#..........and elder scrolls in general and every other fantasy game i've played but that's a story for another time!

[astrxealis]

friends i really want to share astarion to you guys who don't know him/well because GODS he's everything ... he's the moment he's the world he's the light he's the darkness.....

[omnibused]

Hello! For ask thingy, 50. Whats your favorite games and why? ^^

Ohh, boy. That's a big question for a little ask, 'cause I risk going nostalgic or diving into lore, haha! I'm a big fan of retro/retro style boomer shooters for burning off steam, and the Legend of Zelda series, and it just gets more convoluted from there. For the sake of brevity, I'll keep it to my more modern favorites~

First and foremost, I love stuff with deep lore. I cannot overstate that, I'm collecting and reading every single journal/codex/information entry the game provides and reading them all. If there are companion books, they're going into my collection at home, too.

If I had to narrow it down to a few:

The Talos Principle ~ Combining my love of a challenging logic puzzle with deep lore and a good story, this one blew me away with its overarching story once I realized it wasn't just a series of challenging puzzles; choices matter! Highly recommend this one to anyone who likes slowly unraveling a story bit by bit, and being left a little speechless at the end.

(cut, 'cause long post warning)

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice ~ A beautiful meeting of history and creative story telling, the main character is a vulnerable young woman processing mental illness and trauma; she's incredibly relatable. I was really impressed with the developers consulting and involving people who suffer the same illness as the main character at every step of the development process, so it's handled with dignity and grace. Gorgeous, gorgeous game!

The Elder Scrolls Series ~ This one's had its ups and downs over the years, but I've been with it since Daggerfall, so I feel obligated to give it a mention. Not every entry in the series is a winner, but the overarching lore is deep, and (usually) well written and substantiated.

The Mass Effect Series ~ My love for history and lore, sci-fi/fantasy, combat strategy, and an epic adventure all rolled into one. I find myself returning to this one every couple years to relive the story, try something else, and generally just appreciate it for the heroic tale it is.

Last and absolutely the most...

The Dragon Age Series ~ I literally cannot say enough good things about the game series itself. It's one I play yearly, at least. I mean, sure it has its flaws here and there, but, playing Origins for the first time was a breath of fresh air - I'd never played an RPG that ticked all the best boxes about an enjoyable game. The lore is deep and unique (please, please give us more on dwarves already, though), and always makes for a great read. I love that the characters are actually complex and multifaceted, no one's purely a saint, no one purely a sinner - it can be polarizing, for sure, but I love myself a good character discussion. I've got all the comics, novelizations, and companion books on my shelf.

I have a framed map of Thedas on my living room wall, if that tells you the depth of my love. 😅

Honorable Mentions: Cyberpunk 2077, DOOM, The Amnesia Series, Dead Space Series, Resident Evil Series, and Final Fantasy XIV (only 14 though, I literally do not like a single other FF game, lol)

[time-to-write-and-suffer]

The soul stone war is a game that I've seen before and its on my list. Was wondering if you coudl tell more about how you feel about it, especially the villain romance if you chose that one.

Uuh, sure. I'll do it in a bullet list cuz it's been a while since I've played it and I can't really be bothered to put a whole coherent post together.

I should also encourage you to read some reviews on the Steam store page. They basically repeat a lot of the points I'm about to make.

The main character is a useless waif. Like, even if you pass the skill checks, there are multiple instances where you're forced to pass out, be injured, kidnapped, or otherwise victimized. They're so helpless and out of their element that it becomes hard to believe any of the much more capable and skilled people around them would ever find them compelling or interesting and consider them anything more than a burden. Yet you’re somehow also the most important person in the whole squad, and they keep protecting and helping you no matter how you treat them. Because hey, that’s the protagonist!

On that note, the romances are dull as hell. All characters are vaguely nice and friendly, some are just more snarky/broody than others. You can "friendmance" people, which is a good concept in theory, but in practice it involves your character being unaware of their own emotions. It further adds to how incapable and clueless they seem. Plus, it never becomes clear why any of the ROs would be romantically interested in the protagonist, especially when they have established connections with other people on the squad already. You’re playing a rando who just shows up one day, bumbles about uselessly, but then becomes the most important person ever to them. Sure.

The plot is filled with contrivances. The main one being that the main character is involved in it at all. They're basically forced into it despite showing no particular skills or talents, and the only excuse we ever get for them sticking around is ... uh ... the big-booby elf lady said they were cute. The author simply didn't bother coming up with a better reason for them to be involved, knowing that there would be one eventually that would justify it in the end, but giving us nothing to work with in the moment, no personal reason and no agency. It feels very cheap.

The world and worldbuilding are basically the most generic fantasy thing you can imagine. The author even answered some questions on their Tumblr about the political structure of the land as "You know Skyrim? Like that." Elements and character dynamics and even minor phrases and words are lifted wholesale from franchises like Dragon Age and The Elder Scrolls. One of the first things your character can say is a reference to Dragon Age, but it's never brought up again and we never get an explanation for what it means in this universe or why the character would say it. One of the first lines in your "own" unique world shouldn't be a tee hee cutesy reference to some other well-established universe.

The tone is all over the place. One moment you're joking around about something the big-boobied blond elf said, the next your character is being tortured by some werewolf woman or some god-entity, and there’s nothing they can do to escape, so you just sit there and have to endure all this torture porn. And then it’s right back to the repetitive jokes and snarky narration.

I’m serious about the torture porn. One of the MC’s backgrounds includes their transgender friend being murdered for being trans. Another includes your character almost getting sexually assaulted. The third involves your younger brother dying. There’s no reason for any of this to be included other than to show how dark and edgy this world is and how your character is running from their past or whatever.

Speaking of dark and edgy, the villain gets a lot of screen time, and it’s mostly him brooding about how evil he is while the narration creams itself over how hot he is, also. But the author acts surprised over how he’s the most popular character in the fandom, and deflects most criticisms for his route as “it’s self-indulgent” and “it’s a secret route just for me, I didn’t think anyone else would play it.” Bro why’d you put it there, then? With instructions in-game on how to reach it?

The writing is genuinely some of the worst I’ve read. I hate to use this word unironically, but it was cringeworthy at times. It’s supposed to be this epic fantasy, but most of the time it feels like it’s chasing the high of a found family in a video game squad, without actually knowing what makes those particular tropes work. It’s simplistic and extremely repetitive, relying more on character tropes and “tumblr meme” interactions than genuine character building and conflict. It also tries and mostly fails to be funny, but that’s more subjective, I guess. Take a shot every time the text goes “thank you very much!” and you’ll be out in a few clicks.

Pacing whomst? Everything happens in the span of like a week or a month, but suddenly your character and their RO are like, in love and all weepy about it? Oh no I almost lost you my dear darling baby, let me tearfully declare how important you are to me. Nevermind the fact that we met four days ago.

The villainmance is the only vaguely interesting thing in the story and it's pretty evident it's the author's favorite thing to write. They've said how it's just a "self-indulgent" thing that wasn't supposed to be popular (I do not believe a word of this), but it's by far the most interesting thing just based on the fact that it's not only the most plot-relevant romance, but it's also the one with the most stakes and drama and the most varied dynamics. There’s genuine, justified angst and emotion in the concept of it at times that is missing from literally every other interaction and grimdark moment.

That being said, I wouldn’t say the villainmance is healthy, so don’t go into it looking for that. The dynamics are way off-balance and a lot of the route in the first game is your character being attracted to the man who’s torturing them and wanting to be tortured again just to interact with him. If you’re into that, then you might be into this story, but if you’re not then you’ll be put off by it.

The Asian-coded character has a "yellow" skintone and is a half-dragon.

The reason there's transphobia in this world and the player can't be trans is is because the "gods" of this world don't want any mortals to have the ability to "change their gender" because that would make them too similar to the gods. However, nonbinary characters are fine, and you can play as one. Because as we all know, binary trans people are just out there "changing their gender" all willy nilly. That's how that works, right? While nonbinary characters are always born nonbinary and nobody assigns genders to their children in this world? Idk how any of this makes any sense but go off, I guess. This isn't in the actual game AFAIK but something I read on the author's Tumblr, so take it as you will. The actual transphobia is in the game, though. Because reasons.

Overall, it’s a lot of half-baked concepts, unfunny writing, and needless torture porn for the sake of torture porn. Plus it’s not even a whole story, it’s just the first part of a series/trilogy? Maybe it’ll get better as it goes, but I wouldn’t hold my breath tbh.