#red candle games... red candle games i love you...

[fruitytrollroll]

Nine Sols' narrative themes inform every gameplay element btw. if u even care.

saw someone call Nine Sols' gift sysrem for Shuanshuan "too dialogue-heavy" and "pointless" and I went temporarily insane

if the quest moments with Shuanshuan feel "pointless", it's because they are meant to be their own reward and you did them out of obligation!!! why!!! nobody was holding you at gunpoint to MAKE you raise this beautiful precious forgiving baby boy who loves you and nursed you back to health—but like a deadbeat dad on a custody visit just to be compliant with a court order, you spent time with him anyway and you resented him for it. WHAT!!!

also can NOT overstate how the games' themes of revenge and redemption tie into these scenes. they are not by ANY MEANS pointless!!! the way Yi goes out of his way to preserve his culture, by sharing it with the APEMAN he's raising, speaks VOLUMES about Yi's character growth in the 2 years since he and Shuanshuan began living together.

I was personally endeared by Shuanshuan immediately, and was delighted I had gifts to give him—AND that they each had bespoke cutscenes that revealed lore information about Solarian culture, and background information about Yi and Shuanshuan'a lives together?? do you guys know how rare and special it feels to have a gift system that WORKS like this??? SO many games give you garbage trinkets to throw at your companions for a quantifiable affection boost, so I cannot overstate how deeply impressive and heartfelt and dedicated to their story Red Candle Games clearly was to have put in the time and effort to make their gift mechanic so deeply character-driven, with custom animations and environmental changes for every skill you teach Shuanshuan. 🥺🧸✨️

if you don't like social sim elements in games, or the characters didn't succeed in endearing themselves to you, that's fine. They're not for everyone—but I suspect my experience was the intended one! you're supposed to like and care about these characters enough to bring them the gifts you find on your travels of your own volition!!

if you DON'T care about the characters, you can skip their scenes, and the game respects your time by LETTING you do that, AND by giving you an ending that is less involved in the characters' lives. but if you resent these scenes because "ugh i HAVE to do this to get the TRUE ending 🙄" then idk!! I think you are playing the game wrong!!

I think RCG gave players an opportunity to not care, and a perfectly satisfying ending despite it all (THE BETTER ENDING AND LESS EMOTIONALLY DEVASTATING ENDING, IN MY OPINION, BECAUSE RCG IS SO MEAN TO ME 😭), and if you passed that up for completionism's sake... IDK!!

I genuinely think achievments have poisoned too many games that don't benefit from them! Gone are the olden days of playing your big sister's SNES games blind—no online guides, no guardrails, just getting lost and wandering around the overworld, just playing by vibes alone and if you get stuck u just have to take a break and come back later instead of looking up a guide online because there wasn't even a GameFAQs page for it yet—but on GOD we need to get back there. Play games blind. Don't look up guides. JUST ENJOY IT, JUST ENGAGE WITH THE MEDIA, WE DON'T NEED INSTRUCTIONS I PROMISE, YOUR INNOCENT NASCENT FUMBLING IS ENOUGH, YOU CAN PLAY THE GAME AND HAVE FUN WITHOUT SOME CHODE ON "HARDCOREGAMER" DOT COM GIVING YOU A DISRESPECTFULLY SPOILERIFIC BREAKDOWN OF A PATH OR BOSS FIGHT OR ITEM LOCATION THAT ROBS YOU OF THAT JOY OF DISCOVERY!!

anyway. yes, if you forced yourself to sit through the dialogue of character-driven scenes for characters you didn't even like or feel compelled by, just to get the "True" end, then I imagine it would feel "pointless" and like "too much text". But failing to catch your interest is not a failure of the game's storytelling if you only disliked it because you were forcing yourself to do it for the achievment, just to get an ending that wasn't made with your play style in mind!!!

"it doesn't even affect the game's ending :/" *LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER*!!! ALL the sidequests have the CUMULATIVE effect of changing the ending! this is because Yi is a ruthless, analytical scientist deposed from his seat of political power in New Kunlun on a quest for revenge—yet he spent precious time doing a bunch of "pointless" sidequests for his friends he's come to care about, which allowed the villain's brewing plot the precious time it needed to come further to fruition. Yi is on a REVENGE quest, and it is the very act of saving Shuanshuan (thus alerting the island's security systems to Yi's presence) that puts a timeline on that revenge. He exposed himself for someone he cared about, putting his revenge in jeopaedy—and he postponed that revenge still further to make amends to the apemen he once thought so little of as to be complicit in their heinous exploitation!!! YI IS GROWING HE'S CHANGING, SHUANSHUAN CHANGED HIS HEART, AND IT'S ONLY IN THE TRUE ENDING YI CAN COMPLETE HIS CHARACTER ARC BY REALIZING HE FUCKED UP AND ACTUALLY REPENT (EVEN IF I HATE IT BECAUSE IT'S THE SADDEST ENDING, FUCK YOU RED CANDLE GAMES 😭)

also combat is focused around the parry because this game's primary thematic underpinning is giving proof to the age-old adage "fuck around and find out" (it's revenge it's about reVENGE IT'S ALL ABOUT FORGIVENESS AND CHANGE AND REVENGE)