite brief - maybe because I cleaned most of the rooms on the first floor before Cyclops - so I nearly jumped from one boss to the next:
The fighting can be tough (like Dark Souls 3) and may be a turn-off to some. I love the game for the surroundings and the adventure elements, I'm not that fond of the fighting - still the game is 10/10 and I'm going back for more spanking tonight
"Ask not what VR can do for you – ask what you can do for VR"
The pancake does have advantages like moving instead of stationary camera. (In the VR version only your character and opponents/npcs move, walls don't, while the 2D version works similar to Tomb Raider with a free moving camera.) Also the 2D version shows health bars, right now I have no clue when a boss is dead. The VR version may have been even better with these changes too (but would be more nausea inducing to some players).
I do believe the better score for the VR version has to do with immersion - just sitting there in some great halls and taking in the atmosphere is worth much more than I paid for the game. You simply can't get such immersion from a pancake.
"Ask not what VR can do for you – ask what you can do for VR"