#did all challenges. campaigns. got all pearls delivered. unlocked dev commentary

[sapphirefox1995]

I'm trying to decipher what I truly think about The Watcher. For context I absolutely love and adore Rain World. Both base game and Downpour. Downpour has its flaws, but it's a DLC that I cant get enough of. I consider Rain World to be my favorite video game ever.

Now imagine my excitement when The Watcher was announced. I literally could not wait for it.

Because I need to be spoiled on all things Rain World (I have far too many phobias that exist in the game) I watched multiple streams of The Watcher, all endings. And while watching I felt massively disappointed.

I feel like most people like Rain World for different reasons, or maybe all the reasons. For example, my friend liked Rain World due to the ecosystem, I like Rain World for the movement tech, the graphics/music, the lore and the characters. I'm not a fan of getting lost, I look up intractable maps or memorize every location. I don't like to get mad at my games, getting mods that make it an easier time (I'm also disabled but that only effects me playing with Rain World's default keybinds). And I want to very clearly state that cheating/making any video game easier does not devalue the game or the player.

This doesn't make the game a cakewalk, in fact it is still difficult. Campaigns like Spearmaster or Hunter or Saint still have a lot of trail and error.

Then here comes The Watcher, and somewhat detailed spoilers after the cut.

And be warned, you may disagree with my points, and that's totally fair and fine! If you want to voice your opinion in the comments, whether that be you not liking the Watcher or loving it, then go ahead. Just please keep things civil with the things you disagree with.

The world as you know it is different, there's rot everywhere only forcing you to go to specific places (Shaded, Chimney, and Farm) which I kinda like. I get not wanting us to see Moon or Pebbles, and in fact, I'm happy you don't. (And dont get me wrong, Pebbles is one of my favorite characters of all time, I love him, I adore him, and I want to make a video essay about him) and only having those locations feels like a neat way to show the world you grew around is now decaying. Great intro, no gripes with it.

The echo, although some would want more out of them, I love. I love the silly stinky talk, it shows they are a child. The more the campaign goes on the more the echo gets serious. That's amazing, I love that.

But then you get sent to one of the three locations depending on what echo you ended on. Everyone I watched, including when I played, went to Coral Caves. Now I like Coral Caves dont get me wrong, but my main problem with the Watcher is here. It's the locations.

They feel so disconnected from each other, it's hard to peice together the environmental storytelling. Like, we can theorize but nothing will ever be a true answer. And the base game did this to an extent, but through naming systems and lore pearls, it was pretty clear on how to piece together this world. The Watcher's new encioremnts do not have that.

And the portals, I hate the portals. From a gameplay stance. Lore wise, if the Watcher is truly an Echo (which is what I tend to lean towards) portals are fine, they're just fine. But game wise they suck! They distort your screen where you cant see stuff, apparently there's a pole plant in a room with a portal in Rusted Wrecks which is just so hard to see. Plus it adds to the feeling of everything being so disconnected! They do not show up on the map, causing you to find them multiple times if you don't have a solid memory. And they're never explained, making people playing it for the first time confused on how it works (I'm pretty sure you have to stand in it and that's it, you can move I think but I never do). Base game has tutorials, so does Downpour, that doesn't feel too intrusive, whether that be text in the corner of your screen or an overseer. Watcher does not have that.

Then you have the backtracking. And don't get me wrong, the base game has backtracking. But not as bad as this. There were multiple times while playing that I wanted to rage quit because of how much backtracking I had to do. I dont rage at games easily, I sure dont rage at Rain World. But this is out of hand at times. I got stuck in Rusted Wrecks for a century, and it doesnt help that you quite literally do not know the map, where you're going, or where the portals are.

The map, btw, just sucks. Your ui for the regions is just so awful to navigate. As I mentioned before you don't get to see portals on the map. You can see Karma Gates, and when you're just playing you can see a blend of the regions. Like how chimney looks like industrial when you're near that gate, but looks like Sky Islands when you're near that gate. It's very well designed and blends perfectly! The Watcher does not have that.

Then you have the lore. If I squint, I see the lore. But I have to squint. I understand the story it was telling but you dont get a lot of lore. Echos can move on. That's about all the lore I really got from this. The rest of the lore is just theories, not actual fact. Base game had a show dont tell way of dealing with lore, but it sure did tell you stuff. If you gathered the pearls you get an dump of information about the lore, iterators, and the ancients. The Watcher does not have that.

And I want people to keep in mind that theories are theories, they're not truly canon until stated otherwise and they're nothing to get truly mad over. I dont agree with the Rot being the Triple Affirmative theory. I think the rot is the antithesis of the void. Where the rot is the bad death and the void is the good death. And by all means the void should be linked more to the triple affirmative than the rot. But again, I could be wrong, but so can that theory. We do not actually know for certain. I do not like this. I love theorizing but I also like when I know things to be true.

Then the thing that gets me the most, cause I do not know, how a game praised on this aspect, didnt bring it to the Watcher. And that's the ecosystem. Some animals seem out of place (Blizzard Lizard, now granted it is cool in theory, but it sucks to deal with and doesnt feel grounded in the way other lizards are, if that makes any sense) some are super awful to deal with game play wise (the mushroom lizards) and some doesnt interact with anything but the player (the locusts). Sometimes the regions feel so empty, like it's meant to be a sightseeing area than an actual ecosystem. Btw this does not apply to the moths. Moths go crazy I love them.

So those are my gripes with the Watcher, but I do like other parts! I like the ending to both endings, the room with the ancients is pretty cool, and the Prince's design is rad. But I wish I liked more things about it.

So as of now I say that I only like it, I have mediocre feelings about it. And that makes me a little sad.