Vauban Prime Access feedback and thoughts

[NightmareT12]

I don't usually make this kind of posts for individual Warframes in a review style, but I think that many of us were greatly surprised by the outlook of Vauban Prime, so I'd like to take some time to note a few things.

First of all: I've always found Vauban to be visually boring. Never understood or saw a clear reference to anything design wise, nor anything special.

Having said that, when I saw Vauban Prime was going to be the next one, two thoughts crossed my mind: "I want Nekros" (:P) and "Oh man, I doubt I'll like him. What a disappointment". And then PAX came and everyone saw that incredible trailer --and I was simply amazed. I rewatched the heck out of it for days and days, looking at his design over and over enjoying the whole idea. Having said that, in sections:

Vauban Prime: Oh my god. You guys made me a believer. I love the general outlook that makes him look like a smart, battle-earned high title engineer in the field: The long coat, the way the gold is distributed giving him a regal look (AKA your typical Orokin fashion excess) and specially the completely different helmet. Because it's precisely in that helmet where I see two traits combine flawlessly: The usual "joke" of Vauban being inspired by a train (in this case the chimney) and the key guideline that all Warframes follow, which is the reference, design wise, to an insect. In this case, Vauban reminds me of a Beetle -- he's even got gold looking insect mandibles!

Spoiler

 

But the star of the show (and this is a pun) is the neck area of Vauban Prime. Why? Well, I guess you guys know that Vauban's named after a french military engineer, Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban -- Marquis de Vauban. One of the key elements in Vauban's fortifications were star shaped citidels -- citidels that look like the following (thanks, Wikipedia):

Spoiler

 

 

You might notice, that our Vauban Prime features a weird neck area. That weird neck area is exactly in the star shape of the fortifications! When I saw that I thought it was incredible that the art department (I guess Mynki) was able to add it in such a way to Vauban's design -- I found it really clever.

Another thing I think hit the right keynote, is the Material chosen for Vauban's pieces. Thanks to the PBR solution, DE is able to deliver this texture-depth to the frames, and in this case the choices feel, for some reason I still can't fathom, so good. It just feels right. I don't think any of the materials used in other frames (ie Volt's carapace, Excalibur's leather) would have made such sense here. And the color distribution give him this much more serious and threatening look.

It's got a few bad points, though. Mainly one: The new section clips through any primary weapon that is not a Bow, so... I wonder if we should touch up Animation Stances on the default Warframes if there's such a heavy case, hm.

All in all, I give all my 10s (and my money, which was already sucked dry :P) to DE. The way they transformed Vauban is just incredible.

Of course, it doesn't end here...

Akstilletto Prime: I loved the original design of the AkStilletto: When Update 12 came around with Zephyr, these babies were released (and I think it was the first time a dual pistol was released without a single counterpart, in response to people preferring dual weilding). The symmetrical style, which is somewhat remniscent of the Soma, was one of my favorite points, a point mantained because the outline is shared amongst both weapons. But the Prime version is able to give the already futuristic looking weapon an even more advanced touch. And the white color scheme (shared with the Fragor Prime) is one of my favorites, so glad we're using that! Besides the artistic direction (which is the reason I'm writing under this subforum) there's two things more to note:

1- I enjoy a lot that the ammo pool is increased (basically, doubled) and that the weapon is, in this case, so ammo efficient thank to the lower fire rate. I'm not sure if this was Scott's decision or not, but I was seriously surprised when I wasn't emptying the weapon in two button presses so as to speak :P

2- I page @DE_George, because the way this weapon sounds is fantastic. Let me repeat this using other words: My ears enjoyed so much every time a single bullet came out of this beauty, that it was unbelievable I was using my "terrible" quality in-built monitor speakers :P This thing alone truly deserves a headphone or dedicated good quality speaker. I swear it guys. If you have the chance, do it.

On to the next...

Fragor Prime: The Fragor Prime took a simple enough design and gave it the Orokin advanced technology twist. We can thank Sean Bigham for that: http://sbigham.deviantart.com/gallery/

But the people that took care of the model (Kary?) and the texturing. Oh god, the textures. The whole combination of them gives us what I feel is, hands down, the best designed and best quality weapon we have in the whole game. This truly looks alien, advanced, menacing and at the same time, I feel this should be real and be exposed at a museum. The gold used here. The white, black and yellowish colors. And the way the stripes are distributed. I've always loved the Orokin visual design present in the game, and the its key elements, but I feel this is weapon-wise the absolute culmination of those. And to be even better, this things hits like a truck. A 16-wheel, super heavy, 300 Km/h truck. I just can't wait to use it with Rhino Prime. This just looks made for him.

Citadella Prime Syandana: I'll be honest here and say I'm not a big fan of the trend that's going with giving capes everytime a new Syandana comes out. Some I love, some I just feel don't fit so much, and I might be missing more traditional designs (the last scarf like Syandana was Udyat, which is really great). But this one, this one feels so different. First of all: The cape is composed of two cloth stripes, instead of a single big body, and it creates this pentagon (Vauban reference) shape in the middle. Most of the cloth is not silk like, but instead of some kind of leather and rubber -- rubber that has small pentagons as a pattern throghout it. Then there's the tint 3 area, which is the blue one, that looks like cloth. And it's got a pretty decent spot of gold -- it's not too excessive, it's not too discreet and at the same time it still gives the royal and regal look of the Orokin.

 

Spoiler

And then, there's the attachment point. It's a gold pentagonic structure with an energy pentagon at the center, which spins around. The biggest surprise for me came when I channeled. The pentagon grows in size, and the pipes at the sides start emitting energy. Man, that was unexpected. It looks terribly good. I mean it. (Now that I have it on front of me as I write this, I notice there's steam coming out. I guess I missed on that due coloring the energy). And the coolest part of the Syandana, is that it truly feels like it belongs to Vauban Prime (in fact it even uses the same color scheme) -- yet at the same time, it looks good and not at all out of place on other Primes (note: try Frost), and that's important because it could otherwise make you feel restricted in choice.

Cateno Prime Sugatra: I can't say much about this, I usually like the Prime sugatras we get. I'm not really as expectative to them as I am to Syandana or armor pieces, or anything else. However: I like a lot that DE chose to give us a longer/bigger sized Sugatra again, and that it looks like a piece of thin cloth. We've gotten smaller pieces lately and one of my personal favorites is the Daman Sugatra (not the Prime one, which I sadly don't own). It's also a smart one, since the name is truly a good indicative of what's going on the design (note: cateno is a verb derivative of catena, which is latin for chain).

Spoiler

So here's my Vauban Prime review. Hope you guys enjoy this, thanks for giving it a read :)

Edited May 18, 2016 by NightmareT12