#reliview

[reliquiaen]

chats in the rat chat be like

[reliquiaen]

Okay, a few years back I made this graphic to explain the Great Cycle. Now that I've mulled over DD2 for a few days, I'm updating it. Some of the same assumptions as before remain: The Dragonforged fought the dragon, his weapon broke, he tried punching it (lmao), but he did survive without killing the dragon, possibly there was a second Bargain offered in the face of his determination. So you don't have to kill your dragon to survive it. Also still assuming that different classes become different types of drakes because I just like that detail, even though we see nothing to confirm it in DD2 (except maybe for the wyrms in the post-game, I hope that's what those are, just a bit redesigned).

But this time, I'm making some NEW assumptions: A Great Dragon can be manifested directly by the Seneschal's will (I'm guessing this is why our DD2 dragon doesn't have a name, I suspect this dragon was created after Rothais defeated his - he didn't become a dragon OR Seneschal so it had to come from somewhere). The challenge a Seneschal poses to the Arisen can be anything; Savan gave us the opening of the Everfall and unleashed a ton of powerful monsters upon the world; but Pathfinder gave us what the world would look like without a Seneschal to oversee things. My assumption is that the Colossal Dragon that appears out of that final red pillar of light IS the Pathfinder (possibly using his will to force order back upon the world) and when we kill it, our Arisen becomes Seneschal (because Pathfinder says he won't be there to see the new world that's forming). So the challenge can be anything, not just the Everfall. I'm curious what happens to our pawn after that fight, though. And it's a much better Seneschal fight than the one against Savan, sorry Savan.

I'm also assuming that (given we see the Pathfinder rewind time and rewrite the world) the Seneschal can simply will the world into a state of being that suits them. This includes wiping memories of events. Though I like to imagine that our Arisen-turned-Seneschal didn't wipe memories of themselves or of the apocalypse-world. There was an entire plotline going through this game with Rothais and Phaesus where mortals are trying to get rid of the Seneschal and so it makes sense that they need to remember what would happen without the Seneschal's presence.

Anyway, thanks. I'll probably have more thoughts later, but this is the part that gets me most. I like to know how things work so I wanted to sort the Cycle out.

[reliquiaen]

My Rook, Taya Laidir. Rogue, Lord of Fortune, pirate, shit stirrer, spiritual successor to Hawke. I think it's fun that you can have the tattoos for the two dummies wreaking havoc

[reliquiaen]

I finished my dragon age replay and it made me go ???? when hawke says to the inquisitor that blood magic is always bad forever and ever and there's no possible way any blood mage is good and smth smth blood mages always think they're making the correct and safe choices but they're idiots actually

HANG ON HAWKE you're dating Merrill!! And in da2 you made aaaaall the 'blood magic isn't inherently evil' comments what's going on this isn't hawke.

[reliquiaen]

Still Wakes The Deep? No. More like Various Deaths Simulator.

[reliquiaen]

The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that the Arisen in the first game DID successfully break the cycle and the brine-apocalypse followed. That's why Gran Soren is beneath the sea now. The cycle ended and, with it, the world as we knew it from the first game.

The dragon even says that many worlds have risen and fallen before, implying that before the world we know in DD2, there was another, different existence in this same reality.

This means that the cycle never STAYS broken. The Pathfinder talks about the will of the world creating the dragon to bring stability to the chaos and, from what we know in the first game, it's the Seneschal's job to ensure order is maintained, lest all life end.

So a new facet to the Great Cycle can be added: if the cycle breaks, a world ending apocalypse begins. Presumably, everyone (or very, very many people, anyway) dies, and then a new great dragon is summoned from the chaos to bring order and allow existence to start over. The Arisen defeats the calamity, optionally challenges for the seat of Seneschal, and then another dragon is born to represent all the latent chaos of the universe, ad infinitum.

Which means we were right in thinking the cycle can't truly be ended. My only question now is: who becomes Seneschal after the chaos reality starts? Is it whoever fights that final supermassive dragon? Or is there another, secret step?

Bring me some story DLC please.

[reliquiaen]

Dear Respawn Entertainment,

Since I know you'll insist on putting those horrible traversal challenges in your inevitable Jedi Part III, please consider doing one of those pan shots like in older 3D platformers where you can see the whole level and the rough path to take. Because as they are, the traversal tears are nightmarish creations that really force people to experience your namesake to learn the paths. Perhaps the camera pan could be a lower difficulty setting option for those of us who aren't masochists.

Thanks

[reliquiaen]

the default dark urge pale dragonborn model IS in the game actually i found him. not as a companion, sure, but still cool lil touch. wish it was possible to speak with dead with him

[reliquiaen]

i've slept on it. here's my alien romulus review

Alien Romulus

Starting with the callbacks and references to other movies, I have to say: I don’t tend to enjoy that, personally. It makes it feel like the movie wasn’t confident in itself enough to be able to stand on its own and the references often come across as a crutch. That said, the only reference in Romulus that felt gratuitous to me was when Andy saved Rain and said “stay away from her, you bitch”, but that moment was cool enough, and I liked Andy enough, that I just enjoyed it. Plus it’s a cool line and David Jonsson’s delivery was perfectly in character so it came off more fun than insecure.

The set design was very visually similar to Alien and Alien: Isolation and the opening scene with the ship coming online was, if not a shot-for-shot recreation, a clear reference to the opening of Alien. This could’ve felt like a bad way to start the movie – being too similar to something else runs the risk of failing to establish its own identity – but frankly, it was so nice to see the same chunky tech tying everything together, and it utilised the atmosphere super well to set up that creeping, slow terror, especially with the combination of close-up shots on the computer screen and the wide, empty shots of space – it perfectly juxtaposed the two scariest parts of the Alien franchise: the claustrophobic interiors where anything can be hiding, and the vast uncaring space outside. A lot of the shots inside the Romulus station were clearly inspired by the game Isolation, too, but not to the movie’s detriment. Isolation was fucking terrifying  and the movie capitalised on that nicely. There was a shot looking down an escalator that launched me back to playing Isolation and the fear of not knowing what was around the corner, or up the hallway, or in the next room and the movie used these hallway shots to the same effect.

Ian Holm’s cameo was fun. The special effects and CGI were not. Obviously they couldn’t get him back (rest in peace), and they wanted to use the same android model for effect, and it worked! But yeah, yikes, the CGI was bad, especially at first. You can say the slippery way his face looked like his skin was sliding around was an artistic choice to show how damaged the android’s body was but I don’t believe that for a second. What I will say is that they used this new android, Rook, really well. His explanation for what happened to the xenomorph they found (and I have no idea how that xenomorph was within the wreckage of the Nostromo when Ripley ejected it from the Narcissus pretty far away from the Nostromo and also after it had self-destructed but whatever) and, importantly, WHY THEY WANTED IT. Oh my god, the vague “they want it for the military uses” is super annoying and that was the only logic we’ve ever gotten about why Weyland-Yutani was so interested in the alien in like forty years. But the set-up and pay-off of this reveal was beautiful. We saw in the opening scenes of the movie that life on other worlds was hard and dangerous and thousands die and people are exploited and it’s horrible. And then giving Weyland-Yutani this “we actually want to help people adapt to harsher environments” as a perfectly noble goal that got twisted by capitalism, but this movie is set like… in the in-between. Before the capitalist dogs ruin the science. This movie is the beat before the fall and that’s… so great. So different.

This reveal did two things very nicely: it tied together the stupid and ridiculous genealogy crap from Prometheus and Covenant (I don’t like those movies and I won’t pretend to) with the other, better movies. If we disregard David’s attempts at playing god (and believe me, I do my best at this every day) then this whole ordeal with the alien was simply that they are highly adaptive due to the black goo (chemical [stupid designation here] – 15) and the company wants to use that to help humanity (be easier to exploit) survive in space. Makes sense! Alien mutations are a nasty by-product, unfortunately, just need to perfect the science.

The main thing that bothered me with this movie was the… white man alien at the end. It was very inspired by the Newborn in Resurrection which I also did not like. (I enjoyed the CONCEPT of the Newborn, but the visuals were just… not great to my mind, not even in the satisfying body horror kind of way, either, just… kind of ugh and meh and wtf did you do to his nose?) This was the same but reversed: a human gives birth to a part-xeno-part-human child and faces the consequences. (And why did Kay even inject herself anyway, she was going into cryo she didn’t need it, she’s just fucking stupid.) Given what happened to the rat in that box, I was expecting (and hoping) Kay would have some sort of horrendous lumpy mutation burst out of her skin and ruin her but leave her alive in this Scorn kind of way (trapped in a fleshy and dysfunctional body, aware but unable to do anything, knowing you did this to yourself and also that you have no way to revert it, perhaps even hurting those close to you and having to watch that happen, helpless to stop it). But no. Birthing an acidic vag-pod was… fun and distressing, obviously, but I didn’t find the slenderman looking white-boy very scary at all. It landed squarely in the uncanny valley, for sure, but idk the design just didn’t do it for me. And I understand the fun part of this: the horror of childbirth (Kay had a lot of that going on, after watching Navarro give birth from her chest and DIE, she was not having a very nice pre-childbirth experience), the visceral rejection she felt, the child eating the mother, that was all very nice, very intense, loved it. (I’m one of those weirdoes who thinks that the predalien turning that lady’s pregnancy into alien: quintuplets was extremely fun and I’ve always wanted to see that expanded upon.) But Kay herself didn’t seem to have any adverse reaction to being injected with the goo, only her baby. I wanted her to have a negative reaction, I wanted Rain to have to face her down, I wanted a little of that ‘Romulus killed his brother to found Rome’ energy here. (And it would’ve tied in nicely with what Rook said about humans having too many emotions and not wanting to believe the best choice is to kill someone. Make Rain face that herself!!)

Otherwise this movie was a fucking masterclass and I enjoyed every second. The visuals, the sound design, the practical effects, the – and I cannot stress this enough – the CAMERWORK. The slow rolls of the camera to mimic the zero gravity? The close-ups on the horribleness so we definitely don’t miss a second of what’s going on? Outstanding. The grungy, drippy, dampness of everything was 10/10, the alien having a vaginal-themed chrysalis (thank you, I’ve waited years for this moment), the cattle prod going into it and coming out melted? Yes, oh my god, yes. The tail spine emerging slowly? And piercing back? OH MY GOD, YES!

The inherent horror of watching your brother become a monster and having to save him from himself? Andy’s part in this movie was so fucking stellar I’m in love with it. David Jonsson absolutely stole the show for me. The symbolism of it all; if you drink from the capitalist wellspring, you become a monster who doesn’t care about anyone, not even those who you counted as family. The moment when he clapped his hand over his ear to stop Rain from removing the chip? How many people have to deal with family members who have drunk the Kool-Aid and won’t hear different? This was that on screen.

And I have to say, this was the best cast of characters an Alien movie has had in… idk a while. They actually felt like distinct people with some personality which was refreshing considering Covenant had a bland bunch of faceless people I couldn’t tell apart and didn’t care about anyway. This movie knocked that one out of the water, it’s really a night-and-day comparison. Even though none of the characters in Romulus had super-fleshed out backstories, they were all going through something and had distinct arcs: Rain and Andy struggling to get off-world and not end up like their parents, Kay’s pregnancy being a secret, Bjorn losing his mum to Android Logic™, Tyler feeling like he has the burden of keeping them all alive and together and failing. Navarro died first, she had the least characterisation, and I don’t mind that, but she at least had on-screen presence and was memorable for what happened. Her last words “don’t let me die” whispered in such a pitiful way because she knows she’s going to die but that’s not really what she’s asking, she doesn’t want to be forgotten. Like. That’s heartbreaking. And she WAS memorable because of it, not just as the pilot or the one who did the cool thing with the xray light.

The zero-grav scene where Rain shot all the xenos in the hallway was extremely fun and novel and NEW, having to navigate through a maze of acid blood wasn’t just a cool visual, it tied nicely into the themes: they were navigating the metaphorical acid maze that Weyland-Yutani left behind. And oh, the continual conflict of going back for someone versus saving yourself? That was good. Bjorn leaving everyone else behind to save Navarro, Tyler watching Kay get alien-napped and then going back for her later, Rain going back for Andy directly into the alien nest. Bravo.  

Overall, I had a blast with this movie, it was really good. Definitely the best Alien movie in a long time. I felt it missed a few opportunities, especially at the end, I appreciate the effect they were going for with the Offspring creature but it felt like a miss to me when they could’ve done something fun with turning Kay into a monster and continuing the thread about humans trying to save each other. Maybe the Offspring will grow on me with a rewatch, like how the Newborn did, but eh. Was a good movie regardless.

[reliquiaen]

Well I finished Horizon Forbidden West (dlc included) today. The quality of life improvements were very good, I have absolutely abused the bottomless storage space. Not sure how I feel about the story though. I have... issues with it.

[reliquiaen]

Alrighty! A bit late, but here's my gaming roundup of 2024. All the games I played (or, well, most of them, the important ones) and my general thoughts on each. You can see last year's here!

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GAMES I LOVED!

Shadow Gambit The Cursed Crew:

This game was utterly magnificent. I didn’t have time to play it when it released in 2023 but it was so so worth it. The characters were so charming (I did not expect them to all be fully voiced but the whole game was! Outstanding!) and all their abilities were so much fun. I was consistently in a position where I was doing a mission and thinking ‘damn wish I had X character with me, that one ability of theirs would be helpful’ and it didn’t matter who I took with me, this was a constant thing. The levels were gorgeous and well laid-out, I do so enjoy this kind of stealth puzzle game, really I have no notes. Gameplay, art style, the fun quick save mechanic to rewind time, the characters, the story, the whole thing, top to bottom was a 10/10 from me. Might be my first real foray into this genre and it’s absolutely one of my faves, I’m keeping my eyes out for other games like it going forward. (2024 gave me Sumerian Six which I haven’t had a chance to play yet but it’s first cab off the rank 2025, you better believe.)

Planet of Lana:

Nice short little game – I enjoy those in between longer ones – with a delightful art style, Mui is there (love that guy). I’m not usually big on platformers, I find many of them require such precise inputs that they stop being fun and start being work, but Planet of Lana was more of a puzzle/platformer than a hardcore struggle. The visuals and world were so pretty, as well, I would love to know more about the world. Fully recommend this one if you’ve got a bit of time on your hands. (The achievements are 99% fine and cool to get but the not dying at all one is ROUGH buddy, avoid.)

Dragon’s Dogma II:

Game of the year for me. I know a lot of the criticisms about this one were for the microtransactions (which are absolutely pointless, you can earn it all in-game), the lack of monster variety (it’s about the same as the original base game, I do hope they add more in a DLC like they did with the first game), and the story being half-baked (a fair point, it was no better done than the first one, though they did seem to try at the start to have more plot). Oh, and the constant back-tracking, tedium of traversal and limited fast travel, which is like… half the point of the game anyway. Idk, I loved it because it was more of what I loved most about the first game. I enjoyed the hell out of its impenetrable mess of a story and the philosophical nonsense and it had a much chunkier end game with the Unmoored World (though I do wish you could hang out there longer and weren’t at the mercy of the time limit). Great character customisation, great classes, great combat, the pawn system was much improved. I had a blast with this one; DD2 and Shadow Gambit were the only two games this year I kept playing after 100%ing.

Kamaeru A Frog Refuge:

Cozy city builder wetlands repairer with adorable colourful frogs? Literally what the fuck that’s amazing! The story wasn’t anything amazing but lbr you’re not playing this for a deep and meaningful tale, you’re here for the fabulous art style and that really was the star of the show. The frog breeding was surprisingly not as tedious and horrible as I was expecting and decorating the areas was like… so satisfying? Without being super annoying and frustrating and grindy? Absolute gem of a game.

Star Wars Jedi Survivor:

Waited ages for this one to be in a playable state and I still wasn’t entirely sure my computer would run it or that it would be optimised enough not to crash all the time. But I risked it when it was on sale and it ran fine. Was definitely worth avoiding spoilers for, this was an improvement on the first game in every sense. The traversal challenge tears were annoying as all hell, and the sheer number of collectibles was… trying, but when movement is that satisfying it’s not the most annoying thing in the world. Exploring was a good time, the side quests were charming, combat was way more flexible with the different stances (I thought for sure that’d annoy the shit out of me but no, it was just really cool to be able to have these focused ways to build Cal out.) I’m not sure how it’ll run on most systems, but my laptop is getting long in the tooth so I’d say if you can grab it cheap, you might as well, the story was rock solid.

Dredge The Iron Rig DLC:

This was more of the exact awesomeness from the last two instalments. I’m really enjoying how they’re expanding the world out and I will keep devouring each new section as long as they’re willing to provide more. More creepy fish, more relaxing minigames, more variety in biomes, more eldritch monstrosities. This game is honestly such a masterpiece that was made special just for me, I love it.

Still Wakes The Deep:

Banger of a game. Walking simulator, yes. But the atmosphere, the horrors, the creeping around to avoid the tentacle beasts, the weird pulsating flesh plant. The not knowing how much is real and how much is the Dread sinking in already. Is Caz an unreliable narrator because he’s hallucinating from the horrors? Are we experiencing things accurately? Is the ending literal or is there room for interpretation? Who knows! Really fucking enjoyed this. Normal ass person versus incomprehensible horrors the sneaking simulator is a genre I’m really starting to believe we need to embrace as a culture. (I’m hoping to try Nobody Wants To Die at some point in 2025 solely because Still Wakes The Deep was so good and convinced me to try it.)

Sea of Solitude:

This was a lovely little 3d platformer about depression and moving on and forgiveness. It was cute and sweet and felt very personal since you were unravelling all the traumas and issues the main character has with her family. There’s this huge idea that loneliness/isolation turns you into a monster and that plays out visually in some wonderful ways. Definitely have a look at it if you’ve got a few spare hours and enjoy that style of game.

Duck Detective The Secret Salami:

Gruff duck solves silly crime in an office building? Charming characters, you get to decide the outcome. I am literally so chuffed to find out there’s a sequel coming 2025. I will be all over that when it releases.

Alien Isolation:

Can you believe I preordered this and then spent an entire decade procrastinating actually playing it? Because that’s the truth. I have the Scout xenomorph items in TF2 to prove it. I was such a fucking scaredy cat about playing this game but I finally got my shit together and played it this year and omg. 1) I was right to be piss scared, and 2) I am SO GLAD I finally played it, what a masterpiece. The alien is my best friend and the working joes can fucking die. Nina Taylor deserved better. I need to know if Verlaine survived (I would also like to own her shirt, something I would unironically wear). Literally this game is a masterpiece I have no notes. As a fan of everything Alien, this was the exact game I have always wanted. Now I just need a game that lets me properly live out the fantasy of being the xenomorph and murder hoboing my way through a settlement or something and worshipping my queen mother. I think it’s my favourite kind of horror game when the combat is pretty minimal and you’re encouraged to avoid the big bad rather than confront it. I know there’s a Jurassic Park game in this style coming and an Isolation 2 which I will hopefully not put off for a decade this time.

Tiny Glade:

Haven’t played very much of this game yet but it’s absolutely charming and delightful. The building mechanics are so smooth and the 1.0 build does a lot that I felt was missing in the beta (I did play a lot of the beta). This is gonna be a very important relaxation game this year after work I can feel it.

Dragon Age Inquisition:

This is a replay; when this released originally back in 2014 I played it and vigorously disliked it. I didn’t really like Inquisition in comparison to Origins or II, I liked the characters less, the story felt fairly uninteresting, and the combat was more action-focused which I bounced off of at the time. Replaying it in 2024 and 100% all the achievements and DLC (which I didn’t have the first time round and didn’t go back to when they dropped), I’m having a more positive experience but I do still think of this as the weakest Dragon Age game.

I still don’t feel as invested in any of the characters like I was in Origins or II – returning characters are bringing baggage with them, the version of Leliana and Morrigan I left in Origins are not quite the same as the ones I’m meeting here and although I love them both, it’s a weird feeling to be interacting with them again like this. Cullen has annoyed me for 10 years and the more heroic version of him presented here compounds that, I will never forgive him. Varric and Cassandra are fine. I enjoy Vivienne and Dorian and Sera and Blackwall a moderate amount. I enjoy having them on my squad to hear them banter, but I otherwise have very little interest in them. I think Blackwall had a really interesting personal story but I don’t think enough has been done with it and that’s a shame. I find Sera a bit one-note in that she’s defined by her humour and “incomprehensibility” which bugs me because I find it hard to imagine how friendships work with her outside a very limited sort of personality match (and how come she’s the only character we’ve ever met who talks like that?). My point is I don’t feel like these characters were afforded quite the same depth as previous sets of companions and that’s where I derive the majority of my enjoyment in these sorts of games. If I’m not invested in the characters around me and I can’t picture my protagonist being friends with them (regardless of, or in spite of, personality differences) then you’ve lost me. I have romanced Sera, Blackwall, and Josephine in various playthroughs and at no point did I feel like this was… important to my character, let’s say.

The gameplay has grown on me. I miss spirit healer for mages, but the variety of new stuff for archers and melee characters is very satisfying, and as I’ve played a wider variety of games with a breadth of different combat styles, I find myself appreciating Inquisition’s combat more. That’s really all I have to say. It’s more engaging in a moment-to-moment way, it’s a bit more hands-on when you try out companion skillsets, and being able to respec skill points to try out new things is always my preference. I played a rogue (leaning heavily into bow and arrow) and a mage (knight enchanter) and had a lot of fun with both.

The story still isn’t much to write about. Corypheus reminds me a lot of the hoop-headed guy from Andromeda whose name I always forget: I’ve played Inquisition twice now and I’m still not sure why they made him the villain when there were plenty of other things to focus on. The fallout of Anders’ actions not the least of them. I enjoyed the world-ending threat of the Blight in Origins, and I enjoyed the more grounded people-driven conflict of II, Inquisition felt like it was trying to have the best of both and failed because of its indecision. At least to me. I know Corypheus was set up in II and that his lore was clarified and all that and it’s interesting in its own way (Sera’s reaction to elf gods and the Maker both being real is the highlight, I think) but for the most part Corypheus felt – TO ME – like a sort of unnecessary stepping stone on the way to something else.

Replaying it, I enjoyed it more, but a lot of my original gripes haven’t changed. I still think the story was a disservice to the set up from DA2, I still think Corypheus was a villain with very little to compel him, I didn’t fall in love with any of the new characters. The regions were large and empty and the crafting was tedious because of how much farming you had to do. In the ten years since it released, I have come around on a few points, there are some subtle narrative beats that have merit, I like the Inquisitor themselves as a protagonist more than I did initially, and so forth.

Dragon Age Veilguard:

Is DAI still the weakest now that Veilguard is out? Idk to be quite honest. I enjoyed the characters, traversal, and combat in this game way more than DAI’s offering. But the story and writing was much weaker overall. The art style is not the problem I have with the game, I think it’s fine, actually; but the intense therapy-speak and lack of any real depth and nuance is a real slap in the face. None of the characters are actually allowed to be stupid or mean or make mistakes on screen. Sometimes they refer to mistakes they’ve made or bad things they’ve done, but it’s all filed back and polished to a marketable shine that really peeves me. I don’t need Dragon Age to look gritty and dark, but I would love to see it return some of that complex grey morality that so defined it in the first two games. I miss being able to encourage my teammates (or myself) to make horrible choices, to be horrible people. I miss the ‘no right choices’ of DA2 in that nothing you do really matters it all sucks in the end; and I miss the ‘no right choices’ of DAO in which there’s no black and white to be seen only shades of grey and the justifications you tell yourself to help you sleep at night. I enjoyed Veilguard, but it’s not the Dragon Age game I wanted and I’m starting to think we’ll never get another one.

I feel like I have more to say about DATV, but not the energy or interest to really bother. Most things have been said already and more eloquently by other people. I wasn't as disappointed with the game as I was afraid I would be, but it also didn't exactly blow me away. It was a solid 6/10 RPG game, but a pretty lousy 1/10 as far as Dragon Age goes.

Jurassic World Evolution 2:

I now have all the many, many DLCs for this so I started it before Christmas but haven’t finished it yet. So far it’s a lot of improvements on the first game, a lot more dinosaurs and a few of my faves added. I’m absolutely loving the aquatic environments and the greater flexibility the aviaries/lagoons have in this one. The lagoon decorations still suck though and there are a lot of little design things I wish were added. But overall it’s just more dinosaurs and that’s all I’m here for.

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GAMES I’M MIXED ON!

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth:

I think this might’ve been my most played game of the year? Weirdly? Ended up with 200+ hrs in it and I STILL didn’t even finish both halves of the story. I finished Cyber Sleuth but not Hacker’s Memory and at this point I don’t know if I have the strength to go back and do it. I love Digimon and I love this game. I love doing all the work to evolve-devolve-evolve my Digimon into the perfect fighting machine. I love having my faves follow me around everywhere. But MAN the grinding to get anywhere is rough buddy and idk if I have it in me to do that again for Hacker’s Memory. We’ll see. Cyber Sleuth was a blast though and if nothing else I’m glad to have finished it finally.

Horizon Forbidden West:

I wrote about all my many mixed feelings on HFW here earlier so if you wanna read more specifically, have a look. Otherwise, the gameplay improvements, QOL additions (bottomless storage my beloved), and new machines were fantastic. I enjoyed Aloy’s story arc this time around and liked (to various degrees) the new characters that were introduced. The overarching story was a massive whump for me though, just didn’t hit right. Read my other post for the nitty gritty. I’m not as excited about the inevitable sequel as I might’ve been before playing but I’ll still watch out for it with cautious… No, that’s it. I’ll watch cautiously. Maybe they can make part 3 something more narratively enjoyable but I won’t hold my breath.

The Shore:

Another walking sim but not as good by far as SWTD. It was obviously made with a much smaller team and budget, but it still tells an interesting story through a Lovecraftian lens and has a good ocean horror vibe. Some parts were frustrating due to the clunky mechanics and lack of any kind of explanation as to what needs to be done, but it was fine, not a waste of two hours or anything.

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GAMES I DIDN’T ENJOY!

Pyre:

It was nice. Really pretty art style and I love the animation, Supergiant always makes such good looking games. I simply did not vibe with the weird soccer gameplay. As my brother so wisely put it: “Supergiant just ain’t the dev for [me].”

Grime:

Look. Listen. Buddy. This is a metroidvania and I’ve LEARNED that they are not the genre for me. I know that. But the VIBES!! I had to give it a go and I enjoyed what I played! The art style is excellent, the combat was chunky and satisfying, the biomes were delightfully weird and grotesque. It was great. Just not for me.

Sunless Sea:

You see, I didn’t realise this was going to be sorta rogue-like in nature, I thought it was story driven, a slow adventure with detailed management mechanics. But no. It’s a live, die, repeat from the beginning deal and I am just not interested in that gameplay loop.

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Onward to 2025! I've already got about 8 games ready to go and I want to finish JWE2 in January so wish me luck!

[reliquiaen]

good to see Rook won't be locked to human and that respeccing your class and skills is possible. amen

[reliquiaen]

so i finished dragon's dogma 2 and i'm very emotional. as expected.

i have many thoughts, but foremost among them are musings on the pathfinder. and the dragon. and... i have a lot of thoughts. will put them coherently at some point

it was an excellent game though. absolutely everything i'd hoped for. can't wait to do a ng+ run

[reliquiaen]

Okay, my Dragon's Dogma 2 thoughts. This is not a review, this is me figuring out the story and its meanings, how it connects to the first game, what it answers, and what questions I still want to know answers to.

'Ware of spoilers 'neath the divide.

“Abandon all illusions of control.” – Grigori

First: some words from our original Seneschal, Savan.

“Show that you’ve the strength to break the yoke that binds you.” – Savan encourages the Arisen to challenge him and rise above the role asigned them to become Seneschal. It always comes back to this idea of willpower being the driving factor of power and accomplishment.

“I command all life into existence.” – He creates a copy of the Arisen, demonstrating that he creates life.

“The world thirsts for the will to live.” – The world requires a strong will to hold it together and give it order, give it purpose and life. It’s the will of an Arisen that drives the world and all existence. With a weak will, nothing happens and nothing is overcome. Which is why all the tests are in place: to ensure only an Arisen of exceptional will can become Seneschal.

“Show that your will is fit to bind the fraying circle of this world and hold it fast.”

“Will you claim your right as Arisen, or shrug the burden and seek peace in oblivion.”

“The forge of my heart grows cold, and the world shivers for it.” – Over time – an eternity of it – even the most steadfast and determined Arisen grow weary and falter in their duty. Savan was Seneschal for so long that he’s become tired (he’s experiencing burnout, as you would if you were caretaker of an entire world for millennia), hence his search for a replacement.

“May you guide the world ever justly.” – These words are interesting specifically because they give insight to Savan’s character and I’m going to come back to these in relation to the Pathfinder.

The assumption I'm working with: The Pathfinder is Seneschal.

On the left, Savan from the first game; on the right, Pathfinder from DD2. They are wearing similar robes. There are colour differences, yes, but I put those down to graphics and mood/disposition. The 'world beyond the rift' looks very similar in both cases, but no screenshots because it's essentially just a big empty void with a thin layer of water for a floor. (The Brine lives in the water. I'll come back to that.)

Things about the Unnamed Sequel Dragon:

“If thou seekest to behold this world in its true aspect, abandon thy reason. Cast aside thine heart and thy life both.” – Unnamed Dragon (at the start of the game)

“Naught but thine ambition can alter the course of the rivers of fate.” – Heard at the start of the game and then again at the end if you refuse to sit on the throne, implying that the opening of the game in first person is actually your Arisen being crowned at the end but without the context of the events of the game.

Upon being defeated the dragon says, “perhaps thine will is strong enough to put an end to it,” which is interesting because it suggests that the dragon IS an agent of chaos and wants the destruction of the cycle which would lead to the unravelling of reality and all existence as we know it. But the dragon is merely a failed Arisen (which we learn in the first game, unless that’s no longer the case in the sequel) fulfilling the duty given them. Not a villain in the typical sense, but an obstacle to be overcome for the good of the world.

Who was this dragon before they were a dragon? That's always what I want to know. Why are they unnamed? (I do like to imagine they might be our Arisen from the first game in a dimension where they failed to beat Savan, but I doubt that would work in a timeline.) How long have they been the dragon? At the end, it looks like the Pathfinder can simply summon a dragon from nothing, so are the rules about failed Arisen becoming dragons different in this game? Where are the wyverns and wyrms from the first game, also, we only have drakes and lesser dragons in this. (I would sincerely love to see those big worm things from the post-game in the main world in NG+ and also proper two-legged wyverns, that would be awesome.)

Things about the Pathfinder:

“You must jump. That is the only path forward.” – The Pathfinder helps you escape the prison camp at the start, encourages you to ‘fulfil your destiny’. The griffin might have even been put there by him for this purpose. Since we see Savan create a copy of the Arisen in the first game, and there are several examples of the Pathfinder creating situations to benefit their goals (presumably*) it makes sense that they could have created the circumstances to ensure a griffin would be there to carry the Arisen to safety. The is especially compelling when taking into account that the griffin didn’t attack the people on the cliffside, it just left, which makes it seem like it, too, was simply fulfilling its duty.

*When the Pathfinder appears in Ambrosius’ study, Ambrosius can’t see him but you can. Then he changes Ambrosius’ mind, demonstrating control over someone, which is what Savan was doing in the first game. We also see the Pathfinder rewind time at least once, by putting you back onto the dragon’s back so you can godsbane it.

“Learn aught you can of this world you must protect.” – Pathfinder wants you to fulfil your role within the cycle, but not to challenge the ‘natural order’, which is counter to Savan encouraging you to challenge him in the first game.

“It is my wish that you should live out that life of purpose.” – This, too, suggests that the Pathfinder doesn’t want you to take their place as Seneschal, but to do what an Arisen is intended to do. This is why we don’t get a chance to fight them, why they show us the world without a Seneschal to safeguard life. Perhaps this is different because this Pathfinder is more vindictive and selfish, more ambitious, more inclined to defend what they see as their ‘right’ to godhood than Savan was. Or perhaps they are simply a newly instated Seneschal (comparative to Savan), someone who hasn’t spent thousands of years as custodian of reality and so doesn’t need to be replaced yet. Their will, then, would keep them in power because they would WANT it. This creates an interesting concept for me, in that a Seneschal doesn’t have to step down if someone of stronger will challenges them, they can simply rewrite the world to change the situation.

While Savan came across as a benevolent god-ruler, the Pathfinder strikes me as far more spiteful. He doesn't seem as if he really cares all that much about things generally, but more that he simply likes being in control and will do anything to keep that power. Savan said, "May you guide the world ever justly," and stepped down as Seneschal gracefully. But when you pursue this Pathfinder (on the assumption that you'll get to challenge him the same as you could challenge Savan), you instead get him saying that you are stepping out of bounds.

Now, I personally play a character I like to consider neutral-evil in disposition, and bumping up against the Pathfinder felt like meeting someone very similar. Someone who acquired this position and simply refuses to give it up because no one else can be trusted to do their job. This is such an interesting contrast to Savan, and I do love the possibility that this Seneschal still has the will to keep the world going, keep the cycle spinning, as it were.

Things about Rothais:

“Time and again have you sent unto me your minions. Yet repel them I have, and so I shall anew, till I might claim the true world as mine own.” – Rothais and the Pathfinder clearly hate each other, but neither has been able to defeat the other completely. Perhaps Rothais was a proper challenger for the position of Seneschal and was punished in a different way because the Pathfinder couldn’t defeat him? (This does not make much sense, but you never know.) Rothais sits on a throne the same as the one Savan sat on in the first game, the Seneschal’s throne. He appears not dead nor alive, but the same wispy sort of spirit image as the Pathfinder, but darker.

“The flesh may rot; the soul fragment. Yet power – power endures.” – This implies that Rothais was an Arisen of such will that time couldn’t kill him – he simply refused to die.

He seems to know more about the cycle than most, but not the entire story. He says, “could ne’er hope to fell the dragon, let alone the watching one,” which suggests that he is aware the dragon is a pawn of the Seneschal.

The godsway are made of broken Arisen souls. The godsbane blade is made of a pure Arisen soul. He pulls a godsbane from his chest, same as Savan does in the first game. Rothais was an Arisen, but he turns his soul into a godsbane, which is something we have only ever seen Savan do as Seneschal. But he’s NOT the Seneschal because he is wary of ‘the watching one’. He says, “the ages have taken their toll; ‘tis as withered as mine own flesh,” so perhaps the ability to create a godsbane from one’s soul is a skill only for the Arisen and time wears away at an Arisen's soul regardless of whether they become Seneschal. Is the purpose of the godsbane for one Arisen to kill another? Is it meant only as a physical manifestation of their unbreakable will? We use Savan’s soul to kill him in the first game, but our own soul remains intact, which is perhaps important to the bestowal of spirit? But in this game, we use Rothais’ soul to kill ??? Ourself? The dragon?? The Pathfinder??? Unclear.

In the post-game: He says he defeated a dragon once and created Vermund afterwards. So he was a successful Arisen in that respect. He says he “ruled the world entire” and that’s how he “came to know of the watching one” which suggests to me that he was a mortal Arisen with very lofty ambitions. It also suggests that this particular Seneschal (the Pathfinder) was in the role before Rothais became Arisen. (So how long ago was that? How ‘new’ are these nations? What happened to Gransys? Anyway.) He forged a mortal empire and ruled it, but because he wanted more power, more everything, he maybe encroached onto the Seneschal’s territory as ruler of the world. He wanted to challenge the Seneschal but was denied the opportunity. Then a new Arisen must have cursed him somehow with the Seneschal’s blessing because he says the watching one sent an Arisen to imprison him in the Seafloor Shrine. So, if he's not the Seneschal, he must be cursed, but why would the Pathfinder want him around?

I do so wish we had a nice little trail of breadcrumbs to piece a timeline together. Because Lamond's there too, being an ex-Arisen, and we know nothing about him. We don't see him in the little collection of character epilogues at the end, so I assume he died when his heart was returned to him, but we don't know for sure and I would really like to know.

General concluding thoughts:

The post-game, then, is a glimpse of what a world would look like with the cycle broken: no Seneschal to keep the world whole and sensible, everything falls apart. Without a guide, all falls to ruin. This properly answers the question left at the end of the first game: What happens if you break the cycle? The end of days happens, good to know.

OR was this simply what the Pathfinder wants you to think? Did they show this vision of the world to the dragon we fight to get him to back down? Were they an Arisen also who gave in and were turned into a dragon by the Pathfinder? Or are the rules different here?

Right at the end, in the final cutscene, the Pathfinder claims that the dragon is meant to embody all the chaos and destruction that we witnessed in the unmoored world. That instead of constant chaos and disaster all the time threatening to destroy all life, we get a single great dragon to ravage the land once every few years (or however long) in order to keep the world whole. A single cycling and defeatable calamity instead of an unending deluge of them that cannot be stopped. And the Arisen, selected to defeat the calamity – the dragon – and grant the world safety and peace for a time afterwards. With the Pathfinder – the Seneschal – to guide and watch and safeguard (?).

“A new world comes. A new tale is set to unfold. Yet it seems I will not be there to watch it.” – So did we kill the Pathfinder (Seneschal) after all? Guess I’ll find out when I do NG+. But it does seem as though the Pathfinder was killed alongside that giant dragon we stabbed with the godsbane at the end. And also that our Arisen vanished, the state of the world is restored and people seem to remember our actions but we - the Arisen - are no longer there. Perhaps we became the new Seneschal? I do so hope that when you get to endgame in NG+ that it's the same as in the first one, with your previous Arisen acting as the Pathfinder, but I doubt it.

Perhaps unrelated: when the Gigantus is powered back up in the post-game, your pawn is sucked into it through the empty eye socket and when that happens, they get the glowing red eyes and writhing purple/red aura that happens when they have the dragonsplague and they get drawn in by tentacles like the brine. So what is the significance of the dragonsplague? Is the brine the dragonsplague infecting pawns to create more chaos and destruction? Is the brine the destructive force the Pathfinder is keeping in check? And what was the Gigantus originally created for? Is it powered by the brine? Are the dragons/wyrms in the post-game that glow and pulse like that (and the lesser dragons also) infected with the dragonsplague? Are the enemies with glowing eyes?

Was the infection taking hold of our pawn at the end a final attempt to break the cycle? Is the brine using the “empty vessels” of the pawns to try and create that apocalyptic version of the world the Pathfinder showed us? Was the will of our pawn – as imbued by us – enough to fight the infection off? Is that why they tried to kill the dragon?

So good to know this game has left me with as many existential questions as the first!

[reliquiaen]

so i just came up out of the seafloor shrine and oh my god

it was the palace in gran soren from the first game! im not crying you're crying

[reliquiaen]

ive been following judy's van around night city for like 20 mins and have concluded this girl doesn't know how to get home