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[h1]Gemini Skin Collection[/h1]
[h2]The product is good, but I'd like to see it in a better state.[/h2]
Simply put, this is a good product, but it has unused potential which I think it would benefit a lot from.
[h2]Before You Buy[/h2]
The in-game advertisements for the real money & platinum versions differ in description with the real money version including "+ Gemini Emote", while the platinum-based version of the product doesn't have such in its description, only listing the Protoframe skins and not the emotes ― even though [b]*BOTH*[/b] deliver the same contents (Protoframes [i][b]AND[/b][/i] Emotes), save for the extra platinum from the Steam version. Overall, an unexpected shady move from DE.
[h2]Practical Issues[/h2]
These are some of the issues I've had with the Gemini Skins, while they're not exactly "dealbreakers", it personally makes using them a bit more inconvenient.
• Players are forced to allocate a slot solely for the Gemini Skin
This is rather inconvenient, why can't I have a Warframe & Protoframe Skin on the same slot? Players would be able to make a matching Protoframe customization as a counterpart to the regular Warframe customization on the given slot, no harm there. We could put both on the same slot. Could just toggle the starting appearance similar to Equinox.
• Attachment Colouring
Protoframes come with their own "attachments" which are colourable (straps, gloves, armor pads, etc.), with two of them being removable ― Amir's Goggles and Quincy's Beret. So far so good!
But my gripe with this is that you [b]*cannot*[/b] colour regular attachments/armor equipabble on any other Warframe (Shoulder Pads, Knee Pads, Chest Pads) separately from the [b]*Protoframe's*[/b] attachments, meaning that if you want to give your shoulder pad attachments a golden hue on the metallic parts ― you might end up accidentally colouring an unintended part of your Protoframe's built-in armor/attachments.
• Color Channel/Tint Bias
This seems to be a trend on every Protoframe, as it stands, colouring something on the Primary, Secondary, or Tertiary colour channels will have some level of influence on another colour channel, especially when you get to the Attachments tab. Whether it's a minor or impactful influence, it depends on what Protoframe you are customizing and what colours you have set up, and in the long run just feels like a dice roll and a headache to customize sometimes (also present in Hair Customization).
• Hair Customization
Model-wise, they've done a pretty good job with the hair for each character, and there's not much to talk about in this aspect, but as mentioned above, hair customization also suffers from tint bias when it comes to customization, aside from other issues.
Tint Bias makes it difficult to find the hair colour you're looking for, black and white work fine, but if you're searching for other colours, you might notice that the hair colour will be inclined towards either warm or cold colours, and sometimes the hair will display a highly saturated colour even if you've selected a light/pastel/desaturated colour (Daybreak, Easter, and Dojo colour palletes are examples of this).
• Hair Colour Slots
Probably the most vague part about customizing a Protoframe.
You're given Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, Accents, and Energy (What???) Colour Slots to customize the hair.
Some of them work, some of them don't, and the Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, etc. labels are pretty much placeholders and you'll see that "Primary" doesn't really mean Primary when you're customizing hair ― Amir's hair as an example illustrates all of this, only the "Accents" slot works, and it colours the [b]entire[/b] hair, all other slots don't change anything, so, shouldn't it be on the Primary slot with the other slots hidden?
Overall unintuitive, and the usage of placeholder text in a "final product" you're being charged money for if you want to experience the content feels wrong.
• Eyes cannot be customized separately from Warframe's Ability Energy Colour
This is probably more of a nitpick, but having the eye colour use the same colour as the ability's energy colour doesn't make sense.
I was hoping for heterochromatic eye customization like how you can do with both the Operator and Drifter, but it turns out that even if you have applied Forma on your Warframe, it just lets you customize both the Iris and Pupil colours for both eyes instead of only the Iris. If hair can be customized independently, why not eyes too?
• Protoframe-native attachments cannot be used on different skins
For a while, this was possible, but was patched out. You got to carry over the military apparel from the Protoframes. I get that they looked out of place when paired with deluxe skins, which have different models instead of being just reskins of a warframe's respective default model, but I see no harm in having them equipped alongside skins that don't change the model, especially Tennogen since the only custom mesh they get to make is a helmet, the body remains with the same model, just different textures ― and the patch could've just taken the Protoframe's voice out when equipped on another skin. A missed opportunity to turn a bug into a feature and allow players to use a protoframe's apparel on other skins, just like how using the Atomicycle outside of 1999 turned from a bug into a feature.
[h3]Nitpicks[/h3]
• Arthur's Gemini skin does not allow to remove the bulky leather gloves that started showing up in the promotions after Warframe's Steam post "Warframe: 1999 Coming in December" (posted on Friday, October 25th), his gloves looked way less bloated before, and it'd be nice to be able to use the slim glove on the right hand and the gloveless style for the left hand, which makes for a missed opportunity to make more use of attachments on protoframe skins aside from just toggling Amir's goggles and Quincy's beret on & off.
Similarly, Protoframe attachments such as dog tags (Arthur's) and Tamagotchi (Amir's) cannot be removed as attachments to reduce clutter or simplify appearance.
• Protoframes don't have subtitles for their lines.
How come Railjack Crewmates get subtitles for their voicelines but players don't?
It is difficult to disambiguate the speech of the protoframes from the constant sounds you hear in frantic battles. Even if you set your SFX volumes in such a way that you can only hear voicelines mostly, it still is difficult and to a degree inaccessible to those who have problems with hearing.
[h1]Closing thoughts[/h1]
I feel the Gemini Skin Emotes are an essential part of the whole Protoframe skin ordeal, making the skins feel more like a gimmick without their emotes, so...
If you already have a warframe with all six appearance slots already being used, is it [i]really[/i] worth the hassle to cut down your favorite fashion slots in half to accomodate for these skins so you can use the Gemini Emotes [i]somewhat[/i] properly? Or if you don't want to do that, maybe the even bigger hassle of [b]crafting[/b] a second copy of each warframe that has a Protoframe Skin, buy three more appearance slots in order to have six slots, but only be able to use 3 for regular warframe appearances, and 3 for protoframe appearances, when all of these problems could simply be [I][b]fixed[/b][/i]?
I've been very hyped for these skins since Arthur's Gemini Skin first showcase, but it is rather disappointing to see that DE has apparently released an unfinished bundle and being seemingly deliberate about not being transparent enough and not disclosing all trade-offs and nuances that come with these protoframe skins, problems that could've been solved with just some more polish and time to work with.
I like these skins, using them, and the concepts they bring.
These skins had [i]and[/i] may very much [b]still[/b] [i][b]have[/b][/i] lots of unused potential, and I hope DE gets to give them a proper quality pass before/instead of moving on to the next new thing.
👍 : 2 |
😃 : 0