#the game has a main story line but rewards you for exploring

[scarletfish]

"8-10 hours" baby I can stretch this eldritch fishing game out forever.

I'm shooting for day 365. I'm hitting that one year anniversary. maybe the shady mayor will throw me a little party. I worked in a call center the Horrors don't scare me

[notebooks-and-laptops]

How to Formulate Companion Quests: Why a Lack of Theming and Overstressed Game Mechanics Got In The Way

Dragon Age: The Veilguard's companions are a lovable bunch, and it doesn't suprise me that the companions each already have a loyal and dedicated fanbase.

And yet, I do think that while I love the characters their personal storylines and quests are rather lacking. This comes down to two main issues that I want to explore in depth here: mechanics and a lack of overall theming.

So framing and mechanics; the game stresses to the player after you fail to kill the Ghilan'nain that the companions all have personal issues they need to solve to be ready to fight Ghilan'nain. The game then ascribes a tick box exercise; if you complete a companions quest then you'll get some extra swag gear and they'll get an extra cool bonus ability, as well as a nice symbol next to their tarot card.

This not only breaks immersion, but quite literally makes the companion quests an obstacle to overcome in order for you to complete the main quest. You're rewarded for completing the quests fully by making you better equipped to fight.

This by itself wouldn't have made the companion quests feel so empty of meaning, but linked to this comes the issue that Veilguard has with theming and villians.

The companion quests aren't really tied to the main story in any real way. Hardings is kind of tied to revelations you learn in the main story, but its more the lore implications than the actual current struggle against the Gods. Taash is supposedly fighting a mini-boss of Ghilan'nain but again the link between the Dragon King and Ghilan'nain is only revealed after you get to the final boss fight. The other companions are quite literally distracted by things not important to the main quest of destorying the Gods.

This is, by itself, fine. You don't neccessarily need companion quests to be linked to the main quest in order for them to feel like they're an integral part of the game. But what you do need is the companion quests to feel thematically relevant to the game.

When we were told this game was going to be about regret, I was very excited. Dragon Age has given us wonderful overarching themes before (for example, all your companions and you are in some way Dead in DAO). But none of the companion quests...actually heavily feature regret or mirror our bad guys or anti-heros struggle except for maybe Bellaras?

Harding doesn't regret touching the lyrium dagger or anything in her past. Davrin might regret losing the griffins but its more 'i need to get them back' than 'i actually did something bad that i regret'. Lucanis was locked away, and maybe he regrets his deal with spite? but it doesn't come up the way Anders/Justice's regrets and issues do. Neve regrets...nothing? Maybe 'getting her friend killed' but again, that's not actually her fault. Her theme is more about whether or not Dock Town really does need to change (a theme that's rendered kind of ridicious without Tevinter slavery being actually in the mix). Bellara regrets letting her brother die, but she didn't actually do anything that caused it the way Solas actively regrets, say, killing Mythal/Flemmeth. Emmrich's quests revolve around his fear of death. I guess he could regret not being a linch/letting manfred die, but he definitely doesn't seem to regret not becoming a lynch. Taash regrets not having it out with their mum after her quest is already over, but its not a main theme of her quest.

Now the quest line that actually works here? Is Davrins. Because while Davrin doesn't have anything to regret, Isseya does. Davrin's main villian is introduced early in the game, and is centred around Isseya who has become a monster and twisted figure of what she once was because she is tortured by the regret of blighting the griffins. This is an excellent plot! Because it mirrors the main themes of the game, and Solas's regrets too! We can feel genuinely sorry for her at the end.

But the other companion quests while fun feel like they're pulling you away from the main story, not bringing you into it. The other companion quests also only have villians that are introduced far too late in the game for us to feel a) threatened by them or b) actually care about them and very few of them have motivations beyond 'I'm evil hear me roar'. The companions who they've attempted to add regrets to - those regrets aren't 'real' in the sense that those companions are actually to blame for what happened the way Solas is the veil.

Besides Davrin, these companion quests are things that you have to overcome in order to get to the point you can do the main story, rather than a continuation of the themes of that story. They are literal distractions from the main story and then they are framed that way both in word and mechanic by the game. I feel like if they hadn't stressed this so much in the mechanics it wouldn't feel as obvious so they might have gotten away with it...but instead its just glaring me in the face.

This is a crazy choice to me. It pushes the pacing way off, and makes their plots feel like chores. Maybe fun chores, but still just chores that must be completed before we can do what we're actually here to do.

[anneapocalypse]

Why I Love the Hinterlands

The Hinterlands in Dragon Age: Inquisition get kind of a bad rap, and for kind of understandable reasons. For anybody who doesn't know the story, some context. The Hinterlands are the first open world area that unlocks for the player, a vast and highly explorable map full of quests, worldbuilding, and NPCs. So what was the problem? The problem was that the Dragon Age series had set two games' worth of precedent that the player could get locked out of an area and lose access to sidequests and other content—and the devs seemed not to fully realize they were fighting this precedent, or how strong it was, until the game came out and completionist players were getting exhausted and annoyed running around this huge map trying frantically to knock out all the side content before moving on. We still make jokes about devs on twitter trying to tell players that they could leave the Hinterlands. Lines were later patched in for the starting companions urging the player to go to Val Royeaux and advance the plot; you'll hear those lines if you play the game today, but they weren't there in the beginning.

The game's executive producer Mark Darrah has even spoken about this problem in his Dragon Age: Inquisition Memories and Lessons video on YouTube. From a game design perspective I do not dispute this issue. It definitely represents an oversight in the way the area is presented to players and the context they are given for what they should do next.

All that said… I love the Hinterlands, and with every replay (I have beaten the game four times at this point) my appreciation for this area and what it brings to the story has deepened. And as recent polls have raised discussion about the merits of various maps, I've felt moved to rise to their defense, so... here's why I think the Hinterlands are Good Actually.

Every map in Inquisition has its own overarching story, introduced by Scout Harding when the map unlocks and revealing itself through exploration and completing the quests within. Crestwood has the story of the flood during the Blight. The Exalted Plains have the story of the Orlesian Civil War. The Hissing Wastes have the story of Fairel and the surface thaig. And so forth. For this reason, I've come to feel that once you've progressed far enough in the main quest to have collected most or all of your companions, the most rewarding way to experience each area is at one go, as much as possible. Popping in and out of maps to complete one quest at time is, in my opinion, really detrimental to exploration and makes it harder to see the big picture. This is also one place where I really appreciate the invisible approval meter, because it discourages me from always stacking my party to game approval, the way I pretty much always play DA2.

At first glance, the story of the Hinterlands is the story of the ongoing war between the rebel mages and the renegade templars. This is one reason the Inquisitor may go there: to make contact with the rebel mages. They have been offered refuge in Redcliffe and are presently entrenched in the castle and adjoining village; the templars continue to attack the mages' position, and thus there is concentrated fighting in this region. Splinter factions of both mages and templars are also entrenched elsewhere in the area.

But this is just the setup. What the Hinterlands is about, its real story, is the common people.

The Inquisitor is first sent to the Hinterlands to make contact with Mother Giselle, in hopes of gaining some Chantry support. Seeking her out requires the Inquisitor to fight their way through the conflict to reach the Crossroads, where many refugees have gathered.

In these big, sweeping stories about heroes and villains, I think it's easy for the perspectives of common people to get kind of lost. One thing I do appreciate about the Dragon Age series is that every game does make a real effort to give voice to the commoner perspective. Origins has its city elf and casteless dwarf origin stories, and the player encounters many commoners throughout the game and gets to hear a bit of their perspective. Dragon Age 2 wouldn't be Dragon Age 2 without Darktown and Lowtown and the elven alienage and our interactions with the people who inhabit those parts of the city. Oddly enough, though, every human character we've ever had the chance to play in Dragon Age has come from a noble family; sure, Hawke starts out living as a commoner, but doesn't stay that way for long.

In Inquisition especially, we don't have the option of a commoner prologue to really drive home that perspective and carry it through the story. And while a Dalish elf, a Carta dwarf, a qunari mercenary, and a Circle mage certainly live very different lives than a human noble, they also live very different lives than Giles the farmer—not necessarily more privileged, but still different, with differing priorities and different stakes in this conflict. Bron the farmhand has no reason to be at the Conclave; he's here mucking out stalls, knowing the horses still need to be fed even if there is a rift spewing demons over there in the middle of the neighbor's pasture. Elaina the farmer is putting away cabbages for winter and hoping the barn doesn't get burned down by a stray fireball. And Elaina is one of the fortunate ones: her family's home and livelihood are still intact, for now. The Crossroads now hold many ordinary people who through no fault of their own have lost their homes, their crops, even family members.

Theirs is the perspective we get in the Hinterlands.

You don't have to stick around for all that. You can take Mother Giselle’s advice immediately, go to Val Royeaux, go deal with bigger and more important things and people. You will need 4 Power to go to Val Royeaux, but Power is easy to come by. Close a few rifts, and you’re good to go. You don’t have to care about these refugees and their problems.

But you know, something I notice is that the founders of the Inquisition spend a whole lot of breath talking about "the people." How they have to restore order for the people. How the people are looking to us—to you, Your Worship. The people need you. The people need to believe in you. That’s why we’re raising an army and building a cult around you! For the people.

Well, here are the people.

And if you talk to the people at the Crossroads, it turns out that what they actually need is less faith in Andraste’s chosen, and more blankets for the cold nights, medicine for the sick and injured, and food so they don’t starve. They need the war ended and the Breach closed so that they can return to what’s left of their homes and salvage what crops and livestock they can.

It is easy to feel a bit smothered by the Inquisition’s overwhelming Andrastian-ness, especially when playing a character who has their own religious beliefs, or none at all. We have a lot of characters trying to tell us about the importance of faith—their faith, specifically. We’re told that the people need to believe, and that’s why we have to play the role of this figurehead. And you can run with that idea and play it straight, if you want to. But there is, in fact, a different story to be found here, if you want to look for it—a story told in the world itself and the people who who inhabit it: people cannot eat faith.

And Mother Giselle, the person we are sent to the Hinterlands to find, knows this. She is certainly a devout Andrastian and deeply influenced by a life in the Chantry—but she also chooses to be on the ground helping people in need rather than arguing with her fellow clerics in Val Royeaux. After the attack on Haven, Mother Giselle and the Inquisitor have a conversation about faith, in which the Inquisitor points out, in one way or another, that faith may not be enough. Giselle may seem to disagree. Yet it is she who then leads the survivors in a song that does not mention the Maker or Andraste even once. The much-maligned “The Dawn Will Come” is so frequently assumed to be a Chantry hymn because it is Mother Giselle who starts it; even the fan wiki lists it as such. But I hear something much more akin to a folk song, a marching tune—not a high holy chorus for a cathedral choir, but a song with a simple tune and repetitive lyrics, about hope in dark times.

Perhaps she was rather more persuaded than she appeared.

When you ask your ambassador Josephine, “What do the people make of us?” she tells you how many noble allies you’ve gathered. And that’s not unimportant; this boots on the ground shit costs money, and most of that is coming out of noble coffers. But when you ask Mother Giselle, “How are the people?” she speaks of the terror and suffering of the people in the Hinterlands, and warns of mass starvation if the farmers cannot return to their fields.

This is the story of the Hinterlands.

And the density of side quests on this map reflects that. In addition to aiding the refugees with food, blankets, and medicine, there are so many more opportunities to help people in small but meaningful ways. An elven widower who cannot reach his wife’s grave through the fighting asks the Inquisitor to bring flowers there as is his custom. A grieving widow asks for the retrieval of her husband’s wedding ring from the templars who murdered him. A beloved ram has gone missing. A mage mourns her templar lover and the war that has come between them. A note speaks of two brothers, templar and apostate, torn apart by the war. A son has gone off to join the cult in the hills (no, not our cult in the hills, another one), and his mother needs the special remedy for her breathing problems that only he knows how to make. And so many more. Even the Winterwatch cult itself asks us to consider what it is the people truly need: the Inquisitor can enlist them as Inquisition agents, or ask them to aid the refugees.

Are all these sidequests vital to the plot? No. You can skip them if you want to. Are they relevant to the plot? Absolutely. Are they meaningful? To me, yes. Maybe they didn't change the whole world, but they changed something for these people.

It is so important to me that we get to actually meet the common people whose lives are depending on us. Whatever you think of the Inquisition itself, people actually are dying because of both the rifts and the war, and many more will die if these problems aren’t resolved. Meeting them, giving them names and faces and side quests dealing with their more mundane needs is so much more meaningful to me than standing around back at base being told “People are starving in the Hinterlands.”

It's understandable that the Hinterlands had to fight the precedent set by Lothering getting locked off, because in many ways the Hinterlands serves the same narrative purpose as Lothering: showing the effects of the present crisis on the common people and what's at stake for them.

I should note that the Hinterlands are not the only part of the game that addresses the impact on common people—far from it, in fact. The Exalted Plains give us a taste of how many have died for the Gaspard's attempted coup; Emprise du Lion shows us commoners kidnapped and tortured by Red Templars; the Winter Palace puts the bloody reality of the "Grand Game" in stark contrast to its gilded veneer with the indiscriminate murder of servants for expediency.

But it’s important that we are introduced to the suffering of the common people early in the game, when the Herald—not yet the Inquisitor—may still feel pretty shaky on their motivations for even sticking around.

While I've mostly been talking about non-mage commoners here, I do want to say a few words about the rebel mages as well, since they too are a part of the story of the Hinterlands. I hope that no one reading thinks I am blaming the rebel mages as a whole for what's happening in the Hinterlands, for what the common people here have suffered. The templars, notably, are not entrenched in the Hinterlands. Their present stronghold is Therinfal Redoubt, an old Seeker fortress, which is a significant distance from Redcliffe. The fact that the bulk of the fighting is taking place near Redcliffe, while we've no evidence of a mage offensive against Therinfal, makes it pretty clear that it is the templars who are pursuing the mages at this point, not the other way around. Certainly some in the region may not bother to make that distinction while their crops are on fire, but let's be clear about the story the map is telling us: it is the mages who are under attack here, not the templars. It is sometimes said that Inquisition deliberately draws a false equivalence between the mages and templars in this war. I would like to point to this piece of environmental storytelling as evidence that that is not entirely true.

Sometimes, it seems like pointing out that collateral damage happens is read as condemning an oppressed people for defending themselves. I want to make it clear that this is not what I am saying. I simply feel that those characters who have lost homes and livelihoods in this conflict are also worth seeing, and talking about. But I also don’t think it’s an accident that this is the map whose story is all about the suffering of ordinary people, and it is also the rebel mages who have their base on this map; the templars do not.

So, that’s why I think the Hinterlands are Good Actually! They contain an absolute wealth of worldbuilding, and their story frames the game’s central conflicts around the people suffering for them, early in the game when that perspective is most needed.

[trickstarbrave]

the biggest problem with skyrim i see people critiquing it not point out isn't just "the writing is shallow"

i mean it is. but a lot of games have overall shallow writing without that being an issue. sometimes you dont need 90 pages of lore for smth. sometimes simple events can spiral out of control into massive problems. the elder scrolls series definitely has a world so complex though that it should have more interesting and detailed writing, but the biggest problem with skyrim isn't that

the problem is video games are not just writing and a setting. there is game play, themes, characters, and often multiple overlapping stories/plot lines in that setting. And all need to work together as cogs in a machine or the whole thing doesn't fucking work right. it's like making a play, and while i almost fucking failed script analysis in college (dont ask), i do understand that, and how different parts of the experience are weighted as a decisions

skyrim is a game that is heavily weighted towards gameplay and exploration of a setting. its primarily a sandbox game. thats all well and good, a lot of my favorite games are. it is a power fantasy that is (supposed to be) about play choice and agency. and almost nothing in the fucking game actually reinforces and works toward it. in fact it often directly contradicts it.

skyrim tries to bring up a number of themes, especially in the main story quest. stuff like morals, power, how to wield power, what actual justice means, and the nature of violence. and it does absolutely fuck all with it. if i as a dragonborn misuse my power at best i will piss off the guards which literally can happen to anyone. most of the time no matter what i do no npc gives a fuck who i am. i can be the thane of every hold in skyrim, most of the population will still be rude assholes to me.

take paarthurnax. we all hate and bemoan the dilemma we are given. either kill dragon grandpa or be locked out of the blades stuff from now on. it seems like such a stupid choice to the point one of the most popular mods is telling delphine "shut up im in charge". but i think, even if its subconscious for most people so they don't even realize it, the reason this choice is so stupid has nothing to do with the fact we like dragon grandpa (or at least not the whole thing), but because the entire empire is built upon horrific war crime after horrific war crime of emperors with dragon souls. tiber septim did absolutely heinous shit on and off the battlefield. he killed innocents. raped. abused. lied. manipulated. and he never really repented, unlike paarthurnax. what does he get? well after a convoluted scheme we learned about back in daggerfall, he gets to be a whole ass fucking god and gets worshipped. there are potentially elves who remember his reign of terror and being ruthlessly slaughtered and removed from their homes, their cities burned and families killed, all out of greed from this motherfucker. and they are the bad guys for opposing his worship. they are portrayed as cartoonishly evil mass murderers, torturers, schemers, etc etc and at no point do we get a genuinely sympathetic take from a thalmor agent where they list out all of his war crimes and horrible shit he did that still effects them to this day, and to top it all off the empire left them to fend for themselves during the fucking oblivion crisis.

so as delphine bemoans all of paarthurnax's war crimes and horrible things he has done, how no amount of repenting can make up for it and he's too dangerous to leave alive and we should kill him Right Now because what if he, even by accident, succumbs to his nature as an Evil Dragon and does horrible things again, she is also actively defending the horrific, much more recent war crimes of other Evil Dragons just in mortal form. if delphine has a point, then so do the thalmor, but they are just cardboard bad guy elf nazis and the empire can do no wrong.

violence is rewarded time and time again, but THESE characters being violent is bad. because. all dragons are evil and able to be corrupted by power, but the player if they decide to be a massive asshole don't really face that much scrutiny besides ultimate gameplay inconvenience. because this is a sandbox power fantasy! you should make your own choices without being punished! but that means the story about power, the cost of violence, justice, and morals, as well as your greater place in the world can have no gameplay weight. and if it has no weight in the most important part of the experience, then it has no fucking weight at all

i could go on and on. like how the dragons are supposedly intelligent creatures with their own language, culture, customs, and morality system but are basically for most of the game about as smart and engaging as the average bear or wolf you encounter on the road outside of 2-3 dragons in heavily scripted, linear conversations during the story, but we'd be here all day.

[dlamp-dictator]

Okay, finished up the main story of Wuthering Waves and slowly getting a feel for how the day-to-day grind is going to be in this game. And... I gotta' be honest here.

I'm enjoying it. A lot.

The game is fun. Very fun. It's got flaws, glaring flaws, but frankly I haven't had this much fun in a game like this since maybe DmC 5 if I had to compare it to something I'm familiar with. Ultimately, despite my love of the game I like it in spite of its massive flaws rather than because of its minor strong points, but it's a game I honestly think I'll stick with for awhile.

However, I'm not here to talk about the gameplay this time around. I wanted to talk about the story first because that's honestly the roughest part of the game. And I'll be frank, this is more a mad rambling in the sense of the younger Allen X than the current one, but I just can't get my thoughts on this game steady yet, so try not to mind the vomit I'm about to throw at you.

But first, as always, that synopsis.

Wuthering Waves is set in a futuristic post-apocalyptic world after a catastrophe called the Lament wiped out most of humanity and caused unknown beings and monsters, called Tacet Discords to appear. However, humanity soon adapted to the threat and over time rebuilt civilization. The story follows the amnesiac Rover, who has awoken from a deep slumber and sets out to explore this new world.

Let it be known that I stole this from the wiki because that's how little I care to summarize this story myself. There's... a lot to discuss. I'll be here all day if I nitpick and talk about every immediate problem I have with the game's story, so I'll try to summarize my issues with three main points. Emphasis on try, again the game's still very new and my thoughts are overall still very scattered. With that said, here are the main points:

There's no real ground for us to care about the world or its people.

The game overloads us with unfamiliar terms and makes following the story hard.

The military sycophancy is... annoying.

Alright, let's break this down as best we can.

Yeah, Let's Just Knock Out the Military Sycophancy

So, while I'd like to start with the most pressing matter first of the game's hook-less intro and lack of intrinsic motivation for Rover or the player aside from gacha rewards, this is the most controversial thing to discuss and I'd rather have it out in the open and talked about first so we aren't too distracted with my other messy points.

So, Wuthering Waves' first 3-ish Acts (especially Act 2) and honestly the whole Huanglong chapter of the main story has rather... pointed moments of focus toward military branches of Huanglong and Jinzhou. There's a lot of heavy praise for the military, how they're keeping out enemies and invaders, how they need to be supported at all cost, etc.. And on its own it's fine.

Like, really, no bullshit, I'm honestly fine with this on the surface.

A quick reminder folks, Wuthering Waves, for all it's technology and advancements, is still in a post-apocalyptic world where literal Sound Demons™ come out of the void to slaughter people with reckless abandon. This is shown the very first time you leave and enter the city of Jinzhou, as NPC soldiers are actively fighting Tacet Discord, some of which will die if you don't intervene and help them clear out mobs on your way out of the city. The training barracks is right outside the gate, there are military bases and camps in even the more remote places where you can also see more NPC soldiers fighting mobs. The lore states that only recently they've forced non-Resonators out of the army because they will legit die instantly to these things.

In this world having a strong military and being proud of it, especially when your city is the first line of defense, is something that's obviously going to come up. In the world of Wuthering Waves, a military force isn't there to potentially conquer another country and take their stuff, work as some glorified bodyguard for the nobility, or protect luxury resources of elite national interest. In Wuthering Waves, the army is thrown into the frontlines to be the wall against the Tacet Discord and likely die or be horribly injured in droves during the process. Make no mistake, despite Jinzhou elegant and peaceful appearance it is on the northern border where almost all the major Tacet Discord are formed. It is very much Chinese-Kislev with Sound Demons™ instead of Chaos Daemons. Not to mention you're traveling around with Yangyang, a member of the scouting military branch, who would obviously have strong opinions about the organization she serves, and Jianxin, who's an errant monk trying to still learn about the world and only has the words of her masters to go off of, and her masters are very pro-military.

It. Makes. Sense.

But the game sure as shit doesn't really show a lot of that in the text and dialogue. It really does come across as brown-nosing, and since the only voices against are main group are the Fractsidus it's hard to take their words at face value. It's not like the game plays up the fact that Yangyang is a military officers aside from Act 2, or that Jianxin is in actually kind of a childish musclehead that's only really good at martial arts and little else as her later Intimacy voice lines imply. The Military Sycophancy is more a product of rushed and lacking characterization than outright brown-nosing. Some minor dialogue in later acts actually question how righteous and moral some of those military leaders are in the heat of the moment, but you have to look for those voices to be heard.

But speaking of lacking characterization that brings me to my second point.

There's Not Really a Grounded Hook, is There?

To give a brief summary of the Huanglong story, the main character, Rover (yes, that seems to be the canonical name) wakes up after a vision/mysterious event of sorts while having no memories of their past or their goals. They are awoken by a friendly soldier and town guard and travels with their new companions to the city of Jinzhou after some shenanigans. The city's local leader, realizing an prophesy involving Rover is about to set off big things, attempts lure them to their side through both friendly and mysterious means. As Rover follows the trail they come to learn several parties and factions not only know about them, but have plans for them that don't require them to even know of main purpose of them being brought to the world, and those factions tease Rover with information hinting about their purpose before fleeing the scene. Through these meetings and the connections Rover makes throughout the story, they decide side with those that housed, protected, and cared for them and help save their country, unbeknown to them and several others going all according to the city leader's plan at the end of the day, even if said leader gambled a little at the end.

And while I'm skipping a lot of details here and there, namely involving the Fractsidus, Black Shores, and other parties, that sure as hell is a better summary of the plot than you'd find in the game. I kept out a lot of the terminology, but that's the basic idea. You're an unknown element, you have several people interested in you because of it, and... that's really it.

There's... nothing to truly hook you.

Look, I know using the G-word is bad form, but I'm gonna. In Genshin the story is simple: You're Aether/Lumine, some asshole god stole your sibling (or sent them back in time or something), you want to get her back and you have to solve every country's problem along the way while Dainslief just stands their menacingly. In Arknights...

...

...

Okay, honestly Wuthering Waves' story intro is about as bad as Arknights' with all the unfamiliar terminology and introducing people you don't care about until 3 more main story chapters, but you get my point.

Wuthering Waves doesn't have much to get you truly invested in the story. There's no real incentive for you to do things aside from mild curiosity and the gacha rewards. The fact that the little scavenger hunt Jinshi sends you on is super-lore heavy doesn't help either. There's a few good moments like most Jiyan confronting the phantom of his former superior, most of the stuff with Aalto and the Black Shore, Scar's occasional moments, and all of the final act, but those are few and far between with all the lore, exposition, and Yangyang's voice actor not having the greatest voice direction. You're dragged around a lot, but you don't really get to stay long enough to really care about the group. I think the only time they did was when they had you with Yangyang in Qichi Village learning about the place's backstory. That was good storytelling and world-building, as you are immediately curious about why the village was so fucked up and the implications were so... twisted. And best of all Scar was able to bring the lore explanation to a human, understandable level with his analogy of the wolf, shepherd, and sheep.

Which brings me to my last point.

So Many Goddamn Terms

The fact that they reference this in later Acts does not help, but the game has a lot of terminology in it. To summarize some of this, the world of Solaris-3 is a post-apocalyptic world based off frequencies, wavelengths, and a biiiiit of Chinese/Eastern fantasy thrown in for flavor. A lot of things revolve around that, but goddamn are there a lot of terms here. Even the official site just barely covers the basics. The Black Shores, the Fractsidus, the various nations and locations of importance. There's... a lot. A lot that isn't cover in as much depth as it should, or should just be simplified to its most important points. Part of me thinks this is because it's a Chinese game first and translating all the terms into something a Westerner can understand is just a mess in and of itself. However... this game also had quite a few years to cook as well and... it needed another year in the oven for reason aside from the glitches and lag.

Smaller Issues

Just gonna' put these in list form because I'm very tired now.

The Voice Direction: I think it's clear the voice acting isn't great, and I want to say its the director's fault. We've got a lot of decent talent here and a few people with good line reads. It just feels something is holding a lot of them back or the director isn't giving them enough context. Maybe now that the secrets out and we know who's voicing what they can actually direct things better now. Either way I'm hoping it gets better.

The Glitches and Stuttering: I'll save gameplay discussions for another posts, but for now I'll say I'm filling it minimally. It's not as bad as others, and I took some precautions to not deal with it as much, but it's still bad.

Rover's Character: So Rover actually has a lot more speaking lines than the average gacha self-insert character, almost to the point of them being their own character. However, the words coming out of their mouth are often just exposition, which only characterizes Rover as someone either intelligent or observant, which clashes with in-universe other characterizations of them being an almost mindless TD-destroying slaughter that cuts through mobs like its an addiction.

Uuuuugh... I know I said I'd say some positive things about the game, but... this has already left me a little drained. I'll talk more in detail about the positives at a later date, but for now I'm gonna' chill for a bit and maybe do a weekly boss.

I'll see you folks later.

[aghostwithnoname]

DATV GAMEPLAY SPOILERS

In other words, don't read this if you don't want my hot take.

So for the past week, I've fallen off the deep end to play Dragon Age: The Veilguard to avoid whatever the fuck is going on in the world.

First, for the pros.

The game is visually very stunning, and by the gods, the character customization is fucking amazing. The HAIR. The complexions! The scars and the FACT YOU CAN FINALLY BE A FAT HERO. My god, I spent two hours alone just creating my Rook. I LOVE that we finally have a Thedas that actually reflects the diversity of our world.

For the first time in the Dragon Age series, I can actually play as a nonbinary person and have that be recognized by the story!!!! I love that Neve is disabled, and it's not even the main focus of her character! Thank god for finally giving us a cast of companions that aren't white!

Partly why I wanted to support the game, despite knowing about all of its troubled development, was because we need to show as players that we want and support this kind of content and thus will show a demand for it in our capitalist hellscape. (I don't make the rules - that's just how this stupid industry works.)

Now, despite giving us ALL of that, this now brings me to the cons.

Veilguard just doesn't *feel* like part of the Dragon Age franchise.

Maybe it's just me but like 20-30 hours into it and I just... I'm not feeling it, guys. Like it feels like the devs just fired all the writers and threw the flashy battle mechanics of God of War, *some* of the relationship dynamics of BG3, and the user interface of Mass Effect (which for the record, I don't actually like Mass Effect) into a blender and produced... whatever this is.

The dialogue is so... bland. I skip through half of it and I *never* skipped through dialogue in any of the previous games. Progressing on this plot feels like a chore, because there is literally nothing else to do except pursue the main story line. The world deceptively *looks* expansive, but you're really just being funneled from one major plot point to the next with no room to breathe.

What was fun about BG3 is that you could drop down a fucking hole in some random part of the Underdark and the game REWARDED you for your curiosity or your weirdness (lick the spider, goddammit!). By contrast, even though GoW was basically one plot, it was poignant and meaningful because of the excellent dialogue, acting, and relationships - you cared about Kratos and Atreus and Angrboda and Thrud and Thor because they were excellently explored. Imo, BioWare clearly saw these games winning game of the year over the last decade that they've been working on the next DA game, got jealous, tried to mimic these elements to chase the success of these franchises and failed miserably, while also just not understanding the unique idiosyncrasies of the franchise they themselves created.

As someone who has played origins, awakening, da2, and inquisition, at least i felt there was some tonal consistency - despite the fact we can all argue what the "best" game was. Like, your companions are snarky and funny and weird in ways that are completely irrelevant to saving the continent, and we know the Chantry is fucked but so are the apostates and the Qun and the Dalish, and there are no clear "good guys" vs "bad guys", and not EVERYTHING said is plot-relevant.

Sweet Andraste, I think Bellara's said "The Evanuris - you know the elven gods!" like about 50 times already. I get it that they want new people to come into the world and understand what's going on, but it just feels like the devs are holding my hand like I'm a little kid who cannot be trusted to know what's going on or make their own decisions.

Don't even get me started on how Varric is narrating everything, telling me how to feel about what I am going through. It's like on top of all this disjointed gameplay mechanics and narrative design, BioWare is trying to tell me it's all okay, even though it is not.

Maybe the next 60 hours will change my mind... (I haven't even MET my loves Davrin or Taash yet) By the Maker, I hope it does.

[itsjaywalkers]

yk i WANT to ask about nothing happens bc i always want to ask about nothing happens so if you want to tell me about nothing happens.... please do. but also tell me about the fucked up road trip fic PLS <3

dil u can ask about as many wips as u want.. ur wish is my command and all that <3

so let me offer u a nothing happens snippy + a bit of info about the fucked up road trip fic !!!

“Of course. If you’re happy, then I’m even happier.” Regulus’ grin spreads even wider, but then Sirius is gagging loudly and obnoxiously behind him, and his expression falls a second later, being substituted by a scowl. The boy attempts to turn around again, but James tightens his hold, keeping him in place.  “Sirius, you’re such a—” Regulus begins through gritted teeth. “Shush, leave him be, it’s not worth it,” James cuts him off, speaking quietly in his ear. Regulus’ body relaxes against his at the action, and he can’t help but smirk slightly. “Just focus on me, Reggie.” The younger boy nods once at the same time as Sirius raises an eyebrow, hands resting on his hips. “Yeah, Reggie? I’m what?” Sirius taunts, a dangerous glint in his eyes. James sends him a warning glare from behind Regulus, but his best friend doesn’t even spare him a glance. “C’mon, don’t be a coward, finish your sentence.” James watches as Regulus cocks his head to the side, considering, and for a very stressful moment, he’s convinced he’s gonna have to break up a fight between the brothers. It’s not like James isn’t used to it at this point, since they use him as a mediator almost as much as they use him as the main source of discord between them, but that doesn’t mean he enjoys it. Mostly, because he rarely comes out unscathed.  But in the end, Regulus simply clicks his tongue before turning his back on his brother, choosing to face James once more and getting on his tiptoes just so he can wrap his arms around his neck. James grins down at him, and rewards him with a little squeeze on his hips, before raising his head up to smirk at his best friend.

AND THEN ABOUT THE FUCKED UP ROAD TRIP FIC the most fun part about this fic, to me at least, it's the fact that it's inspired by the left right game, which means i have all this material i can use but !! i also get to play around with it !! like yes they're gonna play the left right game and end up in the Road (which is this sort of limbo . between our world and whatever there is on the other side, where u have all these creatures and where rules are completely different and where absolutely everything out there can kill u bc ur not supposed to exist in there and the Road will try to regain its rightful balance) but i'm not gonna follow the original storyline so i really want to . explore this universe in a different way. it's very intimidating and idk if i have the skills to do it right but i'm also !! incredibly excited to get started with it

the ones who go on the road trip are james, reg, pandora, peter, marlene, barty and evan!! i'm toying with the idea of including one more character but . we'll see, depends on what they can do for the story. and all of them have their own selfish reasons to decide to play the left right game (in fact most of them have played it at least once before) and james is the one who's more at a disadvantage bc . even tho he's the one organising the trip and bringing all these ppl together . the only info he has is thanks to all the notes lily left behind. bc yes, he used to play with her, but since he can barely remember her, he has also forgotten about all the shit they did together

i can also tell you that reg's reasons to play are related to his brother, that pandora lies about hers from the very beginning and that evan is only there for his sister

and !! this is the opening line !!!

It doesn't matter where you choose to begin this story; it has always been about Lily Evans.

[eerna]

If you had to choose, do you prefer totk or botw and why? Personally I'm fonder of botw (for a few reasons, exploring being more difficult makes it feel more rewarding, the story/memories slotted into the gameplay better, the world/themes overall feel executed more cohesively and I find the Sheikah slate abilities more intuitive) but it seems to be an unpopular opinion online to like botw more so I'm curious! This isn't a debate on which is objectively better tho, they both have some things better than each other

I agree with you completely! There are some things I prefer in TotK, but overall I like BotW better. I knew that would be the case - my BotW story is disgustingly sentimental and impossible to replicate. BotW was my first open world game I've completed, it has taught me how to play AAA video games and opened a whole new world of media for me. A game whose entire point is to be thrown into a completely foreign land, without a map and with minimal directions on how to play, which forces you to rely on your real-world instincts and knowledge, was perfect for this journey. I beat the final boss over a year after starting the game because it took me that long to explore every nook and cranny of the game, to live in that world and learn to love it, and then I felt ready to face the ending. ALSO, while TotK's themes of connection, companionship, and renewal are a completely natural continuation of the story and I wouldn't change them, I gotta confess I prefer the tragic, beautiful yearning of BotW more. There's something so majestic about a story about two kids who conquered evil a hundred times before, but then failed a hundred and first time. ALSO, I never managed to get quite as lost into TotK as I could in BotW, where I could be playing for 8 hours straight and not notice it, which is probably because I know the map inside and out (although this might be because I am now an adult and not a hormonal teenager lololol) (also because switch controllers SUCK my hands HURT SO BAD if I play more than like 2 hours. wii u pad I miss you </3). ALSO, the storytelling was very dear to me in BotW but failed this time around. I feel like TotK tried to replicate the non-linear nature of BotW, but with a linear storyline, which made plot holes abundant and kept jerking me out of the story. In BotW the plot could have been summarized in 4 sentences, but TotK is WAY more complicated and needed better development and more plot-heavy sections a la traditional Zelda. Honestly, they should have either stuck with a completely linear plot, OR added more lines of code that would ensure Link doesn't just Not Tell Everyone he finished one of the main quests until the very ending of the game.

All in all, I get that TotK blows BotW out of the water when it comes to complexity and technical achievements, but the ideas behind the game and my own personal experience with it will never be beaten in my eyes. BotW 5 ever

[dykedragonrider]

I'm gonna bend the rules a bit and merge two of the FE questions together because I think they're more interesting hand in hand.

32 and 26: What direction do you wish the series would take, and what would your pitch be for the first title to go in that direction?

I want to see them lean harder into strategy, or at least give us reasons to not juggernaut. I ain't good at designing games yet so this'll be a fun thought exercise.

Smaller cast of units with greater distinction between units. Units are locked in their class (unless they have like, story promotion stuff idk), they have personal skills and stats that give them specific niches in their class. Maybe someone has Adept and high speed as a Mercenary but another has Pavise, so you have one that is really really good at killing shit, and another who's a tank and spank unit for an example. They feel distinct from each other, and one has the overkill combat that makes them good with priority targets while the other has the ability to handle multiple enemies well to buy time/create space. This is probably the biggest departure as we haven't really had a game that did this imo.

More challenges that aren't just about your stats. Status staves, enemy packs with reaver weapons, packs vulnerable to strong effectives, somewhat open maps, things that allow you to engage with the maps differently. Maps that aren't straight lines but have multiple options for egress and reasons to use those options based on your available tools are great!

Inventory items that give stat bonuses. These were a really good thing that allowed for flexibility to hit benchmarks that we saw in Gaiden, FE4, SOV, Houses, and sort of Engage that added legitimately meaningful depth in the kind of solutions to problems you could find. They can be "win more" things which sucks I won't deny that, but I also value their flexibility too much to really dislike them.

So, with that, I'll try my hand at a pitch.

Your lord is a staff unit. This means that designing things can be done around you *always* having a utility unit and you can be expected to use/react to enemy magic accordingly. You've got a prepromote wyvern who'll be good at combat for a while, and as their combat worsens their utility as a mobility tool is a much more relevant reason to use them. Motley cast goes forth from there, I just think those two things are legitimately interesting ideas to me I want to explore more.

As for story, I've got the least expertise here but... Let's say our main lord haaaates fighting and is optimistic about people. That's why they prefer to disable their foes, heal or protect their allies, that's why they're a staffer. Give them a personal weapon to reflect that, too. There's a background war going on that the lord doesn't get involved in for a while but you *feel* it as you're recruiting your early playable cast (maybe your lord is on some personal mission and your prepromote is their escort. Could have some knight/liege yuri there idk I like that). Townspeople talk about what they've lost along the way because of the war, some people are displaced by it and you can help them out on maps for rewards, etc. Eventually, the cast ends up fighting one of the factions in the war, the other comes to reinforce on that map, and *that's* when the story picks up, as the cast is thrown into the deep end of it. Your lord is convinced to help one faction end the war, and they reluctantly agree because they think it's the best way to stop the fighting because they can't just stay out of it. Things proceed as normal for FE, but there's a greater emphasis on the civilian cost of war along the way, because your lord *wants* to help the people that are hurting because it's their nature. And they're getting *so* tired of what they're hearing, but they keep going on, because at this point that's all they can do. Help those who are hurting, and end the war. Unsurprisingly, the war came about because of the Problem Dragon, who you learn more about the chapters before you fight them. Maybe this dragon is why your lord is on their quest, they wanted to find them? Uncertain about that plot thread especially, but either way they need to in some way be sympathetic or redeemable for one reason or another. Not just because I think that these games are at their best when there is some tragedy with the dragon, but because the lord needs *some* reason to have their faith in the goodness of people be what carries them through this conflict. Maybe they get exploited for it throughout it, maybe they didn't, idk how I'd wanna frame that but the point needs to be them *giving a damn* about people is what lets them end this (yeah I like Idunn, how did you know).

In short, small ragtag cast with a focus on the lord primarily (most other people are there just supporting them) tempering their perception of reality but not letting it get them down. It's a coming of age for them, but they keep their sense of hope for the world because the kindness they showed to others and got back in turn is what enabled them to survive. You need some genuine darkness for that light to show probably, but it needs to be a story about making a difference in other people's lives and how important that is, no matter how small.

[windor-truffle]

even MORE random graces playthrough nitpicky thoughts that i didn't get to last night!

whether people recognize who Richard is continues to be in flux, usually bending to whatever is plot convenient in the moment 😅 it's not bad writing though it's actually pretty realistic; some people would instantly recognize a celebrity walking around in a public place and others would not (*coughmecough*). This also is a nice touch of characterization, establishing things like Pascal's singlemindedness or which soldier NPCs are privy to what the royal family looks like

not terribly important stuff, just me musing on Richard's ties to Duke Dalen. He say's he's "distantly" related but I think duke's are supposed to be next in line for succession (though Cedric seems to surpass Dalen as an archduke). His backstory also sounds almost identical to how Aston became a lord too (tales of graces prequel where all of the lords of windor are party members who travel around with king ferdinand?? 👀), but unlike Dalen, Aston's family never married into the royal family (at least not canonically, but with fan fic we can change that 😤). Lastly I need more screenshots for evidence but unlike most characters, Richard tends to change whether he calls Duke Dalen by his full title or not, maybe because he's one of the few that outranks him.

I somehow managed to forget about the "mwa-mwa hanky-panky" skit 😂 to be fair this one is criminally easy to overlook since it triggers in the alley behind the inn. Pascal has been in the party for all of 30 minutes and she already ships it 😂

it's kinda hilarious how much extra stuff like this is hidden if you go around and explore instead of going to do the plot. like game-wise it makes sense to reward the player for exploring the world, story-wise Richard has already collapsed from exhaustion twice WHY are we making him walk all the way back to Lhant 😂 ah well he's getting his steps in

overthinking lore again but the game makes a point in saying how long it take cryas to recharge eleth naturally, and there doesn't seem to be a technology for people to do it themselves... makes me wonder how the valkines cryas end up being fully restored at the end of the game since they never explicitly show or explain it 🤔 but it does make sense story-wise for people to be freaking out when they're drained, that's a shit-ton of energy they're not expecting to get back any time soon (how long is "a really long time" game??? a human lifetime??? thousands of years??? graces explain!!!)

one of my favorite things to do in this time around is to check all the overworld checkable items with every party member- they each have different dialogue, and it can be really revealing or entertaining! for example, this world map in the Grayleside inn:

screenshots taken from my current point in the playthrough AND the L&L arc because I wanted to see if Richard's dialogue changed and not only did his change, everyone's did!!! to reflect their growth!!! wow!!! 🥰 i 💜 games with attention to detail :) it's cute to see what each person is focusing on: Asbel still cares about his hometown (but has now travelled and learned enough to find it on the map), Richard turns from his preoccupation of "how am I going to fix this mess my uncle made" to conviction of restoring peace like he'd always dreamed, and Pascal, having flown around the world in the shuttle and now can confirm it looks small from afar, is moving on to new and better ideas. 10/10 character writing, I'll have to come back here later to check out the other party member's changes between the main story and post game

[the12thnightproject]

Game Review Part One: Lovebrush Chronicles

I've been meaning to review this for a while now, and given that we're on the eve of the next main story release, I figure now is a good time.

The short review - this game is fantastic.

The longer review ... is under the cut line.

The basic storyline is this - You (MC) are already an accomplished graphic novel creator, and are en route St. Shelter Academy, which is on an island. Your introduction to St. Shelter includes meeting four love interests as well s checking in with your guardian (who is not - yet - a love interest).

These are:

Alkaid - an astronomy student (whom you have met previously, on an expedition to see the Northern Lights):

Lars - A somewhat flirty businessman, who is a patron of the arts.

Ayn - pianist, music major, lover of sweets.

Clarence - Law student, president of the student council, cat rescuer.

Cael - your somewhat mysterious guardian, who has raised you since you were 14/15 and your mother died.

You also, within a few chapters of beginning the game, get your own cat, whom you can name. Your cat is pictured above, hanging out with Cael. To get stamina, you need to log in and feed your cat.

Unlike many other games, where you need to grind around the clock, there are only two login times (both windows of about 2-3 hours) where you can pick up your stamina (and if you miss these log in, you can make it up by buying stamina with in game currency. I don't know if it varies by time zone, but my stamina logins are between 11 am and 2pm, and between 430 pm and 7pm. There's other ways to pick up stamina, too, all by logging in after the daily refresh and performing a series of tasks across the UI. It generally takes about 20 minutes to sweep through all the tasks and get the rewards you need to smooth your gameplay. This is a pretty simple game to advance as free to play.

Anyway, back to the story...

Once you've settled into the academy, you begin having strange dreams of another world, and during an artistic performance a friend of yours is killed and you are suddenly pulled into a completely different world.

This is Godheim. It's the first world of a multiverse that you begin to explore. In Godheim, you encounter men who are multiverse versions of Alkaid, Ayn, Lars, and Clarence:

This is the first interactive story. Godheim is a medieval/renaissance world, and it's slowly freezing over due to an invasion of giant ice butterflies (just... go with it) who kill everything in their path. You will need to save the planet (and well, it turns out Earth too is in danger) from this creeping winter. The story follows a set route pattern, where you choose Ayn or Alkaid first/second, then Lars third, and Clarence last. You learn more about the cause of the ice butterflies in each route, following them through to a happy(ish) ending, but the first three route endings do not completely solve the problem of the danger, and so you choose to go back in time and keep trying. Clarence's route offers a solution to the crisis.

Your LIs in this world are not the same people as they were in the modern world. They have different ages, histories, memories, and relationships with you. While there are some personality traits that show up in every version of the LIs, but they're faint. In Godheim, Lars is the King (who insists that you are his fiancee), Clarence is the chief mage, Alkaid is an apprentice mage, and Ayn is a captain of the guards (as well as the rightful Prince).

I thought all four routes were great - well written, they kept my attention throughout, there was tension and romance (verrrry PG) in each one. After you get through all four, you can choose one for the epilogue, which contains a more complete ending to the romance with the character of your choice. I was pretty sure I was going to choose Lars, until I finished Clarence's route.

Clarence's route is beautiful. A++++ romance. Worth the time spent in the game right there.

Oh... Cael does appear in this story, but he is not romanceable, and by the time I finished Godheim, I was convinced that he was a quadruple red flag who had been grooming MC throughout her adolescence. (Er, this turns out not to be the case, but you have to read Cael's special story available after you finish Godheim to learn what exactly his deal is.... and it's fascinating, I can't wait for him to get a route now... but it's better to read the story unspoiled so that's all I will say).

After this, you return to St. Shelter, and while you do retain your memories of Godheim, no one on Earth (with two exceptions) has any idea what happened, or even is aware that you were gone.

Life goes on... and then Earth begins to experience a series of increasingly violent Earthquakes, and you begin to see a mysterious countdown in your head and dream of a small boy crying for help. And you realize that you need to travel to another world again.

This... is Eden. And now you are in a post-apocalyptic scorching desert of a planet, full of giant scorpion like monsters and rival raiding gangs. Once again, you encounter versions of Lars (a desert guide), Clarence (an independent mercenary), Ayn (a gang leader), and Alkaid (a mysterious gardener).

And once again, you need to figure out how to save Eden, and this time the danger to Earth is immediate and obvious. In Eden, you can at least choose your route order - with one exception. If you choose a specific route first, it basically leads to an immediate bad ending for you.

Note, yes, this game does have bad endings, however, you aren't forced to start over again, you can just rewind to the decision point where you went wrong, and make a different choice.

To be continued...

Part two here

[mstrickynici]

So I've been playing Forspoken for 2 days and I gotta say I don't understand why people hate on it so much (at least for the things they claim to hate, im pretty sure they dislike it for other reasons... ).

The world and characters are interesting. The story till now is great too, enough that I'll bingeplay it till its over for sure. The battle system is nice. The map is gigantic. Graphics and physics are good. The dialoge isn't any worse than a lot of other games.

Haven't encountered any bugs so far.

Only thing I don't like is the small font and wasting a lot of space instead of making the panels bigger. I'm playing on a ps5 on TV and sometimes I have to squint my eyes to read anything. Not talking about the subtitles, those are fine. But everything else...

All in all a great fantasy game with a magic based fighting style and parkour.

A well rounded single player rpg. I really don't get all the hate. A game doesn't have to be a masterpiece to be enjoyable.

Also there are a lot of cats. U can pet them. They cuddle with you when you sleep.

Definitely recommend it.

Edit1:

SOME SPOILERS AHEAD!!! Nothing major, but things about the environment and other small stuff.

First the somewhat negative stuff, which there is more than I had hoped.

Now that I've played some more I have to admit it gets somewhat repetitive, if you want to explore a lot. There are no real side quests, just some interactions in the main city and one fetch quest.

Especially the photo quest. It doesn't matter what pictures or how many you make, they always interact the same. Say the same line. There was a point in the story where people die and they still cheerily ask for their pictures. Normally I wouldn't care about that, but because there are no real side quests, this one just stands out.

And now that I'm near the end I've got to say that the main quest seems rather short. It's basically watch this interaction, watch another interaction, go here, another interaction, go fight the Boss.

Due to the story the only character interactions are in the main city, or when you meet one of the bosses, which I think there are four. I've defeated two and am on my way to the third and its chapter 11 of 12.

So other than "Cuff" making remarks its a gigantic open world, but only enemies to interact (fight) with.

It is an open world rpg, I know that. But the lack of side quests and the repetitive exploration locations dont really fill the story out.

The items you get (Cloaks/necklaces) aren't that rewarding either, because you can level up each one as much as you want (the max lvl for all items is the same) and apply any perks to any clothing item. The only thing that changes is the appearance. Exception to this is the nailpolish.

An example from today: I just fought a really hard boss and got a new cloak. Because I leveled up the one I'm already wearing its got double the stats than the one I got after the fight. And that's kinda disappointing, because that's been the case with every item I got until now. The only thing you really get are the perks the clothing item has, so you can use it on others; and the new appearance.

Positives: Still no bugs. Even if I get stuck somewhere I'll always get out in a second. The parkour and fighting gets better and better the farther you get in the story. The locations are stunning to look at. The floating rocks you can jump around on are definetly one of my favorite places. The story is still interesting, and I'm looking forward to the conclusion.

I also like that you get a little exp. when interacting with some people during story events. I wouldnt call them side quests, because you just talk with a character. But it's still nice.

Also all the cats you meet hang out in your home after you befriend them. I think I have 8 hanging out in my little house now. And there are more. Gotta collect them all and see how they all gonna fit in there.

Gonna write the second edit and make my verdict when I finish the game. But right now I'd say for what i got it was too expensive. I would have still bought it, but when it was on sale.

Edit 2: oh boy

I really, really wanted to love this game and say mostly good things about it, but I'd be lying if I did.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

The story ending was kinda dissapointing and mediocre. I could see the big plot reveals from pretty much the beginning and was hoping I'd be wrong and that itd be intentionally misleading. But no, it was like I thought, and not in a "AHA, I knew it!" triumphant kind of way. It was so obvious who the big bad is.

The last fight was also kinda meh. There was an instance where you fight while standing on a dragon, and I was stoked, hoping there'd be parkouring involved. Or just flying around. But no, the dragon hovers static in the air and you point and shoot at targets, like one of those carnival shooting games. It doesn't even move a bit.

Big, big plus point though: There are epiloge quests. The story is not over after the main boss fight, it goes on a little bit and you can explore everywhere. That's good for me, because with most games I lose interest as soon as the main storyline is over.

Also apparently the point of no return is actually in chapter 11 and there is no real warning except the normal "Frey enters new story chapter" warning. Because you lose some abilities that you only get back after finishing the game, some warning would have been nice.

Also the abilities you gain from boss Nr. 3 you can't really use freely until after the main story is over. So if you stop playing after the main story ends you've got a barely used magic skill tree. I'm sure they put a lot of work in those spells, so seeing an entire branch practically unused seems wasteful.

Putting all that and the last region in the epiloge, when a lot of people will probably not play much past it doesn't seem very smart.

There's also a quest where you fight the main bosses again. No difference. Just the same cutscenes and the sane fight.

I hate the dancing quest with a passion. Nevermind it's the same dance 4 times, just with more Button prompts. The 3 and 4 times are so fast, and as soon as you hit one wrong button, the dance is over. You can't skip the cutscenes. So you have to start again and again and again. Because you don't know what next button to press. Couldn't they just let you finish the dance even if you failed a few steps? Just so you can learn the sequences?

Downside to this after story playing is also character interactions. With Cuff. You'd think there would be some major difference, but no, for the most part the interactions and talks are the same, which I find baffling. Why didn't they change them? It's at times like nothing happened.

There's also a choice, before the boss fight.

It's fight the Boss, or go back to New York.

I'll reload and try the New York option, just to see how that will turn out.

Maybe there'll be Edit 3, after I've played some more.

Edit 3: if you choose the New York option it's a 5 second clip with her carrying her cat down the street. Then the credits roll... Wow.

[wirewitchviolet]

The actual gameplay of FF14

Over the course of last month, I sat down and wrote down a probably somewhat intimidatingly long plot summary/review for Final Fantasy 14, but I kinda made a point of not really getting into any detail about the actual gameplay. A big part of that if I’m really honest is that a HUGE portion of the gameplay really is just walking between quest markers and talking to people who send you off to other quest markers to talk to other people (or maybe talk to them again), and hell sometimes you don’t even walk, you just talk to someone three times in a row. It’s true for the main plot, it’s true for side quests, but I’m not going to estimate the overall percentage since, well, the bits with real gameplay meat are frequently things you’re going to do more than once and it really screws the count. The bits where you actually do stuff though are pretty engaging (at least, eventually, when you’re deep into the expansions, people kinda constantly talk about how the base game just really sucks. Anyway, I want to ramble about gameplay, so that’s what’s happening.

Progress Gating

So, FF14 is an MMORPG, and that means a big part of it is taking quests from people with big exclamation points over their heads. As a matter of convenience, these come in a few flavors. Standard yellow for minor side quests. Blue if there’s an interesting unique reward at the end, and with this jagged border meant to evoke a falling meteor if it’s a Main Story Quest. Some games gate progress behind level restrictions (which... in fairness this game also does, but it rains experience down on you just for progressing the story it should never be the limiting factor). Some games do regional reputation grinding, or scattering around several decently long quest lines to be tackled in any order. FF14 gates EVERYTHING behind milestones in the Main Story Quest progression.

There’s a dozen or so unique quests in each of the three starting cities, and a few points, mainly at the start of expansions where the path will briefly split and then re-merge after each branch is explored, but for the most part, there is this strictly linear unbroken chain of several hundred quests, stretching from “hey walk around the town you started in and talk to the important NPCs,” all the way up to whatever was added to the most recent patch for the most recent expansion, with no skipping around, and even though you’ll find handy guides like this one breaking down when you can first access basically everything that isn’t the MSQ line (aside from the periodic blooming of a dozen or so new sidequests as you travel to different areas), almost all of those unlocks really mean “while you’re doing MSQs with a minimum level requirement around here. These days these MSQs in particular have their experience rewards cranked up so high that even if you do nothing beyond plowing through them as quickly as you can, if you’re sticking with a single class you’re probably going to be at least a good 10 levels ahead of that curve at any given time. You’ll hover around par if you’re simultaneously leveling two or three classes at once (and on the other hand, I imagine people who decide to take advantage of those cash shop “story skips” probably get a rude awakening, since while the level progression requirements are normally a total non-issue, instantly checking all these off is also taking the best source of experience off the table).

Classes and Jobs

This is one of the kinder design elements to FF14. Every class in the game has a unique weapon type, and simply equipping a weapon used by a class switches you over to that class. Experience is tracked separately for each class, so just saving a gear set for each class to the hot swap list let’s you essentially have an alt of every class without ever having to log out, and all sharing the main plot progression, inventory, etc. etc. and letting you do that Maxed Out Save File thing if you like. Oh and speaking of gear sets, equipment has minimum level requirements too, so unless you think ahead and put on a bunch of pure-cosmetics stuff with no stats, every single time you join a new class for the first time, your level becomes 1, not meeting the requirement for anything you’re wearing, and your clothes dramatically just kind of explode off your body. This is never not hilarious and I pretty much guarantee you will forget it happens every time new classes become available.

There’s a couple other funny little quirks with classes. You don’t get really get to pick your starting town, it’s based on where the class quest giver for your starting class (initially) hangs out. If you want to punch guys, go sword and shield, or blast away with fire and ice, you’re in the desert. If you want a bow a pointy stick or healing spells you’re in the woods. If you want Pokemon or an axe, you’re in pirate town. If you want to run around with your arms behind you do flippy jumps and dual wield knives, that class is also in pirate town, but it wasn’t a thing at launch so the FF14 historical preservation society insists you start as something else and join it later. Incidentally, this means even if you join every class in your starting town, you can tank or you can heal, but not both. Fortunately this isn’t an issue until the first dungeons open up and at that point you’re hopping all over between the three. And of course with the non-combat classes the one that makes clothes from plants is in a different city from the one that gathers plants, but you really want to go all or nothing on those classes anyway.

The other funny little quirk, as per the little chapter heading here, is that FF14 has both Classes, and Jobs. Being a good 13 years old now, there’s a hell of a lot of weird artifacts kicking around as vestigial remnants of older versions of the game, and I think this is one of the weirdest. See, way the hell back when, there was this system where in order to unlock your classic Final Fantasy Jobs, you had to level the appropriate more-typical-MMO-class to a certain point, and also have two specific other classes at a certain level, with the cool new unlocked job blending stuff from each. They streamlined that out forever ago, and now you just get whatever class to level 30 and it kinda promotes up... but take a good look at this chart for how it used to work.

Arcanist was the base class that lead to both the Summoner and Scholar jobs. What’s super weird is, that’s still true. You get it to level 30, and two quests show up that open up jobs. Summoner is a straight progression from playing with pokemon like you’ve been doing, scholar replaces your pokemon with a fairy and now you have healer stats. But... experience gains are always tied to your class, so while these are two completely different jobs, they share experience and you can end up maxing out your level on one or the other without ever actually playing it. Quirky. Oh and all the ones added in expansions came after this change so like a Dancer is just a Dancer and they aren’t technically getting Softstepper experience or something.

Quests and Duties

So getting back to quests for a moment, like I said before, the vast majority really are just talking to people, that’s the whole quest. Now and then, mostly at the very very start in the game and when just compulsively doing every side quest, someone asks you to kill X number of monster Y like every other MMO, but those are vanishingly rare overall. There’s a lot of quests that force you to drop out of any party you may be in and generally drop everything else to have some little plot fight in a locked off instance, and later expansions sometimes give you control of one of your other party members for these instead of your actual character. Later expansions throw around things where you switch to first person to try and spot people walking around in the distance or knock them out with a blowgun or something, and there’s a few that have something actually unique and interesting going on. And then once in a blue moon, you get one that opens up a chunk of the real meat of the game, duties.

There’s basically two flavors of these. Dungeons and Trials. For dungeons, you’re forced into a party of usually if not always four people- 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 DPS, you get a nice little setpiece area where you run around, kill a huge pile of monsters, stopping a couple times to kill roughly 3-5 minibosses along the way, and the who thing gets introduced with a cool sweeping fly-through camera.

Trials are just one big boss fight, early game ones giving you that same party of four fixed roles, basically everything from level 50 onwards doubling that up. Generally they’re bigger more complicated things with phase shifts and a unique soundtrack that shifts at the halfway point from just an instrumental thing to a more intense thing with lyrics. In both cases you have a time limit of an hour and a half to clear the thing, but if you aren’t just wiping constantly it’s honestly only like a 10-20 minute commitment.

Since you have to wait until you have the appropriate party for one of these, and you probably don’t want to just stand around by the entrance (unless you keep making the same mistake I did, hoovering up every little side quest as they appeared and having nothing to go do while I waited as a result), they came up with this clever little UI feature called the Duty Finder. One of these things unlocks, it gets added to a list in the menu. Either show up at the front door, or just select it out of the menu, and you can queue up your party hunting. It’ll automatically do matchmaker stuff in the background, and you can wander off to do whatever in the meantime, as long as it isn’t other instanced content.

Another neat thing with this is they bribe the ever-loving hell out of more experienced players to repeatedly go back and do old duty finder content. There’s eventually a little “roulette” menu with a dozen different flavors of content to pick from, with substantial daily rewards of experience cash and tomestones (I’ll get to those, don’t worry), and extra bonuses for whichever character type is in highest demand. So if you’re some newbie just trying to kill Ifrit for the first time, you queue up, 3 people trying to level up every class or do some endgame timesink or whatever get pulled from either the list of people who feel like doing old trials or whatever’s-needed for a bigger experience boost, tada, you have a full party, it’s most likely people who know how this fight works, and odds are they don’t want any of the loot drops. There’s a few other incentives too, including extra rewards when a new patch reworks something or it’s an obvious bottleneck, etc. Much like the main story quests constantly sending you back to the major cities and their outskirts all the way through the latest expansion, it’s a good system.

I do have a couple problems with it though. First it just sort of divorces these places from context. I’m off wandering around some exotic local dealing drugs for bugs or trying to win people’s triple triad cards or something, my roulette queue goes off, suddenly I’m in some cave full of poisonous plants. I barely remember this place, can’t recall what continent it was even on or why there was a reason to be here way back when. Also when you queue it notes what class you’re in and demands you switch back to it when it finds the party. If you haven’t switched out, and you don’t accidentally close the pop-up menu, you can join right in. Watching a cutscene? Whatever, you’ll get dropped off right before you talk to whoever to launch it after. But if you switched classes, perhaps to do resource gathering or mop up sidequests with a class you don’t play as much? There’s no drop what you’re doing and go option. You need to finish that cut scene or combat or weirdly long post-teleport load time, then hurry up and switch back to whatever class. And I swear they always pop up at the worst times. Oh and they’re currently retrofitting everything so you can skip all this and just roll in with 3 NPC pals.

And then of course there’s also Alliance Raids (like a dungeon but with 24 players and with a very theme-parky level of spectacle), Normal Raids (serialized bite-sized mini-dungeons and trials), and Savage Content (variations on the rest of this with the difficulty cranked up super high). And of course while I’m listing miscellany, normally all instanced content is “synced,” meaning your stats abilities and equipment are capped out at roughly the best they could be when you first met the requirements (plus a few levels of wiggle room), there’s a slightly hard to find option to turn off both that and the usual party composition requirements at the cost of getting no experience, which is nice if you want to go back for sub one minute kill times on old bosses to get that one rare drop you need, or if you want to play a blue mage in a dungeon/trial at all.

Class/Job/Role Breakdowns

When you unlock the first dungeon, you also unlock a set of tutorials on how playing in a party works, which are worth doing because the reward for sitting through them all is some nice gear sets and a ring that gives a huge experience bonus at low levels.But they also give straight up terrible advice, especially to tanks, and should not be trusted. Here’s how you actually play.

When you have all of a class’ abilities unlocked, generally speaking you have a chain of 3 attacks that do bonus damage when landed in order, another that does area damage (the magic number of how many enemies you have to hit at once to be worth using it is 3), a long range attack option (good for when you have to hang back because the floor is lava), something that gives you a defense bonus for a bit, something that debuffs a boss temporarily and/or cancels certain boss attacks, some big splashy thing you can use for a big damage spike every two minutes or so, and generally some kind of quick dash/hop sort of thing. Most of these abilities are on this shared global cooldown, where you use an ability and (most) of the rest get locked out for I want to say a 2 second window, roughly, and there’s a nice generous input window where you can queue up your next action about 7/8ths of the way through that timer. Your other abilities tend to all be on their own independent timers or spend some meter or other to use, and you can pretty reliably squeeze 2 activations in between the global ones.

At some earlier point in the game’s life, there was this whole system of bosses being strong and weak to certain elements or blunt/slashing/piercing damage, D&D style, but they pretty much totally gutted that, so now it’s a game where every class just kind of has a perfect idealized ability rotation you just kinda commit to muscle memory and repeatedly tap it out in a steady rhythm, while focusing all your mental energy on the actual real core gameplay: Dodging attacks with increasingly ridiculous and convoluted tells. And at later levels when the game decides to seriously grow some teeth the design really does go all in on making that interesting. But anyway, there’s also this big pile of classes worth talking about.

First we have the tanks. As is standard for MMOs, these are the stupidly hard to kill people whose main job is to trick all the enemies into attacking them and only them, and FF14 tanks are kind of hilariously great at this. Another weird old design artifact is they used to all have an ability to shift into an aggressive stance for bonus damage, and another to shift into a tanky stance where they just get all of the monsters’ attention forever, so long as they actually hit them. At some point they dropped the aggressive stances, presumably because players have a mindset of more damage=finish faster=optimal and weren’t using the important one. So now everyone just has this dedicated ability that toggles on “the rest of the party doesn’t die instantly” mode, which will stay on forever and there is zero downside to keeping it on (well, until you’re doing higher difficulty stuff with two or three tanks and you need to take turns taking all the hits). New tanks often figure there has to be some sort of catch and don’t keep it on. New tanks also get the advice from that bad tutorial to open combat by hitting one enemy out of a group with a ranged attack to peel it away... but enemy AI in this game doesn’t do peel-aways. As soon as any given monster in a group gets hit with something, they all get angry and follow their standard attack priority of: Tanks if a tank hit them any time at all recently, anyone else who’s been hitting them a lot, healers, whoever’s closest. So, used a ranged attack, the healer gets mobbed. Instead, you just run in and do area attacks.

All four tanks kinda play exactly the same. Warriors get self-heals, Paladins get parries, Dark Knights get vampirism, and Gunbreakers get lots of fiddly little abilities, but if there’s a boss, you just get their attention, stand by a wall so they look away from everyone else, and use your many defensive skills when a big attack’s coming. For everything else, you spam area attacks, make yourself a living katamari sweeping up every enemy up to a locked door/boss room, pop defensive stuff so you can take the heat, and stand there in your horrible clump of like 30 monsters doing more area attacks.

Then we have healers. Healers heal tanks when they’re about to die, the whole party after a party-wide attack hits, toss out various buff spells as needed, and otherwise use their super boring attacks. Generally instead of the three hit combo stuff, the have a single target damage spell, an area damage spell, and a damage over time spell, and that’s it. Fortunately a well-played tank will keep them on their toes by doing super reckless stuff like forming a 30 monster katamari at a full sprint. Oh and sometimes someone fails to dodge, then you use swiftcast, revive, and a big heal.

The weird thing of course with healers is they all have a range of healing spells with increasing HP restoration and MP costs but you kind of never want to use any of them. Once you have all your abilities unlocked you have those slow expensive heals, but then like 6 or 7 other abilities on independent timers for instant heals, regeneration auras, and so on to use instead. White mages are super vanilla, but their area spell stunlocks things too. Scholars have weird restrictions on when they use what but fairy pals as backup healers. Astrologians do tarot readings to pass out weird semi-random buffs. Sages heal people by shooting monsters with flying laser cannons and mostly do stuff to tweak the targeting and efficiency.

Then there’s the direct damage types. All they do is do their optimal damage rotations and dodge stuff, but their damage rotations are all extra convoluted and make you look at meters/timers/pop-ups to distract you from the dodging.

We’ve got spellcasters. They have to stop moving while casting spells, and learning the little window when one is finished and the next hasn’t started where they can slide over a bit. Black mages get speedy fire spells that make them actually have to care about MP, something nobody else but healers when things are going bad has to do, slow ice spells that regenerate MP, and a bunch of buffs and weird conditional things popping up to throw that rhythm off. Red mages have quick lame spells and super slow big damage spells, but every other spell goes off instantly. Plus they’re balancing out two elemental meters, sometimes have fast high damage spells, and periodically dash into melee to do physical attacks and shift into high power mode. And they can heal and revive (with instant casts even) so sometimes they’re back-up healers. Summoners just have a nice rotation of throwing pokemon at people and could be played blind but you just leveled them by leveling scholar and don’t know how they actually work.

We’ve got melee folks. Sometimes they have to be behind or to the sides of things, bread and butter attack combos are extra long and weird. Monks have faster cooldowns, and break the sequence of their rotations to power up big finishers. Dragoons over-commit with jumps and have to think farther ahead on positioning. Ninja have a little spell system that wedge like 9 abilities into 4 inputs, and one of those is a personal haste spell. Samurai have multiple power ups that stack and unlock different finishers. Reapers didn’t get introduced until Endwalker. I think they have like a demon mode with different moves a quarter of the time or something.

And we’ve got ranged folks. They just kinda juggle like a dozen independent cooldowns. Bards have a bunch of buffs and debuffs that maybe actually call for changing up their strategy conditionally. Machinists get grenades and robots they maybe have to think about placing in good places, and so many buttons to mash. Dancers have most of their abilities becoming available as a 50/50 thing after using other abilities and big buffs that require quick games of Simon.

Oh and Blue Mages are Blue Mages, which means they’re so broken they can’t join parties without turning off those balance restrictions and have a fun minigame of hunting down their 100 different potential abilities and deciding which to use.

Oh yeah, there’s also limit breaks. Standard FF game concept, slow building meter, does something cool. When maxed out, healers can pop it to revive everyone and fully heal them, tanks can pop it for 15 seconds of party-wide invincibility. Everyone else gets huge damage spikes. Everyone shares the one meter, but when starting a new boss fight it resets, so in dungeons you shouldn’t just try to save it all for the last boss.

Absurd Boss Mechanics

As previously stated, the real meat of the gameplay is just getting your personal damage optimization responsibility down pat so you can focus on dodging absurd things from bosses. At its simplest, FF14 was, I believe, in on the ground floor of that thing I think all MMOs, and a lot of other games do now where bosses telegraph their attacks with big glowing circles rings and pizza slices that appear on the floor, showing you where not to stand. It’s a little weird in that the timing on when not to be standing there is synced to when the floor stops being orange, with actual attack animations still playing out well past the point where not only is it safe to stand there again, but there might be a follow-up before the animation’s done where that’s the only safe spot. But as the game goes on, it’s far from just glowing orange pizza slices.

We’ve got attacks that target whoever has aggro and do fatal splash damage to anyone nearby. Attacks that distribute their damage among everyone nearby, so everyone has to huddle together and distribute the load. Attacks with absurd knockback sending you halfway across the arena, sometimes chained together so you have to triangulate pool shots where you’re the ball and the pocket is the one spot you won’t fly off the edge of the arena. Icy floors. Attacks whose tells appear only in the chat log. Attacks whose telegraphing slowly spreads over a huge area until they go off making it harder to judge what’s safe. Big meteors that fall from the sky and do good chunk of damage if they land on someone, but kill everyone if nobody slows their decent with their face. Attacks whose telegraphing straight up lies to keep things spicy. Gaze attacks you have to face away from.

Then there’s the weird stuff. Hop on this boss’ back when it turns into a plane or die in the strafing run, then do a QTE to dismount. Get knocked a few miles into the air and dodge energy balls on the way down. Play DDR. Play Wheel of Fortune solving for damage tiles. Have a math problem. You know that thing where the character follows a line and has to turn down every side path it sees? That but then there’s an explosion. I just fought a boss where first half the party grows snake heads with petrifying gazes out of their shoulders, the other gets targeted with acid bombs, and some non-shoulder snakes need taking out with a one two combo of these without any friendly fire. Then another variation where you need to avoid killing the snakes until the end so you can use them as cover from 360 petrification on upgraded shoulder snakes and everyone needs to share the acid bath and distribute the damage. Then there’s a whole second fight against the same guy where you have to play some kind of alchemical combination magical DNA matching minigame to create the right minibosses to have pokemon battles on your behalf. The whole back half of the game is this process of dying to something truly ridiculous you’ve never seen before, having to work out the rules it follows on the fly, and then coming up with some elaborate dance choreography to get around it. Or, you know, put off the real hard mode stuff and come back with level limits off and way better stats.

Syncing, Gear, and Tomestones

One thing I think is kind of neat with FF14 is it’s designed in a way where you don’t really have to worry about equipment until you hit the bleeding edge of current content. Well and before the first time credits roll, when you just have to make do with whatever random stuff drops in dungeons and it’s outdated like an hour later. As soon as you beat the final boss of the base game or any expansion though, you get access to a fresh new set of tomestone gear. Like way too many games these days, FF14 has like 50 different kinds of currency. Most of these don’t ever really matter. You spend gil on fast travel options, buying a house, and I guess whatever people throw up on the market board. Doing tribal side quests for monstery pals gives you their personal currency, but you get more than enough to get all their unique rewards as soon as they unlock. Then there’s tomestones. Basically, they’re eBooks from a dead civilization and this one merchant loves them. Said merchant also stocks absolutely ridiculously good gear sets that become available as soon as you finish the base game or any expansion. Basically anything you do spits a bunch of tomestones at you, you trade them for parts to a gear set, that gear set is hands down far and away better than anything else you have access to until you’re a bit over halfway through the next expansion. And even then, you’re probably good until you finish that one and access new tomestone gear. So more often than not, you’re decked out in that, and can ignore all the loot drops or craftable things you see unless it’s a good look and you want to do the whole glamour thing.

This isn’t true though any time the expansion you just finished is the current one. Then it’s a damn mess. There’s 3 different flavors of tomestone, two of which only drop if you’re at the level cap, one of those has a cap on how many you can snag per week. Rather than just trade them in for the good stuff, you get loot from the hardest bosses around, or the best possible crafts, pay some mix of fancy tomestones and weird little bespoke tokens to upgrade that, and OK, there’s your best stuff... until the next patch when there’s a tougher set oft toughest stuff and the whole rigamaroll gives you slightly better gear. Honestly it’s not good enough to really matter, UNLESS you’re doing the hardest content in the game, in which case the absolute best stuff means attacks that would instantly kill you might leave you at like 7 HP with some awful debuffs instead. 2 chances over 1 chance ain’t nothing. OR you can ignore it all, wait for an expansion to drop, and tada, the absolute pinnacle of this one can be just bought outright with tomestones that rain down from the sky.

There’s also ultimate weapons with like 7 step upgrade paths after every expansion that require a truly astounding amount of grinding and jumping through hoops and... are instantly outdated if you just skip’em and move on to the next expansion. They glow though.

This whole weird mess of endgame content also causes this weird issue where gear has both a minimum level for your character to be able to equip it, then an item level on a scale that bloats up absurdly. Like the current level cap is 90, then the best gear is item level 635 or something, at this exact moment. In the base game, those numbers stay even. Which of course is why when you’re getting bribed to do early game stuff, we have the level-sync thing to pull you back down to where you’re balanced. Of course, it’s also common wisdom for RPGs that you don’t just start with all your cool abilities, you get them spread out as you’re leveling up. And this really really sucks here.

In the lowest level dungeons in FF14, not only do you not get access to the things that make your class unique and interesting, you don’t even get your 3 hit combos. You run through a whole dungeon with like, attack #1, attack #2, and a whole bunch of greyed out buttons. It’s not absolutely terrible because again, the fundamentals are all about managing monsters’ attention and learning to dodge things, but it’s still pretty darn dull. And there are whole facets of some classes that just don’t exist until level 60. Or 70. Or 80. You end up getting meters that build up, but not the abilities you spend them on, or things that eventually activate power-up states but for now just do a marginally-worth-it extra splash of damage. You’re kinda forced to pick classes, then spend hundreds of hours leveling them to find out if you like what you eventually get. Then you do a roulette and you’re back in low level hell again.

Travel

This is getting long and I’m getting tired, but you start the game on foot, which sucks. Later you get mounts which are at least a bit faster. Then as you get into expansions, in each new area there’s a bunch of collectable things where you learn the wind patterns. A bunch are just scattered across each map, then a bunch come from side quests, one from a main quest. Collect them all, and you can fly on that map. It’s a nice little gameplay loop. Problem is they decided to retrofit flight into the base game after they added it, and rather than make you go collect currents, they just let you fly everywhere from when the credits first roll to when you first set foot in the first expansion’s maps. Where flight is really really nice to have as map design is suddenly very 3D and convoluted.

Anyway you can teleport to basically anywhere you’ve been and should, it’s cheap.

The freaking Gold Saucer

Remember that casino from FF7? It’s just straight up in this game. Chocobo racing and all. And the card game from FF8? That’s here too. So, those are big time sinks.

Think that covers everything? Oh. There’s crafting. It’s the same as every other MMO’s crafting but with like combo setups so it feels like real gameplay at least. Mostly just good for making better crafting gear, but also for playing dressup or decorating your house.

[strwbmei]

Hey Mei, how would you rank the hoyoverse games (top to your favorite and bottom to least)

In my case

1. Honkai impact 3rd- Believe it our not i spend a lot of time playing it. When i first discovered this one and i liked it a whole lot compare to genshin. Me personally i found it intriguing and unique in soo many ways.

2. Honkai star rail- This one was almost top the reason my is on second place is because it's rather the more recent one. The gaccha is rather generous with me and the fact that i like rpg like games it got a huge like in my book

3. Genshin Impact- This one is my least favorite for many reason and it's ironic since this is my first hoyoverse game i played thanks to a friend of mine. I mostly get bored of genshin rather quickly and the fact that i was never lucky with the gaccha it made me sulk into despair in the corner.

For me it'd be:

1. Honkai Star Rail

I usually don't like turn based games and only downloaded it for Kafka, but it turned out to be way more fun than I expected! All of the characters are really well-designed and lovable. Story-wise, I can already tell that it'll be better than Genshin because the devs aren't afraid to go into serious topics and kill off characters. Speaking of the devs, they actually listen to the fans and make good quality of life changes. The events are also really fun!

2. Genshin Impact

Honestly, it's only 2nd place because I have a lot of good memories with it. (e.g. helping my sister farm and explore, helping my friends with their quest)

The characters are either a hit or miss, and the story has made almost zero real progress, as a person who's been playing since release. It's always the same pattern of the traveller going to a new nation, the nation has a problem, the traveller helps them, they don't know anything about the traveller's sibling. The quests are way too long and don't give rewards nearly worth the time it takes to complete them. The anniversary rewards and gacha rates are, quite frankly, ass. The events quickly became overwhelming and just boring in general. (I liked the TCG, though!)

3. Honkai Impact

It hurts me to put this in 3rd place because of how much I absolutely adore all of the characters and the story. My main issue with it is because of how hard it is to understand, especially if you're a returning player. I really want to enjoy the game but the explanations are always something along the lines of "Collect (term that I don't know) to activate (term that I don't know 2). (term that I don't know 2) will apply (term that I don't know 3) to enemies and make them more vulnerable to (term that I don't know 4)." The UI is also a bit confusing and I have to click around a lot just to find what I'm looking for. In particular, I don't really understand the open world exploration, which is why I haven't been able to progress to chapter 33.

I really want to enjoy the game, so if anyone knows where I can find a better explanation for the mechanics, I'd really appreciate it!

Bonus:

4. Tears of Themis

Story is nice, characters are nice, but it somehow manages to be even less f2p-friendly than Genshin. Events are way too hard to complete for casual players.

5. GGZ/Honkai Gakuen

I haven't had the chance to play it yet, but I've heard a lot of good things so I'm looking forward to it!

[gascon-en-exil]

Onto Throné and Partitio now.

Throné

Love the aesthetic of Throné's home city, urbane and opulent and undeniably seedy in a way that reminds me of my own city. All that space isn't utilized much in gameplay (I want to see inside the theatre!)...but the first game was the same way with its large cities so I'm not surprised.

While sex work isn't a part of Throné's character like it was for Primrose, it does figure into her Chapter 1 when she has to dress like a brothel worker to sneak into a mark's house. I'm left wondering about the other two male assassins given the same job and how they snuck in, but I presume the answer isn't terribly relevant given they both die pretty quickly.

Said two assassins start with Throné as guest party members, but by the time she has to kill one of them after he's killed the third she's on her own. At least she's not so squishy (or the boss so strong) that that's too challenging of a fight.

Not sure how I feel about the early reveal that the "Mother" and "Father" Throné is setting out to kill are not her actual parents, but rather that's just the names they go by in the crime syndicate they lead. It makes the whole situation hover awkwardly between dysfunctional family drama and...something that isn't that.

I couldn't resist this time and did a little exploring after the chapter ended, making my way as far as the area where Temenos starts. After leaving the starting areas you can toggle between day and night with one button press, which is odd seeing NPCs pop in and out of position but still undeniably convenient. The tutorial says that there are stronger enemies that give better rewards at night, which would explain why there are more night-related than day-related buffs among the characters.

Partitio

Would appear to be this game's silly accent à la H'aanit, but here it's a broad western US accent which is at least one that actually exists.

This is another Chapter 1 that experiments with structure, with three time skips chronicling the boom and bust and second boom of the Wild West-esque silver-mining town where Partitio grows into adulthood. It's decently affecting (if you can overlook the ridiculous accents) although the turnaround after you fight the boss happens fairly quickly and there's still the lingering question of the devaluation of silver, but this series isn't really known for stretching out its localized plots that long anyway.

I did note the use of cigarettes in Osvald and Throné's stories, and now Partitio's introduces the steam engine which we saw in the trailers. The world of OT2 feels more 19th century as a result...although it still lacks firearms which really stands out in this particular story.

This is the first opening I've played with no guest characters, although Partitio gets to hire NPCs to be part of his posse (read: in-battle summons). Fortunately he's decently tanky, so he doesn't need the permanent help.

The main antagonist of this story - and by that I mean human antagonist, not Partitio's determination to fix poverty with capitalism - is fairly confusing, and I expect there's going to be a big motivation dump down the line.

There's a tutorial blurb at the end about Partitio's unique "Scent of Commerce" feature, which isn't available in the demo but appears to be leading him to any of three towns on the map. Supposedly this is totally separate from his regular chapters...I wonder how that's going to work.

[the-river-delta]

Tangibility, Modules, and Minimalism; or how Mausritter makes me excited about TTRPG loot

When it comes to tabletop RPGs, I've never been particularly motivated by the prospect of Loot™ (a term I know might have some baggage, but that's not the discourse I'm trying to tackle here with this post) - gold and other valuables worth a bunch of cash, magic items like enchanted swords or spellbooks, and other such rewards.

Whether that's because I was more interested in the character roleplay, exploring the world, or telling a particular kind of story, the bits and pieces picked up along the way have never really been the thing on my mind when I sit down and join the voice chat for the session, whether as a player embarking on an adventure, or the GM who's had to prep it - whenever I get a new Pathfinder 2e rulebook or adventure from a friend (at this point basically not for playing anymore), I completely glaze over the obligatory 4-6 pages dedicated to new items included therein (for a few reasons that later parts of this post will contrast this with), and a lot of the Powered by the Apocalypse or Forged in the Dark games that I pay most of my TTRPG attention to these days don't feature this style of reward almost at all.

However, the figuratively and literally little roleplaying game Mausritter (which reimagines old-school fantasy adventuring through the lens of tiny mice in a big dangerous world, in the style of Mouse Guard or The Secret of NIMH) has been doing a few things that have had me coming around on the concept somewhat, and I wanna talk about them in this probably long and rambly post today.

So, what does Mausritter do that other games in its fantasy-adventure-dungeoncrawling extended family don't, for me at least?

For one, I think it has to do with its minimalism - the rulebook is less than 50 pages, split roughly between player and GM sections - and within this, maybe 6 are dedicated to items the player mice can start with, purchase, or find in the world - the game calls out its 15 magic spells as a selling point, and there's 10 magic swords listed in the treasure part of the GM chapter, and most of these have at most one or two one-line rules associated with them.

And yet, through the paradoxical power of "less is more", this is a much more exciting starting setup than the dozens of pages of stuff your PF2 blorbo can go shopping for in that game, to speak nothing of the hundreds of pages of things they can acquire on their journey from level 1 to 20. When there are this few things to pick from (and when modules sprinkle in new ones, more on this later), and when you can only carry a small handful of them (MR's Resident Evil Tetris inventory limits you to 10 slots across your body and backpack, which can also be taken up by gnarly conditions like exhaustion and curses), each one feels proportionally more meaningful - meanwhile a bunch of new items in a PF2 book just isn't making a dent in the game's already extant catalog, and are diluted across the game's 1-20 level range (and just simply don't feel very exciting when they amount to "a little bit of combat action compression, a boring but useful skill bonus, or a modest utility spell on a lengthy cooldown, all of which will likely become obsolete and need replacement in a few levels' time".

The thing is, a Pathfinder character can also advance in myriad other parallel ways (their stats, their skill proficiencies, their class and archetype feats, their spells, their companions and familiars, and so on), and given the game's pretty conservative game balance, each of those is only a small element of the power progression puzzle - there are scarce few elements in the game that are singularly 'build-defining', and the game generally wants you to think about them in aggregate and over levels-long periods of time, and that just isn't a mindset (or perhaps, attention span) that I have.

Meanwhile in Mausritter, items are basically the main (though technically not the only) means of handing out rewards, so they better feel exciting and significant to get! And beyond the fact that their minimal writeups are a lot more liberating and feel very no-strings-attached (like the sword that makes you invisible while you stand perfectly still, or the sword that lets you disguise yourself as any mouse-sized creature), the fact they are all presented as these cute little cards that you physically plop down and shuffle around your character sheet (with a doodly illustration, name, and usage to be filled and cleared) adds an extra layer of tangibility that legitimately makes me wish I could play tabletops in an offline fashion (but alas I have no players nearby nor the money to afford physical books and accessories).

...Which is further enhanced when you consider that this tiny core set of stuff in that zine-sized rulebook (15 spells, 11 creatures, etc.) leaves a wide open space for modules to expand on in bite-sized chunks, mostly done by Mausritter's vibrant third-party community (the game's author Isaac Williams has only published two official modules, and of those one of them was in collaboration with a bunch of 3pp writers), and the fact they almost always likewise include their additions in that same "here's a sheet of item cards to print out and pop out at the table" continues that sense of tangible rewards - but now with the added bonus of the different adventures' themes and visual styles making veteran mice's sheets a real collage and record of where they've been and what they've accomplished (assuming they've lived and held onto the stuff, anyway).

(Not to mention the organic emergent fun of bringing items from one module to solve problems in another in ways the authors of neither could have foreseen, I reckon.)

Also the fact that the majority of Mausritter modules consist of these pamphlet-sized sites that can each be finished in a few sessions each rather than sprawling multi-month affairs means that it's actually feasible to chain them together and see this stuff I'm talking about unfold in a timely manner - especially since Mausritter's world is so freeform and the relative lack of level scaling means that you aren't too likely to buy something that your players are either over- or under-level for.

I've only managed to run and play a tiny bit of Mausritter (tried to run a duet game for one of my girlfriends, and played with her in a cut-short game set in the Estate module that a friend GMed for us), but these and some other realizations make me want to do it again, sometime next year.